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Done and dusted, but can't fathom the 21 further cells. Help please!

You just need to follow the preamble exactly. Highlight the 4 themed words first and the instructions given by the extra letters will point to 21 extra cells. It's a bit of an anticlimax really.

Thanks!

All done but not sure I understand the wordplay on 20d...seems like it clues the entire entry, but it must be one of the eleven special clues.

Hi Buzzb,

20d - Single letter for "hospital" followed by 5 letter "mortality" minus its first letter - definition is "fell" (2nd definition in Chambers) - It's one of the extra letter clues.

Do you mean 22D as I struggled with that for a while but then looked up the piece without the special letters in Chambers and it became clear

Uncharacteristically I had an easy run on this, so much so that this is the first time I've looked at this forum. All this makes me feel I must have missed some sort of point.

So (Malone and other friends):
Having completed the grid I now intend to colour four thematic items in a shade of blue (my father wore this when he was still serving in 1946 when I was born!). I then intend to colour 21 squares that don't overlap with the thematic items in a metallic colour to reflect an abbreviation.

Could someone confirm that I is no more complicated than that before I put on my 39 acrosses and try to get to a postbox.

My reading of the preamble is that the all of 4 thematic items and the 21 cells should be shaded in one colour, the "signature colour", which is revealed in the last word of the instruction spelt out by the extra letters.

I have the same as Peterm. It’s a nice idea to have the four thematic items represented by their insignia, but isn’t the point that they’re supposed to be obscured or disguised?

Surely it’s not the actual colour of the objects (either upper or lower surfaces; green/brown/black) or the colour of the objects once illuminated by searchlights (yellow) - it’s the colour of the radar signature on a radar screen (grey).

Thus the objects and the ‘disruptor’ have the same colour, as given in the preamble. Grey doesn’t refer to the colour of the metallic element, but the CRT trace.

See Chambers ‘signature’, 11th definition.

hw7