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Ha ha. Glad I asked as I had the first two words as 4 5. Thanks. Last request for an explanation of 30 please.

Hi rrrobbo,
30a. Chief fluent => Chi affluent.

Hi Catkin, I think quite a lot of the necessary information is already here on the thread, but the difficulty might be to see the wood for the trees. Assuming that you now have the second message, and have done the first stage, ie assembled the corners and highlighted the angry Athenian, then the next stage is somewhere in here
https://www.ncetm.org.uk/resources/24971
and the 10-letter word was quite cleverly hinted at by Merenz in comment 77 : the 6-letter name of an early computer game, involving turning and dropping shapes, begins with the same 4 letters as does the 10-letter word you're looking for...

Oh dear! I was wrong to think I would make progress once I had the full grid and the first message. I am now in the same position as Catkin. At first I presumed one had to cut out the Xth letter in certain grid entries; then maybe one had to cut out the letters preceding and including the Xth letter,and finally it may be the Xth letter from the actual clues and every instance thereof. But none of those make any sense to me. (I did see posts 41 and 43, but am rather ashamed to say I still didn't understand.)
If any one can put me on the right path I'd be most grateful, but quite understand if it is asking too much !
Thanks.

Hi again samovar, you're looking for a second instruction provided by the first, meursault's post #89 should help, before again referring to the preamble.

The first message tells you where to find a description of what must be cut from the grid. The description itself can be found by following that first message, along the lines indicated in posts 41 and 43. No cutting until you've resolved that! Hopefully that helps without being over-explicit.

Hi Samovar.
The first message (6,6,2,5 - 8,5) refers to the letters you must use to make up the second message. You're right, it isn't a clear message : what it really should say is take from the 11 normal clues the 4th letter of every word with at least 4 letters to make a second message.
With the second message you'll get an idea of what cutting is required, if you like that sort of thing...

Thank you so very much, Simond9x, Ginge and Meursault. That is truly an enormous help. I shall see what the second message says before I start cutting though, as in answer to Meursault's last point, cutting is Not my sort of thing !
Many thanks again.

Thanks again....I think I am at last rounding Tattenham Corner !

Just when I was gaining confidence along comes this Rottweiler with toothache. Have managed to get the 32 letter phrase but can't even fill the original grid (across 13,18,19,24,28,30,38, down 2,3,9,10,20,24,28,29) though it's probably the old problem of getting stuck in one thoughtline and forsaking all others. Please help if anyone else is up and bored. Many many thanks.