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Thanks leap, a great help.

I’m sure your wife is correct, beerbore. I think “making new words or phrases” implies in the grid as a whole, not just in the rows in question. And Poat is a magician of construction, as you can see from the changes; there’s no way he would sanction a final grid with non-words.

Sorry, I meant lewap! Predictive text keeps removing the w.

beerbore - when you make the appropriate adjustments to the two rows, you shouldn’t have any non words in the grid

Finding some of the adjustments hard to work out, eg 1dn and 8 dn.

Any gentle hints appreciated, without giving too much away (probably impossible!).

Muchas gracias

1d, 3rd word is adjusted. The wordplay is all in the last 2 words.

8d, 5th word is adjusted

Have fun. I've said it before, but I think this is a wonderfully well constructed puzzle.

Thanks neophyte!

Onwards and sidewards...

I got there, but can someone parse 4D for me?

I share people’s frustration on this one. Took a lot longer than usual without being particularly satisfying when I got there. I had 2/3 of the grid filled in normal time and already knew the theme and the 15 characters required for the end game. I feel the extra time was purely down to two missing bits of rubric: “The final grid contains only real words” and “change two rows thematically”. I had to make both assumptions to get finished.

gregwatsonuk - The wordplay in 4d is a two-letter word for what was a note in tonic sol-fa (now superseded) + a French word for verse. The def. is the last 3 words, the final one requiring adjustment.