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Woe and twice woe - IQ's in thrall to the in-humanities too (Will no one rid us of these meddlesome...?)

Hmmm - this one is proving more troublesome than the listener. I have a full grid (barring the silvered light), know the quote and the person, but not sure how to treat them thematically (despite knowing the theme) or draw the intersecting shapes.

Im also completely stumped by the parsing of "Olives family son dropping ace wins all the tricks".

it would have helped had i got the answer right to Olive's family - then its clear!

I've taken a wild stab at the endgame (after a few wiki seminars) and all I can think of is to move the shared thematic characters on either side into the shaded centre - as the characters must be unique to either end. That leaves real words around the gaps and seems to tally with the preamble... but it's a bit of a mess... and it's been a totally joyless exercise for me at least. I remember the EV editor made a rash decision to dabble with maths - it didn't turn out well.

if that's the case its not very satisfying - perhaps ive made a mistake, but its not even "sixth word", or very "third last word"

I think it's third word for the original bars and the added outlines, but you're certainly right about it not being 3rd from last word.

...sorry, 6th word - then 3rd word.

I rather enjoyed the solving and digging out the extra letters. The final bit of the end game is a bit hmm but I often find that - particularly all those musical notation ones. Once I'm happy with the solving it's getting more frequent that I 'pass' on the end game, unless it's a Magpie puzzle.

I did ponder on a solution to the finale that involves a Christian name but the cryptic comment in the preamble about 'ignoring gaps' rather dished that one.

i frustratingly cant get over the line with this one, given that my intersecting outlines arent "sixth word".

Few questions:
- are there two appearances of the person, and are they sixth word?
- i am struggling to find the second word down the grid (rows seem to need to be skipped but with no logic for doing so). Does this part have anything to do with completion of the endgame?
- do the intersecting shapes contain the gaps?
- Although i know what the second and sixth words are, my "missing letters" dont quite make them - i need to swap an S for an E but cannot see where my mistake is.

Could your 'e' be in the convoluted anag for 'Accustomed to home life...'? (I had an 's' there at one time.)