Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks to Qaos for this week's Prize challenge.

Solving time significantly shorter than median. Many clues were rather easy, even redolent of a Quiptic, but there were sufficient tricks to provide Prize-worthy entertainment, and Vlad's 29,491 impalement earlier in the week reduced my appetite for difficulty. Several anagrams with disguised fodder stood out.

FOI 1, LOI 11.

COD 2, narrowly pipping 11. Also enjoyed 13, 12, 27, 18 and 19d.

Qaos is a mathematician, which should endear him to some on the forum (including myself). Favo(u)rs "ghost themes", and I noticed two candidates here.
See https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/nov/29/crossword-blog-setter-qaos

Got back very late from the pub, so was relieved to encounter a gentle Prize, but I would perhaps have felt short-changed if I’d started at midnight. And I agree with geeker - Vlad wasn’t the only tricky one this week, but he certainly was the trickiest.
I also agree with geeker’s COD - 2 for the surface (‘Snake’ conjuring up any number of heavy metal images) and the ingenuity.

And I can certainly see one theme.

Quick solve but good fun. A theme I know well from childhood. Spotted it about halfway through and went looking for words I thought must be there and sure enough found them.

I don't think I was still a child, but the theme still makes me nostalgic. I remember it made quite an impact at the time, at least in the UK. I didn't actually get the theme until I had finished, but I realized a lot of the answers were ringing bells as I went along. There seem to be well over a dozen thematic references in the puzzle, but then there were a lot of names to choose from.

Yes a nice gentle one from Qaos and thanks for some memories. I read it a good few years before I saw it. Quite a feat to have crammed so many themed answers into one puzzle.

FOI 6d. LOI 1d. COD coming originally from the Black Country I have to go with 7d which made me laugh.

There’s also a glancing reference to a distant and overseas relation of the main theme ‘hidden’ in 17a 19d. No doubt geeker will have spotted it.

Straightforward stuff for a Prize puzzle, but still a lot to like. FOI 1d, LOI the should've-been-obvious 27d. Theme only dawned on me until well after solving.

Morning all. The quickest solve that I can remember. Nostalgic theme for me too. Thanks.

Was having a hard time until I came here to be told it was easy. After that I found it easy! Must have stopped overthinking it.

Now it's all done but buggered ifI can spot a theme!