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Agree re 22d

Morning jono. I also agree that 19d is fine but 22d not, for the reason you’ve given.
Geeker @4 - re the parsing of 26,27, are you saying that you didn’t bother to check that the parsing worked? If so, then neither did I: what Paul has done there is quite a feat, but a feat rather for the sake of itself in my view, which for me prevented it from entering COD territory (well, that and the fact that the surface is verging on the meaningless, and that the clue was so long that it didn’t come up in full when I clicked 26 on the grid!)

Does anyone have a hint re parsing 22d? I have the answer. I can't find the word for toxic substance anywhere re 19.

‘Thus’ is two letters, the toxic substance is the other five. Not a very common word.

Re 22, it parses as 4,2, where the 4 is a word with the first letter skimmed (removed) and the 2 is the usual abbreviation.

This looks like Paul at his most irritating. I'm not going to bother.

Totally agree, chrise. I've done some but not enjoying it. As you say, too annoying. The surfaces are ridiculous and too many are 'think of an answer that might fit then work out why'. Him being my favourite setter seems a very long time ago.

There’s a really well clued puzzle by Buccaneer (aka Picaroon) in today’s FT if you fancy something else.

You can ignore the fact that it says it is written for the FT weekend festival (or at least I did).

Thanks, jono, I'll give that one a go. I did about 60% but abandoned this one once I guessed 26,27. Does anyone seriously bother working out the wordplay for something like that?

I always enjoy Paul. At first pass I get almost nothing but it eventually comes together. There was fun and agree with jono there were some surprises there. 26 27 seems to be a long definition and an anagram - unfortunate to see all the mad reactions… !