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Either I was just on Paul’s wavelength tonight (after a couple of beers and a curry), or this was a pretty straightforward offering, but no less enjoyable and witty for that. A couple of words that I knew but had forgotten, but which came back with the help of the wordplay. Thanks to Paul (others may disagree…)

Thanks to Paul, quite a bit gentler than his recent 29,239 which baffled me.
Got off to a very slow start and felt I was struggling, but wound up finishing in about average time.
FOI 21. LOI 15, which took a long time to untangle though general outline and first word were clear.
Some moderately exotic words and GK, but was able to get the solutions by parsing.
Lots of excellent clues, I may return with a COD ranking.

geeker - I was surprised to see a Prize Paul, given that he had already appeared on Tuesday. I agree that this was much gentler than that offering, which would have been a worthy Prize crossword. A bit like the feeling in sometimes have that the Monday cryptic and quiptic are the wrong way round!

‘..the feeling *I* sometimes have…’ - a shame we can’t edit our mistakes here!

I admire you guys' skills but my heart always sinks when I see Paul on a Prize.😒

Good fun I thought. The longer answers held me up for quite a time. CODs 5d and 14d.

i'm struggling with 3 to finish. 8a i have an obvious answer from the definition, but can't parse it, and it's preventing me from seeing the long one starting at 4d.
also i can see a paper that fits 11, but can't parse it.
any hints please?

Hi Chris, 8a is an anagram. 4 is also part anagram inside a financial institution. 11 ‘better’ as a verb gives the last three letters…

…I made the mistake of thinking the first word of 4 had to be the financial institution, it’s not!

thanks jono - finished now

is there any wordplay in 22a, or is it just a cryptic definition?