I think I may be in the minority in that I always rather enjoy circular grids. This was no exception so thank you The Ace of Hearts.
As others have noted, the quote gave itself up quite quickly but I see that as a win. Whilst the definition from the omitted letters made no contribution to the endgame, it was indeed helpful to know what the missing letters were, especially with 8 and 9 letter words.
One aspect of the chambers app I’ve found really helpful with such grids is using the * wildcard rather than ? in the search, given the whereabouts of the missing letters are unknown. The game changing bit is to change the word length required in the search options (to 7,8 or 9 as required) so as to reduce the list of possibilities to something manageable. Then trying different permutations given the starting point often isn’t known. For example, my last one in was also radial 2. I had d?s?aa from the perimeter. I know the missing letter from the definition so can skim read the generated lists. So I set word length to 7 and start with
*d*s*a*a* and if no joy go to
*s*a*a*d* and so on
Finally, be warned… it is very easy to forget to change the max word length back to 30 causing much head scratching when subsequent searches bear little or no fruit.
Purists might say this is a step too far. But I see this process of narrowing down the search a skill in itself. And, besides, how else will I find the time to tackle the never-ending laundry?
Lastly, could you kind folks give me a parse for radial 31? I have what I believe to be the answer (definition last 5 (possibly last 7?) words). I’m fixated on the full answer with an added U to make the first two words… but “as having left” doesn’t mean remove U. I’m almost certainly barking up the wrong tree here. Help! Thanks