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Thanks ilippu, thanks Mattrom,

That is puzzling. I've checked Chambers and also Googled the answer and it definitely seems that it just means "way in Asia" and not "way out in Asia".

But at least I now know it's an extra letter - thanks again.

Before I file this away, can I get some help parsing this, specifically the origin of the extra letter...

21d - Flavour our Gallic friend bolsters using mushrooms initially (5)

As far as I can tell, the first two letters of the answer come from 'using mushrooms initially' and the final three from 'Gallic friend' with the definition being' 'flavour'. That just leaves 'our', but I don't see how changing that to 'or' improves the wordplay or even alters it - where have I gone wrong?

From memory I think I concluded the letter comes from ‘our’ which makes no sense as a link word whereas ‘or’ does.

Thanks Jono, but I'm just not seeing how 'flavour or Gallic friend' makes sense but 'flavour our Gallic friend' doesn't. In fact, if pushed, I'd say our Gallic friend makes much more sense than or Gallic friend.

Basically, this is my point.

If we switch the order of the words we can get 'our Gallic friend bolsters [the] flavour [by] using mushrooms', which has a smooth surface and makes total sense. However, if we swap 'our' with 'or' it becomes nonsensical.

Thanks, everybody. I still had no idea of the framework, but guessed at the seven-notes in the title of a 30,15,7. I just hope I'm right, but, after all that turmoil, I couldn't care less ...

Sorry folks but I'm still struggling with this. Grid is filled, unclued answers successfully worked out and I can see the connection between these and the extra words. What I can't make sense of are the extra letters. Apart from the last (seven letter) word the rest are just a jumble, especially the across ones which are consonants only! Hints please for where I've gone wrong?

In my last post I meant six letters for the last word in the message!

Vandergraaf, have another look at 9a. The phrase starts with a 5-letter word.

The across clue letters are all consonants with the exception of 9a which yields a vowel. You are correct that the last word is six letters.
Hope that helps.