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...........make that 3 turns now that I can count.

Indeed eight letters. Not hugely thematic as such, but unambiguous, and related to an event well linked to the famous exponent.

I really enjoyed that, thank you Artix. My favourite Listeners involve learning something new and this one triggered some interesting reading around the theme.

I have some loose ends to tie up, as usual:
1. I'm not entirely comfortable with the wordplay for 2d.
2. I'm not convinced by the use of the fifth word (dear) in 17d. BRB doesn't seem to back this up.
3. I've a niggling feeling that the final result of the final instruction should be thematic but I can't see how. Is it?

Please can someone who is cleverer than me put me out of my misery?

in 2, I think the question mark is doing a lot of work

In 17 - dear and the first three letters of the answer are both terms of endearment so think it’s fine

I guess the endgame is thematic as you are crossing 20a by doing so

All done now - my frustration yesterday, for which I apologise, was due to wasting hours reading about, and trying to understand, the work of a totally different 1ac. Now I have resolved everything, this is a very clever construction with some very good clues.

I got stuck for a while after filling the grid because I had only six shortened entries. I eventually located the missing one - the third - which I had as a normal entry, because it works perfectly well as such: definition last two words, with first word surplus.

You and me both, ukridge! Obviously the letters from the extra word b*ggered things up a bit for a while . I still don't understand the use of parentheses in 2d, and can't quite see the wordplay in 26d. A very enjoyable puzzle.

26d - a one letter note in “chambers” as in defn 8 in Chambers

Thanks, cd.

I think the parentheses in 2d indicate that while the whole word is the definition, the last letter on its own is part of the wordplay.