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PS, roof - as it happens, the 4 letter solution in 5d is your French counterpart!

I’m sure most people have long since moved on from this puzzle, but I started it late last night and have only just completed it - I hope… Could anyone help with 48 down please? I have an answer but have no idea what it has to do with 4 letter words for wrapping bodies or rituals and my answer also uses the same 2 ‘special’ letters as my answer to 29 down, so something is probably awry. Thank you.

Hi Janeiro
The themed letters in 44d are the 2nd and 3rd, not the first two.
Does that help?

(Sorry - 48d of course)

Such an obvious explanation! Thank you so much for indicating my error, though I did have a moment of panic thinking I had 44 down wrong and had maybe messed up the whole thing! I can, rather belatedly, get on with the day ie today’s Guardian Cryptic!

Well what a great puzzle. A worthy follower to the great Araucaria holiday specials. Does anyone remember the Alfred Lord Tennyson alphabetical?

Thank you Feebee and apologies for the belated reply.

Like Janeiro I have the answer to 48d, simply because there was only one letter to find, which I could work out from the theme. However I do not understand the parsing of the 4-letter word. Any help?

62 ... not half...ceremony...lose half of it..

Thanks xwordfan, that makes sense of the definition but I don't understand how we get ''ceremony"- being dim, I'm sure. And while we're at it, struggling to parse 22a, 47a and 52a. With 47a I understand ( I think) that we have to subtract 3 letters from a bigger word meaning, undecided, but I don't understand what those three words have to do with 'study'.