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It ties in pretty well to the definition of ‘very good’ in Chambers so….

Thanks, candledave, I shall muse further👍

I too had an I instead of a C from 15ac on my first pass.

Thanks to smellyharry and candledave. Sorted👌

I am still a little confused about the second instruction.
My reading is the first instruction is 2 words - very clear.
The standard description is the last 7 words with a comma after the first. This is confirmed on the appropriate web site and I assume the first word applies to the majority of the grid.
That leaves a second instruction of two words. Can we use any hue to do this? If we follow the instruction the final grid will definitely not comply with the description as the second word of the second instruction is not part of the standard description.

A follow up to my last post having thought more about it.
I know what the final grid should look like. The second instruction asks us to perform an action on a small part of the final grid. It is either incomplete, as we are expected to perform a similar action on the clashes and the background based just on the preamble, or unnecessary as all the actions are implied in the preamble. Furthermore we are meant to perform the action to the cells containing the second word as opposed to the second word itself.
If the first word of the second instruction was “locate” then all would be clearer.
Sorry if this sounds picky but it is just the way my brain works.

I've read your post three times and I still can't see the problem. You're supposed to do exactly what the instruction tells you. The preamble guides you as to what colours to use.

I agree Smithsax, it seems inconsistent on the face of it. If the description is the last seven words as you say (and I'm inclined to think you're right, although I had thought it was just the last three), then why do we have an 'instruction' to do one bit of the required task and then a note in the preamble that effectively says 'make it look like this by doing some more similar instructions, including the instruction I've already told you to do, but now you might have to do it differently, depending how you did it before'. All seems a bit odd.

I agree 'locate' would be better.

How about
First two words tell you what needs to be done with the clashes.
Next two, where to place the last two words of the whole message.
The rest, what colours to have in the final grid.

I think you are looking for unnecessary difficulties.

Retrospectively I found this very enjoyable, but I did founder for quite some time on the way to this point! Thanks Fer de Lance.

I enjoyed the endgame and found it very clear, which I appreciate after a tough grid fill. I don't agree that there's anything unclear about the instructions or preamble. I thought the clues were quite actively misdirecting (in a good way!), although I don't rate 38d I'm afraid.

Anyhow, a well constructed puzzle - thanks, Fer de Lance!