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Perhaps I misread the instructions but I have three cells doubly filled. This was a thoroughly enjoyable crossword but if you get a chance try today's Enigmatic Variations - my favourite style of puzzle!

I strongly suspect that synonym is not coincidental but was done deliberately to increase the difficulty and was very clever on Harpy's part.

Dryden, I disagree with your opinion about the relevance of the source material. I think the longer phrase gives a fairly apt description of the connection between the group B answers and entries.

Hi Unclued, if you ended up with 3 cells double-filled, I'm sure that's correct. What wasn't specified by the instruction via inserted letters was that 2 out of the 5 cells needed to be double-filled. I agree with Dryden, there was so much more that might have been done with the puzzle (eg with lines 7 & 8 of the verse) - splitting a few terms apart doesn't really do justice to the subject.

Can someone explain the wordplay to the clue that starts “god standing…”? I know what the definition and answer are, I just don’t understand how the wordplay works. Thanks

Think of calls as a plural

Hi Meursault - my doubles were IN, PA and NG.

Yes, Unclued, that's what I have (now transferred to below the grid together with the single letters). As a model for Wegener's theory, the puzzle doesn't really work either, because Wegener's divisions didn't occur through the middle of modern states.

I now have nine letters in five cells in the empty column and thus the removed phrase. But I also have two empty cells in columns two and three which I can fill to make words that I can relate, with further additions, to Group B clues 3 and 5! Am I off track (again)?

I think you need to fill those unchecked cells in the way you describe. In the absence of a clue for the entry, there are possibilities for those two empty cells, but in each case only one which connects with the group B answers to give theme words.

Thank you. Just seemed a curiously unclued way to deal with two unexpected blanks. And I should have said I have the nine letters in six not five cells.