Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Very good, and quite tough I thought. More of a 5 sessioner than a single sessioner for me.

Struggled to parse quite a few clues though. Think I've figured out most of them but I dont like 32a at all if I'm right.

So that leaves the wordplay for 8d and the last half of 21a.

Hi SH,

8d - last 4 letters are a shame teen meaning "lethargic", the rest of just an anagram but be careful which indicator you use as both 'ailing' and 'invalid' seen to fit the bill but only one of correctly placed in the clue.

21d - first 2 letters are given by "initially" with the last 2 being a reversal/"backing" of an abbreviation for "substantive".

"slang term" not shame teen or whatever nonsense the predictive text decided to print!!

Thanks Brendan.

Hadn't seen that for substantive before, and never crossed my mind that those last 4 letters could mean lethargic.

Thanks Harry, and ditto for me on both those points

PDM came with the last two words of the message. But shading - first word gave me 30 cells. the last 'word' is an asymmetric shape and gives a further 9 cells, then I run out of space.
The message I am looking at comes from the actual senders of the message - what am I missing?

The wiki entry is reversed but the hint in the centre of the 30 cells seem to indicate that other versions are more likely. Still can't get to 43 which ever way round it is.

Try looking for all the cells you are asked to highlight a row at a time. You may find some isolated instances that fit with the message as depicted in Wikipedia.
With regard to colouring - I don’t think it is needed. The colours in Wikipedia were added by the web site for clarity and are not part of the original message.

Thanks Smithsax but I can't still account for the missing four cells though I know I must be wrong. The wiki picture clearly shows the asymmetric nature of the second 'word' and the elements that need to be highlighted (sorry, by shaded I meant highlighted not coloured). But the grid is not wide enough to match the wiki representation 'literally'. I can put the extra four cells in but it doesn't then match wiki bitwise'.
This is assuming that the first word is 30 cells and so the second 'word' must be 13 cells i.e. not symmetric.

Don’t think of them as words - just letters. The instruction would still work if they were arranged in alphabetical order any other order. What is revealed when you highlight them is described by the words but there are also a few other cells (white in the Wikipedia picture) that need shading too.