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The preamble gives 33 unchecked or cross-checking letters in the unclued lights. In the grid I can only see 32: 2 in 14a, 1 in 17a, 5 in 23a, 5 in 27a, 1in 37a, 2 in 38a, 3 in 5d, 5 in 15d, 5 in 19d, 3 in 28d.

Have I miscounted or is there an error byCheeseCracker?

Whoops! There are 4, not 3, in 5d because 1a is an 11th unclued light. Even with my miscount corrected, surely letter 1 in 28 down and letter 2 in 27a (which are the same) are T, calling for two T’s in the preamble, but there’s only one.

MrCodger, I see it the other way round - if there had been two Ts in the preamble, I'd have been looking for two instances of the letter! Wouldn't your logic mean that you'd have expected four of the letter at 1 Across and 5 Down?

Mr Codger, I reached the same conclusion as you. I also have no U in the unchecked or cross-checking letters of my unclued lights although one is needed to make the phrase at the end of the rubric.

There is an unchecked U in 1 across.

Good point, but the rubric specifies *ten* unclued entries. If we include 1A, then that would be eleven unclued entries. There is also another problem if we include 1A: Taking the unchecked and cross-checking letters of these eleven unclued entries, and counting each cross-checking letter only once, I find a total of 34 letters, rather than the 33 which the phrase in the rubric includes. It is rather vexing.

"all of whose" includes both 1A and the other 10. Everything checks out fine in that case; there are only 33 unchecked / cross-checked letters.

Thanks, Heleveticu - a very good point about the 'ten' unclued entries! I'd accepted mrcodger's mention of the '11th unclued light' , probably because I paid very little attention to the preamble. I didn't check off all the letters in 'Haha..', just looked to make sure the ones I was using were there.

My bad; I included one letter which should not have been there. Everything works now, but I maintain that this aspect of the rubric is unfairly misleading. The use of "offers" to mean "includes the letters which are used by" also seems far-fetched to me.

Thanks to all who commented. With hindsight I should have seen my misinterpretation of the preamble, even if it might have been more clearly worded!