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I *think* I've finished this. Some interesting words, and lots of head-scratching, but a decent challenge.
I do have to have a moan about 'the hoi polloi' - that's just wrong. I did Greek at school for 5 years, to no great benefit, so I feel entitled to a small whinge.
On a side-note, I was asked to prove my humanity by clicking on all the squares with traffic lights - I'm never quite sure whether to include the pole they're attached to. Does anyone else overthink those things?

I agree biggus56, a good challenge and one I really enjoyed, beautifully constructed and presented by eXternal, thanks!
Only got as far as (compulsory) three years of Latin I'm afraid.....and I always click as many squares as possible with anything that could be construed as part of the object in question,

I have a full grid, and have erased the required bloke ... but the rest of the preamble's instructions are too elliptical for my poor simple brain. I think I'm barking up the wrong tree with things like Emu (don't want to give too much away). Or is that where I should be heading?

Hm... no bloke needs erasing - you are supposed to draw a line through the 10 cells of a name.

Stupid of me - far too much over-thinking. (I was convinced it was about ventriloquist's dummies with a monocle - goodness knows why.)
A fine puzzle (apart from that "the").

cockie: 'Emu' was getting you in the right place, but it's bizarre that you got distracted by Rod Hull!

Mirriam Webster reports:

"Since hoi polloi is a transliteration of the Greek for "the many," some critics have asserted that the phrase should not be preceded by the. They find "the hoi polloi" to be redundant, equivalent to "the the many"—an opinion that fails to recognize that hoi means nothing at all in English. Nonetheless, the opinion has influenced the omission of the in the usage of some writers. But most writers use the, which is normal English grammar."

The Wikipedia article on the subject is also interesting, with most English writers cited (eg Darwin, Byron, WS Gilbert) opting for the "the".

The first citations in the OED are from 1668 (Dryden) and 1791 (Wordsworth) both of whom are on team "the." So those who are wrong to use "the" are in august company, anyway.

Thanks to eXternal - a stiff challenge and there are still a few clues I haven't parsed, but I'll come back to them later.

Nearly complete other than I simply cannot solve 9a and 2d. Also, I have the 10 letter name, but the rubric states that one entry must be removed - yet there are contrasting views on that.

The magic of posting works again - all done now.