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Lots to enjoy in this week's delightful Prize by very popular Picaroon.

It took me a while to get going but, once I'd entered a couple, the rest went in fairly quickly.

If you do get stuck there is at least one long anagram in the acrosses and at least one hidden in the downs.

I would never have thought that 6d means "smack" but it is confirmed by Chambers thesaurus! I also have never come across the answer to 21d but it wasn't a problem as the wordplay is clear and I had all the crossers.

My only outstanding query is the use of "checks" in 1a - I can't see that it's needed for either the wordplay or the definition, but no doubt I'm missing something obvious!

COD - A three-way tie this week between the 2 long clues at the edges, 1d and 8d and also the wonder "golf follower" at 23d.

Thanks to Picaroon for a witty, fun and enjoyable Prize crossword.

Welcome to new posters Cinders and Davidgoymour (an allusion to Dave Gilmour of whom I'm a big fan?), who joined us last week.

Please feel free to leave a comment and, if you do run into trouble, just post your query on here - there will always be someone around to help.

Stay safe:-)

....and also the wonderFUL "golf follower" at 23d:-)

Re 1 ac: ‘checks’ indicates that ‘son’ (1) is inside suffering (2,4), I think. Not obvious at all, though.

I also enjoyed this, thanks to Picaroon.
About normal Prize difficulty, took a while to get started then proceeded quickly apart from the usual handful of tougher clues.

FOI 1d, which was auspicious.
LOI 21, was able to parse but a new word. Needed Google to verify that and another solution.

Many excellent clues this week. COD 15, which made me laugh 🤣. 1d, 1a and 16 very close.

Brendan, in 1a I read "checks" as an inclusion indicator, "son" inside "suffering". A little weird, but adds to the chess motif.

Thanks Rogissimo, you could be right. I've never seen it used as an containment indicator before, but that doesn't mean it isn't one - and it does fit nicely with the "chess" part of the clue.

Hi Geeker,

That's 2 votes for "checks" as a containment indicator and that's good enough for me:-)

I can't believe I missed out 15d from my COD list - I had it written down in my notes, along with 13a, and completely overlooked them 🤬

I just noticed 24 is clever: a play on 2 standard crossword abbrevs. 😁

Geeker,

24a - I'm pretty sure Forum regular Malone will not be overly impressed with it 😂

Oh well...I have low standards of clue-setting and am happy with many things that purists excoriate. Wrote in the answer to 24 but parsed it only after completing the grid.

Geeker, it was just a tongue-in-cheek comment:-)

Nice to be able to talk about "move(ing) chess pieces" and not have to switch threads - what did you think of the of the clue?