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Apologies to Brendan, jumping in because this is an interesting Prize.

Thanks to Qaos, who seldom appears in this slot. I believe Qaos is a setter who favors themes, and this week's puzzle has an obvious one, which is somewhat dear to my geek heart. Darla should also enjoy it. 🤣

There are a lot of write-in / low hanging fruit clues, but a handful of rather challenging ones. On balance easier than Prize norm, but I must give a 👍 due to the theme.

FOI 8. Co-LOI 20 (which required Google) and 9 (unusual usage that's flummoxed me before, but I still needed to check the dictionary).

COD: 26a, 26d, 22 and 5 are all worthy, followed by 23a, but the winner has to be 26d, which ingeniously combines two of my nerdy interests.

Curious about how others find this puzzle. Some may consider it too easy.

Indeed a theme for me, geeker. I didn’t even realize just how many thematic entries there were until I went back through and counted. As well, I also had trouble with 9 and 20. Would you please enlighten me.

9: defn. "work with dough", usage that I've only seen (twice) in crosswords and had to look up both times. Parses as 1, 4 where 4 is an anagram. The solution is thematic.

20: a reversed clue, parses simply as inversion of (2, 5). Definition, new to me and requiring Google, is "New Jersey tea". Looks like it could be a single 7-letter word as well as (3, 4). The second word of the solution is thematic.

I tend to agree, rather too straightforward for the prize. I’ve never come across 20d which seems an odd choice as many other words fit there, though with the second word being thematic I can see the attraction. 5d was my LOI and COD when I finally saw it.

thanks for the pointers to 20 - never heard of it. also never heard of 11, despite having done a lot of cycling.
some questions:
3d "rumours" without W doesn't seem to give the last letters - arguments might be better?
5d parsing?
26d not sure i've even got this right. i have 2 defs, but don't see how the soldier fits in

5D - around means turn (around) not roughly

26D - base is the usual letter - coincidentally thematic - and soldier is a three letter word, also used for chess piece.

Thanks hotelwhiskey7
I had actually thought of that word for 5d, but didn't think of reversing it.
26d I had base as one of the definitions, but your explanation works much better

27a - is this wrong? F stands for the capacitance unit farad, not for the man it is named after. Or am I mistaken?

ianwil
F also (confusingly) stands for the Faraday Constant (the charge on a mole of electrons). See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_constant

Thanks ChrisE. That makes sense now.