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Took me a while to twig the theme, despite getting one of the themed clues very quickly. But then everything slotted into place pretty smoothly. Some ingenious variations on the theme too.
FOI 23, LOI 15 because it took me longer than it should have to parse. COD? No real standout for me, but I rather liked 3.

Thanks to Paul. I found this one tough, but an ingenious construction.

I'm a longtime Paul fan, but his trademark frequent linked clues sometimes irritate me (and no doubt many others )😂, and it took about a half hour before my annoyance changed to a grudging thumbs up.
Had to go into "Vlad/Enigmatist mode" and guess *many* solutions before parsing. I guessed the theme straight off, but couldn't confirm it for quite a while.

FOI 7, LOI 1. A couple of solutions, including a UK-centric thematic, followed from parsing but required Google to confirm.

A good number of clues deserve COD consideration, but it's too hard to select one. Most thematics were excellent. I did jot down candidates 3, 17, 9, 15, 21, 19, 22a, 22d while solving.

OK, its like that is it Paul? Have filled in 6 clues, but can't parse a single one of them. So either I've lost the plot completely, or Paul has gone off wavelength hopping.

Truth be told, I never bothered to parse the thematic key (26,27) because it seemed tedious and overly complicated. 😁

Yes, there was an element of that involved. Plus a couple of gaps in my vocabulary that googling filled in. But still a handful of clues I have no idea how they parse.
Anyway, done now. On with the weekend ... have a good one everyone.

Home and hosed, done and dusted, etc. I’m not a Paul fan. His clues can be clever but so often the wording is clunky. I much prefer clues that could pass for something that someone might actually say.

Really enjoyed this one. Tough, and the theme took some reverse engineering, but everything seemed fair and an appropriate level of difficulty for a prize puzzle. Might be a masochistic streak, but perfectly happy to see Paul in the prize puzzle spot (not so much on a Thursday morning!).

Morning all, struggling a bit early on. Did anyone think 19d a bit iffy?

Morning,
I was ok with 19d. Less so 22d which seems to be an un-indicated definition by example, unless I’m missing something.

Rather surprising that some of the thematics are or were only 26,27.