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I amaze myself sometimes, I really do! At the turn of midnight I clicked on the Guardian website and began merrily solving away, then, after about 20 minutes, I suddenly noticed a plethora of comments from those who'd already finished it - I was doing Fridays crossword! 🥵

This week's puzzle is by Picaroon and I really found it a lot of fun. I wouldn't say it was too difficult, at least not compared to some of the ones we've had recently.

FOI was 10a, quickly followed by 7d and 8d.

Oh! And I spotted a theme - of sorts (see 22a)

If you do get stuck there's a long partial anagram in the acrosses along with a fairly easy "hidden", and a slight variation on the "finally"/"lastly" in the downs.

As I said, there are some excellent clues but for my COD I'm going with 9a, although 16d certainly ran it close.

It was great to see some first-time posters join in last week's thread, along with the regulars - I know I sat on the sidelines for an age before I plucked up the courage to ask my first question but, once I "dived in" as it were, I never looked back - I don't want to sound like a broken record, but if you do get stuck there are always people on here willing to help.

Thanks to Picaroon for a most enjoyable crossword.

Stay safe:-)

Hi Brendan,

I agree, fun puzzle, thanks to Picaroon, but not as difficult as some recent Prizes (e.g. last week's) and not quite at P's highest level (which has been exceptionally lofty this year). FOI 1. LOI and COD 13, 5 and 2 runners-up to COD. I got the theme-revealing clue quite early, which helped. I've surely missed many thematic subtleties which will be revealed in later posts (as happened last week).

Hi Geeker,

No doubt I've missed several of the subtleties too, but Jono usually has a good eye for this sort of thing so I'll wait on him.

Last week, I didn't give Puck nearly enough credit...solved the puzzle, but knowing nothing about the key actor, completely missed all the multidimensional thematic cluing.

Ditto Geeker, I feel bad when I miss all these added touches, not least because of the effort the setters put in - Samuel Loomis, for example, in last week's puzzle, went completely by me unnoticed - but, as I said, Jono always seems to spot these things and does a great job of illuminating the rest of us.

Ha! You’re too kind Brendan, unfortunately I need to sleep, see you in a few hours... zzzz

I can 22a in every across clue except 4a, which is also the one clue I can't fully parse - hmmm!

I agree that this was both clever and relatively easy. Most unusually, I've got only one left unsolved, 21d. Loaf, maybe baked in a tin. Then I have questions about 13d. I see the assuming rising in the first 2 letters but seem to be missing a letter to make a 2-letter word for current to tuck into the anagram. The theme was entertainingly introduced in 22, and the word Staff is used with different meanings in 6 and 3 which gives a solver pause. You could say it's a non-theme.
Enjoy staying put this weekend.

I forgot to say that my COD was 24. This can't exactly be called a double definition; do the cryptic savants have a name for this kind of answer?

Hi Etheral,

13d - 2 letters for "assuming" reversed/"rising" then single letter for "current" in an anagram/"undulating" of a word in the clue.

Good spot on the varying uses of "staff".