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Hi GG.

Hard to advise without giving away the theme - but the two two-letter pairs you mentioned are definitely distinct, with no common letter.

Basically, answer, plus two-letter pair anywhere in clue, equals new word.

Position in grid disambiguates otherwise valid alternative solutions.

Hotelwhiskey7, what a wonderful word, disambiguates!

PS Sorry for butting in.

Help please with 21 Spoke of smashing Oz isle (4) ...mus be BUTE ..but i can't fit 2 letters in "suitably" ...already used ND in 6d and NE in 30d ??

Thanks jono (and hotelwhisky) — had a couple of clues in the centre competing for the same possible pair of letters, but I’ve resolved it now!

Look again at 30d?

I have sin for the original answer to 30d , but can't see what'll fit in there if i use the NE in 21?

Sorted! I had that and changed it! Doh!

Well, sort of good news and bad news regarding the app - After having what I thought was a correct grid I just couldn't get a tick. I'd gone over every answer at least three times but so no avail, so I deliberately changed one letter to an incorrect one and then immediately changed it back and voila - a tick! Why does it do that?

Hi Brendan

I was planning today to do my washing, make my Simnel cake (which had been delayed because of my poorly back - now better) and do my ironing before settling down to the crossword. But I was stymied by it taking me a lot longer to make my simnel cake then expected and a parcel of plants I'd ordered ordered arriving this morning. And the weather was too nice for ironing.

So, I didn't start until about 5.00pm and it's taken me ages to read through all the clues and understand the instructions. I've also worked out which are the special clues by counting the letters, but I must have missed a couple as I only have 35. Most are in the down clues - why?? I've got a smattering of answers during my read through, mainly in the across clues. I've almost got 10d, but can't find an actual 6 letter word. Even if I do, I'm not sure how I'll find the sigificance of the instruction about them being "more or less correctly positioned in relation to each other". I'll puzzle a bit more and continue tomorrow, But I'm with ChrisE. I don't mind an alphabetical, but this one seems unduly complicated.

I'm almost there but struggling with 60d. "A prince's Arabic anecdotes (1,4)" with a themed pair to be added. I have A_A_T_A which rather suggests that the themed pair is "TX" but the only word for prince that seems to make any sense is "RAJA" which doesn't help much. A hint would be welcome.