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A nice puzzle whose PDM occurred fairly quickly, allowing a grid fill in a couple of hours. But, as so often, that's where the problem started. The instruction from the S-answers is straightforward, and the 54 cells are fairly obvious - but I can't get to 35 cell edges - I can only get 31. And the DCLX eludes me completely. Looking again this morning hasn't helped either, not least as my bloody boiler has packed up and it's freezing.

I have 35 edges but 55 cells, and at the moment I don't see which one to remove.
Look around the grid, cockie, you should see where those letters go.

I don't quite see the point of the missing item. It's no different from any of the others. perhaps the setter couldn't engineer it.

Yes, murky, the letters were clear once I interpreted "framing" correctly. I've now managed to get the right number of cells and cell boundaries. My error was in the SW corner where I had inadvertently highlighted part of one of the items revealed by DCLX.

That's understandable because your errant shading strikes me as more accurate in some respects. I think the shading is an unnecessary feature of the puzzle, and actually detracts from it because it's so inauthentic. In my view the grid would be far better without it.

I too cannot see any particular uniqueness about the omitted item and i'm not sure I placed it in exactly the correct location. No matter I suppose, since I don't send in any puzzles I manage to complete.

I think the right spot can be arrived at by a process of elimination. I hope 'across' means 'on and along'. Another interpretation would mean the two letters being in a different orientation compared to the rest of the grid.

murky - as you say, a process of elimination. It's a slight flaw in what is otherwise a cleverly constructed puzzle with plenty of clues to the overall theme to help early on and steer one towards the answers to some tricky clues. I would never have got 8 down without Bradford's despite the straightforward construction.

Please help. Still not filled the grid! 25a 28a 34d and how do I enter both letters in thematic order? Thanks

fgsltw - There's a 4 letter acronym meaning - 'there's no other alternative' which is also a name.

Take the usual two letters for 'Queen' out of a 7 letter word for 'ground'.

'spray' as in eject water, around R.

...clashing letters are placed side by side in the same cell - but which letter comes first is key (I'm sure you'll very quickly see what the abbreviations are).