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A thoroughly enjoyable Prize puzzle from from Paul, full of wit and ingenuity.

I finished fairly quickly so I suppose it must be at the easier end of the scale but, that said, there are a couple of clues that caused me quite a bit of head scratching.

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

I initially put 10a in the wrong way around so that held me up for a while and 26a was new to me.

I'm also a bit puzzled by the wordplay in 9d which seems to require a synonym for "place", but I can't see any instance where the word I chose could be swapped for it.

My final query is 20d where, thankfully, there is only one word that fits the letter pattern but I can't quite see the parsing.

COD - A four-way tie this week with 22d, 1a, 16/17a and the sublime 4d.

Thanks to Paul for a fun and witty start to the weekend.

Leave a comment letting us know how you got on and, if you get stuck, just post your query on here.

Stay safe:-)

Thanks to Paul.

I enjoyed this Prize but found it really easy. Despite being in poor form this week I finished remarkably quickly.
FOI 10, which I also got backward and had to correct.
LOI 7, though 5 is the clue that held me up longest.
COD tie between 1 and 5. Also liked 3, 18, 4 and 19.

Suspected a pangram, but no. Don't see a classic Pauline clue. One solution involved unfamiliar usage I had to verify.

20 I parsed as 4, 3 where the 3 is a word with first letter dropped and the usage of the 4 took a bit of thought.

In the hint category, more outright cryptic definitions than I'm used to.

Thanks Geeker,

That's great - It was the 4 that confused me but, on revisiting Chambers, I see it can mean 'a "suspension" of liquid in a gas'. Add to that the fact that the last 4 letters could also be a "test" with the addition of "current" and it had my head spinning!

I think a few people will get caught out by 10a, but, luckily, 3d is an absolute ????? 😂

I thought 3 was hilarious and it was very nearly COD.

Sadly, this was probably not the best week to have 19a as a clue. I guess the editor didn't notice it in time to swap it for another puzzle.

I see what you mean Rainman, very unfortunate.

I also found this one of Paul's gentler puzzles and solved fairly quickly - enjoyable nonetheless.
FOI was 1, aided by remembering what slightly humorous response you get if you put this word into Google's search engine.
I was another who kept looking at putting the 'current' into the last 4 of 20 to get a different test but my LOI was actually 14 - not difficult but for a long time the penny wouldn't drop.
COD for me 4.
Thanks Paul and Brendan.

I've only just started, but hasn't he got the definition in 25d completely wrong?

Chrise
25, seems fine to me - I had 3,2 with the 2 being a cricketing term.