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Thanks a lot, SS. I did have to Google Adele but I think I got the reference.

I had not considered that as I thought it was much too big. I had lined up D to do that job.

Now I see that it works (at least for 1 and for 9).

Might persist now, having refereed a paper on bisect-diagonal quadrilaterals.

Foinavon, some people have all the good jobs! Keep persevering

Over with some relief.

It was just the block on M which caused the problem, although I still found it rather tedious to complete. So that is that for the next three months. Could not agree more with the sentiments of the message.

FoinavEn is a beautiful mountain in Sutherland and a racehorse which had a surprising win in the Grand National, by the way.

Thanks so much for the nudge.

Foinavon. Glad to be able to help. It works both ways, you gave me a steer 2 weeks ago! Just back from picking raspberries from our allotment, 3 kilos and avoided the rain.

Foinaven. Sorry for the repeated misspelling of your handle!

I struggled as much as foinaven with this, and was tempted to give up at several pints. I had no trouble getting values for A C E R S T. I had tentative values for I N O, one of which proved wrong in the end. I then narrowed down M and L to two linked pairs (both values for M being primes). I looked in vain for one or two clues that would help me eliminate one of the linked pairs. Perhaps my brain was so frazzled by then that I overlooked something. In the end I tried one pair and carried on calculating until I reached an impasse, then switched to the other pair of values for M and L and was able to proceed to the end.

I would very much like to know what was the next logical step to firmly establish the values of M and L. Both values of L I had as possibilities could lead to a palindrome for 24d, so that did not help.

If there wasn't a logical step that doesn't seem very satisfactory. numerical puzzles shouldn't be a matter of trial and error.

murky, there was certainly no trial and error required. I didn’t bother to write down my steps, though I’m sure someone more diligent will point out what you overlooked. One key realisation for me was that 19d had to end in 5, because you know E, R and S. And that establishes I and N in 34a. I’m not sure if that helps

Quisling, that may be one of the things I overlooked. I did realize that 19d had to end in 5 early on as I see I have 5 entered in an early grid. I guess I didn't experiment with 34a as it had two unknowns.

Murky, we agree with Quisling that everything is completely logical. To establish a value for M, we first found B - in 22D there are only two possible values of B for which the answer can be entered in the grid, and the correct value can be found using 21A. Then M can be found using 18A.

Two pairs of values for L and O can be established using 26D; the correct pair can be found using 7A.

We doubt that this pathway is unique, but it is the way we used (as far as we can see from our notes). Hope this helps.

However, Murky, having reread your opening sentence, we think your problems were possibly drink related!😉

This is driving me mad. Three days so far and nothing entered. I thought I had eleven of the letters correctly numbered but fell down on 13a. I have 4, 14,17 and 7 for that clue, so one, or all of them is/are wrong. Could someone put me out of my misery please.