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This week's puzzle by Paul is one that relies heavily on one particular clue in the solving of many others.

It took me quite a while to figure out 6a and so had to try and solve as many of the other clues as possible in order to get some crossing letters.

If you do get stuck there is a long anagram in the downs and one in the acrosses.

FOI was 5d but my first clue related to 6a was 22d but it's not the most definition so didn't really help.

If you have trouble getting the theme then I recommend trying to solve 1, 22 - it's a DD (double definition) and should make it a bit easier.

I haven't yet parsed 10a but I'm pretty sure of my answer.

I didn't notice any "Pauline" clues (the name given to saucy clues by Paul) but that doesn't mean there aren't any!

Thanks tp Paul for a challenging and enjoyable crossword.

Please feel free to leave a comment and, as always, if you get stuck - don't hesitate to ask for a hint.

Stay safe:-)

Just figured out the parsing to 10a and it's a Pauline!

Talk about two birds with one stone 😂

Hi Brendan,
Thanks to Paul for an enjoyable Prize. Don't know how to rank difficulty: I had a lot of trouble getting started, made fast progress once I noticed the theme, but found several clues extremely tricky. Maybe on the hard side for a Prize.
FOI 19, at the time I despaired of getting any!
LOI 10, which I'll call COD, though 13, 16, 20, 21, 22 and 24 also deserve praise IMO.
Paul on his genteel side, only a couple of tame suggestive entries.
This week I fulfilled one of my crossword fantasies by spotting a couple of Ninas.
There's a short possible Nina in the 8th row which reminds me of a column in Nutmeg's #28,586, but I think it's probably chance, because I can't see a follow-up.

Hi Geeker,

I'm also making the Paulinesque 10a my COD.

I've never spotted a Nina so congrats. on that:-) Truth be told, I have a hard enough time spotting rhyming pairs in the Everyman so I think it will be a long while before I ever spot the elusive Nina*

*The word comes from Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003), American caricaturist, who was famous for hiding his daughter's name "Nina" into his drawings. Wikipedia says:

Brendan, 10 is a terrific clue, but I dare not say more to avoid spoilers.
BTW, great crossword fare tonight: Buccaneer (aka Picaroon in Guardian, Rodriguez in Indy) in the FT!

10a is great and made me LOL when the pennt finally dropped.

I'll have a look at those other crosswords during the week but I'm just beginning this week's Listener so who knows how long that will take!

Good luck! My attention span and vocabulary are insufficient for most barred puzzles, so I stick to the "vanilla" cryptics.

Trust me Geeker, if I can do them - you most certainly can:-)

Well, that was difficult, I have answers for all clues though and didn't have to use a solver at all :)

FOI 5D LOI 3 and 10 simultaneously since I was unsure of the last letter. I also liked 10 after I got it, I thought 12 was good too.

I'd not heard of 21 before so had to look at the thesaurus a lot to find it. Also wasn't familiar with the word which provides the answer to 23.

24 was a good clue as well and a good misdirection. 15 pretty good too.

I can't even parse 6A properly lol! But it's obviously correct since I kind of guessed 8, 22.

I can't parse 3 properly, but it seems to be a type of cake I suppose.
Can't work out where the first 3 letters of 4 come from either :/

I also can't parse 22. 20 parses a bit weird to me as well.

I thought 17 was pushing the theme a bit to be honest.

I thought the Spoonerism was a bit cheeky as well really. Usually they are actual words not made up ones!