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Thanks to Picaroon for one of the more challenging Prizes in recent memory. Took painfully long to fill in the grid, and even longer to fully parse all the clues, especially the thematics.
The puzzle is clearly themed, as indicated by punctuation, but the theme was not obvious to me, and the definitions of some thematic clues are extremely subtle.
FOI was 10.
Last one into the grid was 1, last one parsed was 15.
Difficult to choose a COD because I struggled with so many. Among thematics I liked 3, 15, 18 and 20; non-thematics 5 and 23.
Good luck! This Prize should generate many queries.
There's a hidden in the acrosses that took a long time to spot. Aside from that I'll wait for questions in order to avoid spoilers.

Hi Geeker,

I've been out for the evening and only just got home but I've had a gander at the puzzle and it does not look easy so I think I'll put my head down for a few hours and tackle it tomorrow. I have solved a couple of the thematics from the wordplay but cannot see any definition or connection between them!

Hopefully I'll see more tomorrow, fresh eyes tomorrow and all that 😃

I decided to do this before having a rest but that may have been an error as I have a completed grid with a green tick but no idea about the theme!

I managed to get all the themed words from wordplay alone.

FOI was 17a but the first themed clue was 27d.

I got held up for a while by initially getting 14a wrong which messed up 16d.

If you do get stuck (like me!) there are a couple of hiddens in the acrosses and a long anagram in the downs.

I've made a list of all the theme words and my plan is to look at them tomorrow after I've had a good sleep - sort of creep on them 😂

Thanks to Picaroon for very challenging workout.

As Geeker says, I think this will be a lively thread and am looking forward to seeing how many others are as confused as me.

Don't forget, if you get stuck, you only have to ask for a hint - there are always people on here willing to help.

Stay safe:-)

Never before seen a theme like that . If stuck persevere ,it is worth it

I enjoyed that once I worked out how the theme works. Like others I got some of the themed ones from wordplay before working out the theme. Not convinced about my answe for 6D, unparsed so far.

minty

Quite good fun and a challenge. Hint- there are actually no words missing in the clues.

Minty. Focus on the last five words of 6 for the wordplay.

My cunning plan to look at the themed words again after a couple of hours sleep has paid dividends 😃

The definitions are so subtle I missed them first time round.

This is quite possibly the best crossword ever compiled...so clever. Picaroon is a genius.

Thanks buzzybee, know have the correct answer and the parsing

minty