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This week's puzzle is by Philistine and was a bit of a strange solve.

I got the first clue 9a straight away, so naturally thought I was going to polish the others off fairly quickly, but alas, it was at least 10 minutes before I was able to solve another one.

That's not to say it's difficult, I'd say it sits about in the middle of the difficulty scale, it just took a while to get a foothold, but once I did they all went in quite smoothly.

There is a very long anagram which should help, unfortunately I couldn't find it in any online anagram solvers, but it's not too difficult to work out the individual words.

COD - There are some really excellent clues, 25a made me smile picturing said "tone" but it's got to be the outstanding 23a with misdirects all over the place.

Thanks to Philistine for a witty, clever and entertaining puzzle:-)

It's been great that so many new people are joining our friendly chat Forum each week, it's always good to hear of different solving experiences.

As always, don't hesitate to ask for a hint if you stuck or answer a query if you can.

Stay safe:-)

Hi Brendan,

This was a fun Prize, thanks to Philistine. As often happens, it took a few minutes to get going (I always fear a shutout), but then progressed steadily. Luckily saw the 2 long (2-word) down clues quickly, which gave a leg up. Near to possibly slightly below the median level of difficulty IMO. Really well clued: 16 and 3 co-COD, I won't enumerate the 10 other (including 23) standouts because the list is too long!

Hi Geeker,

I also had a long, long list for COD and took a good five minutes to whittle it down to the two I mentioned. On any other day you could have 5d, 6d, 17d, 22a.....I'll stop there:-)

My list contained all those! :)
FOI was 2, which was helpful for some linked clues. Co-LOI the crossers 20 and 24.

Yes, a nice puzzle, though it took a while to complete. 25a is nice.

The fact that you guys had done it already, even claiming that it wasn't that difficult, gave me the strength to carry on to the end, but I owe my success to Crossword Solver, even it it didn't seem to know any of the anagrams!

some nice clues already mentioned, but also some pretty clunky surfaces.

odd the juxtaposition of 9 and 10.

btw my favourites were 9, 23a, 6, 17, and 20.

Morning all,
That was rather good I thought. Slowed down by not spotting ‘but not as’ (which I like) and having 24a the wrong way round initially, which was just me not reading the clue properly. Thought there might be a boating theme going on, but only spotted 3 references. I wished the surface in 8/15 had been smoother. You’ve all already covered my favourite clues!

Morning all, I really enjoyed this today, very witty and fun to solve. Thanks to Philistine, this kept me smiling - and I'm usually grimacing with concentration as my brain creaks into gear! But I'm stuck on parsing 3d. Pretty sure it's right but don't know why.