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Thanks muraria and drxx - I shall persevere. That sums up the problem for me in that 2a second clue I had as sewerage (time = age, after (pee)r which perfectly fits the clue. Onwards and downwards!!

Ref 2a no. 2 - oh bloody hell!!!!

Hi, Late starting this. A hint for the first part of 1D would be appreciated. Ray

1d = Artists (abbreviation(3)) + shorter (3) version of "?????? from public view" - i.e. not visible

I'm doing ok after two days, but slowing down now and don't want to give up.
I have the answer for 3a but can't see which cells in row 3 are empty and which are part of the 27 letter edge.
Further down, a further tip for 11a would be great. I assumed it was De?????ng with the middle five unclued but now can't see how that could fit with what I already have.

lumen,
3a the 3 unclued letters "sae" are all edge letters and run from 3a/5d to 3a/9d with one empty cell between each i.e. "1_2_3"

11a:it is "de??????ng" and the 5 unclued letters run "1_234_5"

Hope that makes sense

Thanks, great.
That's what I had for 3! But I was mind-boggled. Confusing puzzle.
And yes same for 11 really. Your advice was excellent but that one is still to be solved for me!

Hi lumen
I found the key to eventually sorting out the puzzle and letter placing was getting the 27-letter description from the edge letters- 1d (second clue) and 10d (second) are also descriptive hints to the content, if you have those (as others have noted, "filler" is not their literal solution)? I googled a couple of words from the edge and up popped the whole quote

Thanks I have the quote and hole sorted now.
Just some tidying up round the edges to do.
I actually guessed the theme on solving 1a parts one and two on Saturday. But the quote was unfamiliar.

Ah, good to hear that lumen, I saw the relevant word in 1a but didn't make much more of it until solving 1d second clue