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What an absolute nightmare!

To say I wasn't on the setter's wavelength would be a massive understatement.

There are still a few I haven't fully parsed, but I'm too exhausted to go over them now. That's not to say there wasn't some good clues:-

My COD the excellent 24a Dark snake and lady of the night? !10)

I foresee a lot of head scratching and furrowed brows with this one, but well see:-)

Thanks to Paul

PS One of the clues that puzzled me is 18d where it is the usual alternate letters except, between the 5th and 6th letters, there is no jump and the letters are next to each other?

Hi Brendan, yes I’m with you on 18d. Doesn’t look right. Would be extraordinary to have mistakes two days running! Perhaps were missing something :-)

Enjoyed 19d, very clever surface reading

Yes, 18d is wrong. Some clues are tough due to many cross-references, and it took me more than two hours to finish all!

Hi Jono,

Yes, 19d was quite good. In addition to 18d, I also couldn't find 16d in Chambers and is another one i couldn't parse.

Hi Mathi,

I'm with you on that, it was a case of one step forward two steps back. I can't remember a Guardian Prize that caused me so many problems.

I guess style is ‘do’ in 16d, like in hair-do, along with rose i. Yes, it is not in Chambers as a verb.

Hi Mathi, yes that’s how I parsed it . More commonly spelt with a ‘z’ I think.

Thanks guys, got it 👍