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LOI took for ever. (12a) A new spelling for me. Otherwise good fun. COD ? Maybe 9a. Over to you Brendan.

A couple of sloppy clues.

Quite liked 16 across.

Hi Alzy, hi Mamya,

I think some of the clues feel a bit disjointed and at times nonsensical....

1d Oddly rejected fruit shoots took rice dish- what!!

12a you have the beautiful wordplay "Dutch award initially rejected by German author" - fantastic, truly, but then "being big beast" seems to be just stuck on at the end, bearing absolutely no relation to the rest of the clue!

On the other hand, you have wonderfully flowing clues like 17d where all the parts fit together perfectly.

I've wondered before if Everyman is actually a group of people rather than a single setter and this only reinforces that notion.

I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling a bit cranky, West Ham lost....again!

Thanks to Everyman.

Stay safe:-)

I found this very easy. FOI was an unheard of 1a. Finished in 45 mins after an early wake up having not slept well. LOI 11a. COD, and no pun intended, but I might claim one, is 20a because any mention of halibut makes me chuckle. "Chose him out of thousands, I didn't like the others they were all too flat" (M Python).

Pretty straightforward but I have a mental block on my last one: 14A letters from Greece - audible expressions of yearning,
.S.S
Also I have 23A but I can’t see the parsing.

Hi Cymro,

14a homophone/"audible" of 'sighs' - definition is the plural of a "Greek letter"

23a "small bit of land " = AIT + initial letters of "oh Canada sung" + a 4 letter "river" all reversed

Hi Cymro. I think 14a is a synonym for 'requests' . The word appears in 17d. As for 23a, I agree, not clear. I get the first word, the river, in reverse. And the first three letters of the second from 'principally'. But the rest is not quite there for me. I do get one letter from 'small bit if land'.

Ignore my suggestion for 14a.

Thanks, Yevrah. I get it now, with your help. The Greek clue seems a bit loose. Incidentally the small bit of land is an island, one in the Thames I think.

And I recall seeing ait in Everyman quite recently, thanks Brendan. Now i get 14a correctly!