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Anyone attempted this? I found it a bit of a beast although I eventually got a full grid + the hidden message, the end-game is being obstinate. Any thoughts?

I thought it looked a little daunting on reading the preamble - but the title of the puzzle give a good clue to what the the theme was likely to be.

I think the 'remnants matching extra words' was a little misleading, as was the use of the term 'couplets'.

Also, not sure that the 'practitioner' used any of the methods in the puzzle. Or that the shape of that person's name in the grid was symbolic. Was it, do you think?

Apart from that, I loved it. And I still haven't got 38.

Hi Nelson, I have 38a but not the parsing. It's a Scottish word for selvage or strip of material ie border.
I think I have the 8 extra words but can only find 2 or 3 in the grid that work.
Also pondering what symmetrical shape uses 11 cells. I assume some connections are cell corners?

This was indeed pretty tricky. I "cheated" by doing a wildcard search in Chambers for words ending in the last five letters of the thematic word defined by the extra letters. Not sure either if the shape of the practitioner is significant, or indeed if he was a practitioner (the Wiki mentions a related word that isn't in the grid).

I parsed 38 as anagram (mat)RON around (gets) (f)O(r)

Sorry, 38 isn't an anagram, just Ron round O

Thanks both for the help with 38.

Granama, if you haven't already worked it out heres a big clue
(OR LOOK AWAY NOW)



All the words the entries that have to be shortened become prefixes.

Also, I have a possibllity for the shape. Crystal ball?

Crystal ball - yes, I'll buy that, Nelson. Nice one!

Loge, the letters within the shape look temptingly like an anagram - but don't make any relevant words. Would have been an incredible touch though. But asking too much.

Thanks Nelson, that fits with what I had spotted and I have 6 reasonably obvious ones and two possibles but matching them to the extra words is proving tricky eg the w... ang g.... words.
Is there any logic/pattern to the deleted letters?

Oh, I also have the practitioner. It could be a crystal ball and the mystery of 11 letters appears to be solved by the fact that the shape isn't closed - unless I've made a mistake.

Is 15a a local version of the word that is in Chambers? The Chambers word ends in 'o'.