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Thanks to Philistine for today's return to a regular format Prize puzzle. I pass on Maskarade jumbos, so have been eagerly awaiting this one.

For some reason I was really on the wavelength, one of the fastest Prize solves ever. Was able to intuit the solutions of all the long clues and parse soon afterward.

FOI 5a, LOI 26 (by chance, it's actually one of the easiest clues).
COD clearly 1d.

I "warmed up" for this by attempting to solve Friday's Indy puzzle by the fearsome Nimrod (aka Enigmatist / Io, perhaps my main bête noire setter), which perhaps rendered the Prize a bit of an anticlimax. Curious to see what other solvers think.

Hi Geeker,

You missed a cracker (see what I did there 😜) with the Maskarade Christmas puzzle and I was very pleased to see that it initiated responses from several first-time posters - let's hope they continue to contribute.

Similar experience to yours with the exception that I still haven't fully parsed 4,12,23 but it's early days so not a problem.

In terms of difficulty I'd say it sits somewhere between the middle to easier end of the scale but, as I always say, these things are very subjective so it will be interesting to see what others think.

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

COD - I liked 3d with the "nice small top slips" and thought 6d was very good. Like you I laughed at 1d and also 8d but my favourite is the outstanding 10a 👍

Thanks to Philistine for a very enjoyable puzzle - it was never going to be easy following on from Maskarade's brilliant Christmas special but this was a sterling effort.

As I said earlier, it was really good to see so many first-time posters join our friendly Prize blog last week so, now that you've registered, we look forward to hearing from you again.

Stay safe:-)

... and, of course, I immediately see the missing wordplay for 4,12,23 👍

Brendan, I made an exception last weekend and dabbled in two jumbos. First I did the Private Eye holiday puzzle, which was shockingly easy. Followed up with about 90% of Maskarade's feature, but ran out of patience and didn't bother to slog through the last 10%. It did seem a good puzzle, but I use physical printout for jumbos, which induces serious eyestrain and diminishes the fun factor.

I found keeping track of the themed clue numbers to be a real pain and, at times, wondered if any were missing! Then I copied Roof's example and kept a separate list which helped immensely.

Did you have a nice Christmas? I usually go to my younger brother's in Edinburgh but, due to the train strikes and the fact the whole family is having a get-together in a few week's, I gave it a miss this year 😢

Not sure about wavelengths: I just think that this was one of the easiest Prize crosswords in a long time. Perhaps the crossword editor thought we needed a break after last week’s challenging but (in my view at least) excellent Maskarade. That took hours, this took minutes.

Hi Rogissimo,

I think you might be right and the crossword editor at the Guardian thought we needed a more a relaxing affair after the trials and tribulations of last week's Maskarade.

18a - the second part of the wordplay "decree in advance" looked a bit odd as I've never seen the word with that ending but Chambers gives it as an obsolete usage - unless I've completely misunderstood it which is equally likely!

Happy New Year for later all. I hope yours is a good one.

I have an answer for 8d that both parses and fits. But is it a word? The one I have doesn't need the first two letters. Or am I wrong?

Hi Rocky,

8d - I'm sure you have the correct answer - with the first 2 letters it specifically means "converted into ????" (Chambers) although "to ????" does mean the same thing.

Happy New Year to all Guardian Prize contributors and readers