I rarely contribute to the forum. By the time I get round to tackling the crossword, late Saturday or more often Sunday, any contributions I could make, either giving or (more often) asking for helpful hints, have been covered by others.
I started quite quickly, including 17A, but then came to a halt. 18A had an obvious answer, but I could not parse it and it is a former capital not a current one, which puzzled me.
I had not read the small print, which gave the theme. When I did it all immediately became clear. Contrary to some of the posters, I concentrated on the across clues before the down ones, and found it moderately difficult, but completed it without reference to the forum. I have just one problem left: I can't parse 9A. Again there can only be one Arab answer, but I can't find a god to fit in, and two letters for intelligence seem to be reversed. Clarification, please.
re last week's discussion of prizes, when I first started to do the crossword, many decades ago, it could only be submitted by post, and there was no online forum. The first prize was Chambers dictionary - well worth winning - and five runners-up of £5 book tokens. I won one of the latter but had to wait decades for more success: the Style Guide and Secrets of the Setters. The former is useful, though I suspect that many Guardian journalists have never read it.