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Now I know what's going with the across entries, I got a lot further. I'm just stuck on the NE corner. A hint might get me going again, please.

8d) Is chapter in tender comparatively scant (7)

Forgot to put the letters I've got.

??A???R

Thank you.

cloverjo - 'tender' = one who tends to (5 letters) which comes after the single letter version of 'is'.

Hi jigjag (thanks for your comment on Clueless), cloverjo and malone. Subjectivity and daily mood, I feel, affect our perception of individual puzzles. Re this one, jigjag & cloverjo, it might be worth revisiting bearing in mind what helped me realise the across entry method quite early. Even with only a handful of cold solved across answers the answer length is consistently greater than the available number of cells by the same number of letters with the answer length odd and available cells even. This led me to an expression (4,5,3,6) a synonym of the puzzle title confirmed with down crossers. I found 34a a good starting point. Hope this helps.
Hi malone, I'm surprised (that's meant as a compliment) you didn't persevere with this weekend's IQ. Apart from 1a the next 8 or so answers aren't too demanding and then give few possibilities for the extra from 1a and as the preamble hints, the title won't be in English, Google throws out the work and thus all the extra letters which makes cold solving the rest a lot more straightforward..

Hi cloverjo, obviously there have been posts between me starting typing my last post and posting.

Thanks drxx, and everyone for comments.

Ginge, thanks for your kind comments. I got maybe 18 or 20 of the Inquisitor clues solved, but I never like carte blanche puzzles - especially ones like this where there is so much going on! I got the author and that helped get lots of the extra letters. I wasn't enjoying it, never a good sign!

Forgive the late thank you Malone. Would be far simpler to give you the few clues I have so far solved. Will now have a closer look at the across clues and see if they 'speak' to me.