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Foinaven, Norah belay my request. Having been an inadvertent sinner myself I was over-sensitive to words that might hint too clearly at the theme. I apologise to you both.

Too late Jack, see my earlier post to Foinaven😓

One man's* kitsch is another man's shtick...

* (The generic mascuine of course includes the feminine.)

I didn't have a huge amount of difficulty filling the grid, but I'm currently facing several loose ends. I wasn't familiar with the thematic material but managed to figure it out, and I have the "set"—but for the life of me I can't seem to uncover the symmetrically-disposed pattern described in the preamble, in order to actually circle the relevant letters. I'm not sure what I'm missing here.

I have also failed to fully parse several bits of wordplay, more than usual. I am confident in the definitions. Nudges welcome:

15ac: I have most of the wordplay but I must be failing to correctly parse an indicator or something like that, I can't make it work tidily.

34ac: This feels like very straightforward wordplay except for a single letter for which I cannot account.

19dn, 27dn: At a loss here.

Similar here. Completed the grid, and the endgame, but a ton of loose ends.

Can't parse 19d or 25d, or any of the last 4 normal down clues. Feels like the message ends before you get to them but I can't get any of them to work without changing letters.

Eg 35 surely needs a k, but that doesn't seem to fit the message?

I note the previous discussion on 40 but I can't find any reference in Chambers that links the unadjusted definition to my answer.

Quite a neat puzzle, marred for me by a huge number of loos ends that I can't figure out.

Hi SH.

It’s part of the nature of barred puzzles, in that you’re going to come across relatively obscure words, which the setter needed to make the thing work. A sort of white-collar equivalent of a dry stone wall.

Unless you were in one, you may mot know the term for (at Oxford University) a second boat of a college, or its crew - but there it is, in Chambers.

As such - knowing the answer and retrospectively deriving the wordplay is as satisfying as getting the answer first off; poss greater…

Have now figured out the wordplay for 35 to 38 and finally spotted the connection in 40 I think.

So now down to 19d, 25d and 39d. Any hints on the wordplay those appreciated.

Have now figured out the wordplay for 35 to 38 and finally spotted the connection in 40 I think.

So now down to 19d, 25d and 39d. Any hints on the wordplay those appreciated.

Smellyharry,

25dn: My understanding of this one is that it's &lit; the word that is modified via misprint is doing almost all of the work, and the rest of the clue contributes a single letter which is very straightforwardly derived.

39dn: Def. first word; I ended up reverse-solving this one from that, then understanding the nature of the first letter's wordplay by scouring that letter's Chambers definition. The rest of the answer is a common word defined by the remainder of the clue.

I hope these aren't too vague—finding it hard to be more specific without completely giving it all away.

Really enjoyed this one, and a great red herring for the end game/theme.

Can anyone please help with parsing of 30d? I have the misprint, the definition, and (presumably) ‘maiden’, but not how the rest fits.

Likewise, completely baffled by 45a - there seems to be a spare letter, and I can’t see anything in the clue to justify removing it.