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A steady plod all the way - and as usual the more that gets filled in, the easier other clues become. FOI 10a COD 23a LOI 4d (not sure how this parses, however.) I'm very surprised to be the first one in the forum.

p.s. Thanks to Crucible and the "out of this world" theme. As always: devious and devilish.

4d is a double definition - the first two words and the last two.

(...the first two being thematic)

Hi alzy,
Thanks for starting the thread! I sometimes reluctantly initiate it in the absence of Brendan (long-standing and effective host), but the more the merrier.
I found this a solid Prize, thanks to Crucible, who's a less frequent guest in the Prize slot.
FOI was 3 and the theme rapidly became apparent. Not overly difficult (couple of long anagrams were write-ins, which helped), but several challenging clues extended solving time.
LOI 14a, first guess from crossers was correct but found the parsing difficult.
Many good clues: co-COD 14a, 7 and 12, with 1, 6, 9, 2, 4 and 25 in the second tier. Only weakish clue IMO was 24. One unfamiliar long entry, perhaps East End slang. Clue 18 will be a write-in for solvers of Brendan's recent Guardian 28,613.

Thanks, Rogissimo. Knew the second half was right but hadn't scrolled down enough alternative defs to confirm the first half. ALSO agree with geeker re. 14a parsing.

More straightforward than some I have struggled with, although I needed Rogissimo's help with 4d as I was unfamiliar with either meaning without looking them up. My COD would have to be 15d since I haven't had one in years. As well as 14a, I'm having trouble parsing 19a, at least the three or four letters in the middle, which I presume relate to tax. Have HMRC invented new acronyms since I stopped paying UK tax?

It was new to me, rainman, but Google furnished an answer. Link (tinyurl to avoid spoilers): https://tinyurl.com/yymsn2xf

Thanks, geeker. I did my own Googling and came across that acronym, but technically I thought it referred to the thing being taxed, rather than the tax itself. Perhaps that's splitting hairs in a crossword.

Agreed, it seems ambiguous at best, but I'm relatively lenient about such things. I expect the clue will get panned (at least by various commenters) on 225 next week.