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Has everybody finished this EV? I know I am a bit slow and usually miles behind most, but I can usually get started with a few. Totally dispirited this week as I haven't managed one, nor can I make head or tale of the preamble. Presume "The wasted Land" isn't care of TS Eliot even tho' there is a reference to his work in one of the down clues. Just don't know how anyone can kick start me, but if some kind person has an idea, thank you in advance.

I don't think there's an obvious way in, MM. I looked at each clue until I found one (a down anagram, but I can't remember which one) which gave me a start with the extra letter. It helps to remember that all down entries are real words. Once I had one then that helped with the others and gradually - over 3 hours or so - it sorted itself out. Oh, and it's not T S Eliot., but there are a few pointers to what it is among the clues.

I have only a few even after a friend helped me with some.
But 1d is straight forward.
4 letters for Ducks, similar to sags.
Two moreletters and snake is def.

6d is an anagram.

Hope this gets you started.

manic mary - two fairly straightforward anagrams got me started (6dn and the one at 2dn which surrounds REV). Both are normally defined.

The hard part is moving the definitions around because they're often more than one word (and they're sometimes very obscure).

The fact that an across entry might have more than one instance of the same 'lost letter' complicates matters too. And some lost letter clues have also had their definitions 'exiled', so it can be hard matching things up.

The literary work is pretty obvious, as is the unclued 15dn.

If it’s any help, the first two I solved were 25d an abbreviation for transactions with an an anagram of our , and 13a which was also an anagram with one missing letter ..
It’s taken me ages though, and I still have one to go.
Good luck!

Can anyone help with 10a. The wordplay is “favour time with a drug reforming “ and the definition may be watch. 10 letters. It probably ends tguard ( anagram of t(ime )adrug. An E or two will have been removed from the defined word.

Hi marca,

I got picket guard as the defined word. Favour (pick) time (t).

Hope this helps

Enormously. Thank you very much. I had an alternative spelling for 5d which threw me.

Thank you all. Will look anew, how does one work out what to remove from where, and how does one find out about the wasted land, google was not helpful to me.

There are clues to the theme in the preamble -
''first characters... banished to another place'' (especially, the 'first characters' part).