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Although the game of bowls seems similar to bocce. When living in New York City, I often saw bocce being played by Italian gentlemen in various parks.

Brendan,
I've committed a similar posting gaffe on more than one occasion...had to send "hat in hand" delete messages to Norah. 😳

Morning all, rather more straight forward than last week, but fun none the less. Didn’t have any problem with 17a, in fact I put it in without crossers, but it was the 12a/d combo held out to the end for me.

Morning Jono,

I know what you mean about 12a/12d - "Will" pops up frequently in barred puzzles but it's invariably means the bard so I got a bit thrown by it meaning a different Will.

Also found this easy but my brief hold ups were 16d and 18ac.

I got 17ac ok but the surface feels a bit gangly, it goes from present to past tense. Bowl a couple of overs then depart after wicket?

Thanks to this thread for the clarification re 21d. I’d forgotten that kind of revolution.

Sorry, I thought this was poor.
12a obscure writer (who I had heard of, in fact)
16 CLING a valid answer until crossers in
18 both definitions loose
17 what does "for" contribute
21a first 4 letters grated
22 what does "for" contribute (again!)
5 depending on how you parse it, either free or over is doing double duty
12d I dislike Qaos x% clues
16d "shelter" very loose

I was held up on 21d as I had the wrong base for 24a - it nearly works

Since nobody's mentioned it, the usual Qaos theme is quite impressive this week.

The same four-letter word can go in front of eight of the acrosses and six of the downs, with a further two answers being semi-related.

Well spotted Gweilo! I take my hat off to you.

Oh wow! Take a bow Gweilo - well spotted 👍

PS If it doesn't jump out of the screen and whack me across the face with a wet haddock, I'm pretty much guaranteed to miss any theme!