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[Not me this time, I think, roof. Thanks for the thanks anyway!]

Hi Brendan
Hope you feel okay after your jab.
I didn't feel ill, just extremely tired the next morning so I needed to stay in bed.
No great hardship!

Thanks Rossim,

I'm okay but just fell a bit feverish with a killer headache. Things weren't helped when I went into the bathroom this morning to have a shower and was greeted by an ocean of the vilest, filthy water that had backed up from the downpipe. Thankfully I was able to get a plumber round within a couple of hours who managed to unblock it.

Yuck! I wouldn't have wanted his job. It's a good thing someone's prepared to do it. They're never out of work, I suppose.

My sister had absolutely no reaction at all to her vaccine and wondered if she'd had a placebo!
At least we could feel our antibodies getting to work. Hope your symptoms don't last long.

Absolutely brilliant puzzle, best Ive enjoyed for ages... got nowhere for hours then all fell in quickly. How can I ever forget the connection between Jedward and that well known range ! Absolutely brilliant. I can’t fully parse 8/26 , presume the gong (o) goes into a themed character , but not sure ?

Hi Tony,

8,26 - A + "hundred" + A + 3 letter "gong" (think of the UK honours list awards) all inside a 4 letter "23".

It's not themed, at least not as far as I know.

Aaah thanks Brendan....makes sense now ! I was thinking it had something to do with the last two letters of the divas first name and first two of her second name....however there’s no need to dwell on that one any longer so off to bed....

The thematic character references that I am aware of are 23, 24, 4-17, 20-10 and 2. I’m no expect so perhaps there are others?

Thanks Jono, there the ones I've got.

Hi all, solved it fairly quickly with a few nudges from here.

General rule for me is that if I dislike the theme, I dislike the puzzle. I was exposed to the books as a child but could never understand the appeal. Same with the similar imported graphic books about the Gaul.

FOI 12a
LOI 9a, which I'll give COD, so easy it was hard.

8/26 I got from definition but the parsing was horrible

A few where the parsing is hazy but probably gaps in my theme knowledge.