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Stealing Brendan's thunder, too tired to stay up any later tonight (US East Coast time).
Challenging puzzle from Puck, I started off slowly but wound up enjoying it a lot. One of the better recent Prizes, thanks to Puck.
Heavily themed, I thought there were 2 possible themes and took a long time deciding between them. Clue of the day (COD) the 13/3 pairing. Also enjoyed 29 (LOI), 20 (FOI, I felt proud to get it), 9, 8, 16 and the central motif.

Yes harder than usual I would say. Got 11a pretty much first thing which gave a good indication of what to expect.

Is that a bit of a pun with reference to 20a geeker?

Tough one! Took me ages to complete.

I had a great start, writing in the 3 letter ones in the middle, so I knew what I was looking for.

Stuck on last 4 - 14d/28a, and 24d/29a. I still need at least 2 themed ones (depending on whether 12a and 15d count as themed, as they are defined). Any hints?

(As it's a themed puzzle, there's not a lot of point in giving the clues for those not doing it.)

got the 24/29 pair

Hi Chris, 14d is a theme word, an anagram of parts. 28a is a dish, the first two words are the word play.

i think i've got 14 too, but i'm missing a couple of letters in the parse. still doesn't give me 28, though !

Thanks jono - all done, apart from the N and S in 14

28a: it is a rare word for me. Three letters for do/cheat + three letters for well/sound.
14a is a theme word. It is an anagram, and I can’t fully parse the letter n in it. I assume it is for gas.

I took the N as the gas