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I’m glad you got there. It’s a necessary feature to ensure a unique solution. The left hand word on row x could begin PL, for example, and keep real words, if it was not thematic.

Many thanks, dodgepot. My grid is all correct, but I had not spotted that last feature.

This was a truly brilliant and challenging puzzle, but I am well and truly stuck on 20 Across (one of the non-thematic 12 clues). If the two unchecked letters were A and O my entry would be the name of a a Hotel.... Any hints / nudges would be much appreciated !!

The clue answer is a type of "channel." Letters 2-5 form a word meaning very in another language. Chambers calls it "informal" in English.

Your checked letters are correct, primeprospect, based on the hotel. The clued answer is actually the absence or closure of a channel, anatomically, which should indicate the likely first letter

Many many thanks for both of your excellent pointers, dodgepot and darla !! So I can safely say goodbye to the Hotel now....

I enjoyed this a lot. Tricky but was possible to make steady progress, and the endgame was neat and brief, two fundamental properties of a good endgame for me.

Only issue is the criminal 3 unches in 1 and 34.

Only loose end for me is the wordplay for 12a. I can see a 3 letter fish in the middle, but if that's right I can't see how we get the other three letters.

Thanks

A pond is PISCINA and then take out SCI N

Thanks candledave.

I enjoyed this one -- the answer adjustments made those clues just a little more tricky to track down in a way I found nicely challenging but not overwhelming. It took me a while though. And there are some clever clues here.

I have one question, which I'd appreciate a nudge for just to set my mind at rest. I don't see the wordplay for 1a. I know the adjustment, and the definition, and just don't see where the Roman art comes in.

I do see what people mean about the rubric, although I have to say that what was intended was immediately clear to me: I think it is reasonable to expect endgame changes to have some relationship to what has gone before even if the rubric doesn't call that out explicitly, and I interpreted "making new words or phrases" to mean that ALL affected entries would be new words or phrases. However, that last point could perhaps have been clearer: "leaving only valid words or phrases" would have perhaps been a little more precise. It's not quite right to describe the final two rows adjustments as "thematic", I think -- the theme is the treatise and its subjects, and the adjustments at all stages don't have a direct link to that theme. Perhaps that sentence of the rubric should have said "solvers must *similarly* adjust the entries...". But I have to say that I found any unspecificness of this rubric FAR less than we had for "this page is intentionally...", though...! Many thanks Poat for an enjoyable puzzle with only minor criticisms all round this time :-)