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Just to make sure you don't lose sleep, Merenz, ring 1, clue 1: seuence of three refers to a set of three consecutive letters of the alphabet.

I think it's caddis. I know of caddis fly, but was unaware of caddis braid.

Thanks buzzb and Meursault. Caddis as a braid is certainly a new one on me, and Mrs B too it would seem.

Looks like the ‘other site’ is getting their knickers in a twist about the ambiguity too, uncharacteristically discussing it. If I’ve totted up their vote correctly, they seem to be of the view that it shouldn’t be counted twice. I can see the argument both ways but am inclined to go with the higher score. Let’s hope you’re right Meursault and that both possibilities are classed as correct.

Thanks for the info on "caddis", Meursault and Merenz....I had the answer and the missing letter but have been trying to find the "braid"
all day !

On reflection, I'm less inclined to argue so strongly for the position I adopted at #53. I can see an argument for saying that the total tally of scores is 16, but I shall stick to my total of 17 on the grounds that "their entries are scored according to the locations of the interrupting letters."

I think the editors will be obliged to accept two solutions. The puzzle is inherently flawed because of a flawed preamble and an internal inconsistency. The preamble implies there are 16 interrupting letters, but there are only 12 such letters. The others in the centre don't interrupt anything. By forcing solvers to create 16 instances of the letter the puzzle has created the ambiguity concerning those two entries at 13 and 14. If only one instance of the letter appeared in the centre the problem would have been avoided. A carefully worded preamble would have led solvers to count it four times, once for each entry to which it belongs.

As was said earlier, it would have more consistent to say there are 17 instances of the letter.

Thank you all. I would have given this up but was encouraged by some of the helpful comments here, and it was amazing how quickly things fell into place once I’d got going. Despite the unpredictable interruptions there was a very generous amount of cross-checking.

The preamble could have been better worded, as is so often the case, but I think the intention was clear. If we think of 13 and 14 as two members of the team, they each deserve credit for a good performance, as do the four competitors who did even better.

Credit to Phi, who after many years (50 perhaps?) of setting has not lost his sparkle.

In reply to rad (No. 67): Phi was born in 1959 (see page 153 of Jonathan Crowther's A–Z of Crosswords) so maybe not quite 50 years!

Like many others it seems this went from somewhat frustrating (took me a while to make any meaningful progress) to very enjoyable (the main part of th gridfill) to extremely annoying. I can justify 12, 13 or 17 interruptions, but 16 makes no sense. Spent well over an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my grid before coming on here, and discovering nothing.

I am going with counting 13/14 twice, in which case I get the same totals as Demeter. Fine puzzle ruined by a very poor preamble / ambiguity.

Toughie indeed and no real help here meant some hard solves (or justification of words that fit). I made the mistake of wondering if the inward/outward lengths were 6 or 7 then plumping for 6 after a definite solve. Later realised that really was silly logic. I got my 16 without really studying here or poring over the preamble. I can happily accept that the interrupting letter is what it is and there are 16 of them. There don’t have to be 16 interrupts. Just the occurrences. It might be a bit ambiguous but I am cutting Phi some slack as it is pretty obvious. I have no issue with the duplicate, especially considering the theme. However, I can’t believe there is no significance to the scores. I have 3122 and 1085. Agreed?