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Hi Chris,

The Spoonerism - if you add the first 2 letters of the answer to the last 2 you get a homophone of "task" and if you add the letter they replace to the beginning you get a homophone of a synonym for "all there" as in 'normal'.

Thanks Brendan
Yet another one that doesn't work with a rhotic accent!

Cheers for the parsing of 10A earlier on whoever that was, not heard of that usage before. I worked it out from fitting 1, 22 and some others.

I was not happy about the Spoonerism either as I said earlier since they are homophones only. I had the correct answer for a long time before I convinced myself it was correct and filled it in! Not getting 1A until very near the end and not being able to parse 4D correctly until after I had finished did not help either.

I thought this was a really good crossword. I can’t fully parse 6 down though ?? Maybe its my dirty mind but I could see loads of Paulinesque answers, including the theme :-)

hi tony
30 seconds would be....?

I can't think of another way to pronounce the spoonerism though ;) It would have been better if at least one half had been the correct spelling and not just a homophone think.

The only one I can't parse fully now is 20D. I can get three letters from "is one busy" but then I'm confused about the last part of the clue really, what is left over does not mean busy either. Alternatively I can get a 3 letter abbrev for "end of the working week" from the second half but then can't work out the rest of the word from that.

It was one of the earlier ones I got though purely from the first part of the clue so :/

Typically for me the Spooner will be LOI. There is only on 6a which will fit. My brain refuses to work like Spooner. I'll check back later to see if anyone has explained it without a spoiler.

Busy as a ___, I see it now!

I have seen the 30 seconds thing used before! Also I'm sure there was an almost identical clue for 26A in another Prize or Everyman a while back but I'd totally forgotten it and it was one of the last ones I filled in in the SW corner, duh.

just 2 letters for the end of the week. sorry, the "is" isn't hidden at all!

fop the spooner is a truly awful clue - should be outlawed!