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I found this entertaining with a nice range of clues of varying difficulty, and some witty surfaces. FOI 16d, LOI (by a long chalk) 4d. COD probably 13a for the surface.
Slowly getting used to Brockwell, to whom many thanks.

Woops, I've done it again:-) I'll email Norah and ask her to remove my thread.

An excellent Prize puzzle from Brockwell who many of you may remember as the setter of the Bob Marley and the Wailers "Catch A Fire" themed crossword a few months ago.

FOI was 7a followed by the crossing 3d.

In terms of difficulty I'd say it sits somewhere in the middle but that's not to say there aren't a few very tricky clues.

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

The only clue I haven't fully parsed is 22d although I am confident of my answer.

COD - A clear winner this week with the outstanding and topical 8a:-)

There were a few words I'd never encountered before but the wordplay in each case was generous so no complaints.

Thanks to Brockwell for a most enjoyable way to kick off the weekend.

Leave a comment letting us know how you got on and, as always, if you do run into problems, just post your query on here - there will always be people willing to help.

Stay safe:-)

I'll add my post here, since it has "Prize" in the header...

Welcome back, Brendan!
Thanks to Brockwell, I found this on the difficult side, consistently struggled and never got into a rhythm. But plenty of good clues.
FOI 17, LOI 10.
NE quadrant took the longest. COD was 8.
Expecting a clever theme, don't see one but that means little...

I think I see 22d now - the pronunciation of "secure" is fine but it's not how I would pronounce the "document".

I'll be interested to hear the views of others.

Brendan, I agree with that parsing of 22d. Pronunciation not exact, but within "setter's license" IMO. Granted I am very much on the permissive side.

Quite right, Brendan and geeker: 8 is excellent and on reflection is clear COD. Nice to see setters inventively moving with the ‘*times* (sic).

Good fun I thought. I liked the deceptive use of real people’s names in the clues, there are at least seven I think. However, I’ve seen “X-Man” more than once now. It might be considered a little unfair to link two clues that cross with each other (21 and 24) but in this case it wasn’t too tricky to unravel. All good.

26a was the first gig I ever went to, my older sister took me (I was 11 or 12, I think). I went to see him again when I was 15 at the Royal Albert Hall, I didn't have a ticket but took a chance and managed to buy one for face value outside from someone who's friend didn't turn up.

I remember once on Top of the Pops he wore a shirt with epaulettes on the shoulders and so I badgered my Mum in to sewing them on one of my shirts to wear to the gig 😂

a lot of apparent references to people old and current, some of which actually required the knowledge = 26 for example.
if my parsing of 11d is right, it;s very obscure and breaks a crossword rule.
don't understand the reference to 24a in 21d.
stuck on 10a.

Hi Chris,

11d - works fine. Single letter "Drake essentially" inside 3 letter "love"

10a - 4 letter "air" + "four's back" - definition is "radio"

24a is an indicator as to what to do to part of 21d - definition is "awards"