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Thanks to Vlad for an extremely gentle (overall, and certainly by his Impaler standards) but fun and inventively clued Prize.

The NW quadrant was nearly a write-in and the balance went in quickly, but the COD long list had 9 clues, sign of quality. A couple of semi-naughty Pauline clues.

FOI 1a, LOI 6. Two solutions required Google to confirm. COD 26, too many other good ones to mention.

I enjoyed this gentle challenge for the most part (and agree that selecting a COD among so many fine clues is difficult, not to say invidious, so I won’t try 😉), but I didn’t much care for 1d or 19a

I thought 1d was rather amusing though easy, it was second in. 19a perhaps banal, but that occasionally happens with short solutions. In compensation, 2 4-letter and 2 5-letter solutions wound up on my long COD list.

Interesting, I'm not finding this as easy. I like Vlad's puzzles but it takes me a while to tune in to his wavelength. There are also a couple of words needed to fill in the NW that I wasn't aware of. My only question just to make sure I have it right at this point is is 'Definitely' the right definition for 1a? I can see it loosely but I always believed that phrase to mean something slightly different.

Hi Rocky, re 1a I had a similar thought, but Chambers says it can mean “emphatically” so I guess it’s ok

Fair enough. I may bring it more into my own conversation now I've been reminded of it.

I'm also struggling with 25a. I'm sure I have the right answer but the clue doesn't quite work for the last four letters.

roman numeral for 50 and anagram of two?

I took the last four letters to be an anagram of (single letter + three letter word). That was the only way I could see to make the order work.

That's how I saw it too but it's a bit messy if I'm putting my pedantic hat on for a second.

Still have very little of the Eastern side done. Definitely not the walk in the park that geeker found it for me.