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Just as an aside, has anyone managed to attribute anything interesting to the puzzle title?

If you add the letters of the title up you get 210, i.e. the same answer as 4542 when spelt out, as in the preamble

Well spotted quisling! Someone on the other site mentioned that the letters in the title included all but three of the limited letters required to generate all of the numbers. But they obviously hadn’t made your link quisling. So this makes the (very apt) title an anagram of the distinct letters required for 4542... I am even more in awe of Kea now.

Wow - now that is clever - both Kea for doing it and quisling for spotting it!

Thanks SDx

Well. Spent two hours writing down useful data. Another two trying to get anywhere with said data. Finally gave up when my brain could not cope with G having 3 numbers in M clue, but A+G having two numbers in b clue. I am sure that this must be explained here but I have lost the will now. Don’t like the number ones. Wasn’t going to do it and should have stuck with my original decision. Even messed up the kenken before that. The writing was on the wall.....

rrrobbo - I know what you mean. The hard part to this puzzle is not the arithmetic (which is straightforward) but remembering exactly what each clue is telling you (which I had remind myself time and time again. So, for any one clue.......

1. the clue number tells you where to enter the answer.
2. the clue itself (ie. the arithmetic expression) tells you what the sum of the distinct letters of the answer to this clue would be if the answer were written out alphabetically and any duplicates removed.
3. the number in brackets tells you how many letters in total there are if the answer to this clue were written out alphabetically.

So, in your example, it's M that consists of 3 digits (cells in the grid). G is the sum of the distinct letters of M, if M were written out alphabetically (ie. a string of 18 letters, given by the number in brackets) and any duplicates removed.

In the b clue, it's b that has 2 digits, not A+G (which is the sum of the distinct letters of b, if b were written out alphabetically (ie. a string of 9 letters, given by the number in brackets) and any duplicates removed

I found this all really confusing but, as long you remind yourself of 'the rules' for each clue that you look at, it does work out.