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After a break for a nice single malt, returned refreshed and completed this....thanks again k and c, and Merry Christmas to all on the forum, keep safe.

I enjoyed this. One false start on the minesweeper stage, then fairly plain sailing. As others have said, you can work out the full second grid organisation without solving any clues. Then several clues can immediately only go in 1 spot and it all falls out quickly.

Yes, it was a relatively quick and enjoyable grid fill once I'd corrected an error in one of the clue definitions and hence realised there was a double-letter in the unclued entry!
I even enjoyed the minesweeper stage 1 and although not strictly necessary for grid completion, I found it really useful.

I have sort of got most of the way with this but have a double letter in my unclued entry of 9 letters . This gives me a sensible anagram answer of a space nature but would mean fitting the new word in the diagonal .. any encouragement that this is correct ? If not I will have to painstakingly plump for spots for the 8 letter words ( which don’t seem to have an obvious home ) and untangle .. maybe shouldn’t have tried this on actual Christmas Day !!

You are correct

Thanks Krauton - I shall crack on tomorrow with this knowing I’m on the right track

Well, despite my earlier reservations, looking for a diversion from over- indulgence I decided to try again. Had all the answers already (the easiest clues ever in an Inquisitor?) so just had to figure out the rest. Once the penny dropped it was actually pretty straightforward. Such a clever construction, though still not really my cuppa tea.

If I may add my twopennyworth, the key I found to the 2nd grid was that the two entries with repeated letters needed to go SE and cross 9-cell blocks, and there was only one viable placing for them consistent with the neighbouring starts. I can see now that the included entry also having repeated letters is a more obvious starting point, but I had not twigged that until later. Nice puzzle in a different sort of way!

I enjoyed something completely different. Thanks, Encota, for taxing some of the little grey cells which IQ doesn't normally reach - it made a refreshing change.