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I thought this was more difficult, at least in places, than yesterday's Prize.

Much of the difficulty came from Everyman cluing answers as one word when, at least Chambers, says they are two.

COD - A case in point (see above) is my LOI, 15a. Close second is 24a, not least because it prompted me to visit YouTube and play Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren and The World's Famous Supreme Team.

Thanks to Everyman for a trick but enjoyable puzzle.

Stay safe:-)

I agree. Tougher and the concatenationsgot me a couple of times. 3d defeated me for a while on that basis. I still can’t parse 9a.

Thanks Everyman

Brendan, this took me far longer to complete than the Prize. Mainly because the long 3 totally stumped me, despite obviously having to be a rhymer, and I had to set the puzzle aside for over an hour before resuming. (Turned out to be a c.d. that I don't find overly impressive). But there were a handful of other tricky clues.

FOI 1, LOI 3.
COD 12, also liked 10 and the Spoonerism.

Looking at the finished grid, the juxtaposition of 23 (clue wording) and 24 (solution) isn't aesthetically pleasing...unless it was intended by Everyman?!

9 parses as 4 ("pierce cut") inside 6. Rather a tricky one! I had to write in the solution from crossers rather than solve from wordplay.

Hi Edc,

9a - 6 letter word for a group of melons (I'd never heard of it) goes around a 5 letter word for "pierce" minus its last letter/"cut" - this is tricky because it appears "cut" is doing double duty, acting as both an instruction to insert it into the other word and to reduce its length.

At least that's how I read it!

Brendan, I think 9 uses "into" for inclusion, so "cut" would not be serving double duty. I knew the melon because it's popular Stateside.

Hi Geeker,

I hadn't noticed that in 23a and 24a - very odd, indeed.

The possibility that the two long clues might be a rhyming pair also completely passed me by!

I did like the Spoonerism and, rather miraculously, saw it straight away - which is very rare for me.

9a - I see whay mean about "into", another thing that completely passed me by - forgot to 'lift and separate'.

What is happening to me! 😥

That six letter word in 9a was new to me.

Geeker, as you mention 10a, would you explain it to me, if that doesn't give too much away? I've inserted an answer but solely on the basis that Everyman has long had a weird fascination with that particular 'manner of speaking'.
Indeed the whole NE corner was a nightmare for me - it was ages before the PDM on 8d, and I'm still struggling to parse 6d. Why 'ENORMOUS familiarity'?