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I too fell into the early RAF trap, and a quotation in German, gimme a break! However knowing it's in German (thank you whoever said that) and the only one of the four substituted and jumbled clues I have, gave me a lightbulb moment. It should now go from pulling teeth to relatively good progress I hope.

Foinaven, for 15a the answer is all the letters apart from the first of a word meaning 'to play fruitily' (corected from fruitfly). It's usually an adjective but can be a verb.

I'm a bit unsure of 34d. I assume 'endless play' is TO(y). I suppose LIE is 'say with the aim of creating' but it's a bit weak. In general breaking a word or phrase down into its grammatical components strikes me as apoor cluing strategy.

Re 34Dit is cHeating not creating which firms up LIE
I can't parse 43A. Any hints anyone?

Dryden, surely you need to correct the second letter of 'creating' to get the correct definition of lie?

Foinaven, I think 26d is fine with the correct anagram of compact. Or do you not like 'to the old' to indicate an ancient usage?

Essira, 43a is not 'schmo', in case you're wondering. It's a 7 letter word. The correction is the first letter of the last word of the clue

Thanks keepatit. I had not looked at it as one of the 4, not all of which I had found, so I should not be so blinkered!

I now see that I had mis-solved the preliminary clue which you need to
'treat' to produce the grid entry. I thought it was COMPACTED. Now it makes sense. Thank you for clarifying this. I did have to stretch the definition a bit to make it fit the wordplay. No, I knew it had to be an archaic usage.

Thanks Foinaven found the explanation now - a somewhat more subtle pair of references than the four jumblies which I thought were very neat constructions.

Yes, you're right, keepatit. I had the H but forgot to underline the misprinted letter in my notes.

I've got everything sorted out and the grid filled apart from 14a. With E-O-IN as a starting point you'd think it would be obvious, but it isn't to me. Have I entered something else incorrectly?