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Beware the Special Instruction

This week's SI offering is by Boatman and is an absolute beast, so much so, in fact, that I wondered if I'd ever finish.

FOI was 1d but my first SI clue was 11d.

If you do get stuck, there is at least one long anagram and a hidden, both in the acrosses.

A good place to start for the themed/SI clues is 16,15 and 11d.

There are a few clues I can't fully parse, namely the last 3 letters of 20d unless the final letter is an abbreviation. Also 22a, where the answer is clear but some of the wordplay eludes me. Lastly, 13a which looks like a subtractive anagram but, however I work it, it never quite works!

COD - 19a for its brilliantly subtle definition, although 21d deserves a mention. Favourite themed clue is the wonderfully elegant 17/14.

Thanks to Boatman for a challenging and fun puzzle.

Please feel free to leave a comment and, as always, if you get stuck - don't hesitate to ask for a hint.

Stay safe:-)

Brendan
I agree this was a beast!
This is the post I composed before noticing you started the thread:

Thanks to Boatman for this week's Prize challenge, and a challenge it was, extremely high on the difficulty scale IMO. But I've had a long week, so it may be fatigue.
The puzzle is heavily themed: the theme is no stranger to Guardian weekend puzzles, fairly easy to deduce and even explicitly stated in a (non-thematic!) clue, but there are many tough clues with challenging wordplay. A couple of unfamiliar colloquialisms required Google.
FOI 1, but the pace went downhill from there. LOI 5.
COD medalists: 13 gold, 18 silver, 25 bronze.
Good luck, hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Can't suggest any toeholds or starting points, it was a struggle from beginning to end.

Brendan,
13 (my COD) is indeed a subtractive anagram. Took me a while to figure out that the anagrist (before subtraction) is formed from two words in the clue.

22 parses as 2, 5, 1, where the 5 is an uncommon word. Took forever because I got fixated on a 3, 4, 1 parsing.

Hi Geeker,

Yep, definitely a beast - I think this will be a busy blog!

So many craftily disguised definitions, not least 2d and 19a where, even when I saw what had to be the answers, it still took me an age to see them.

I did wonder if the "comic" referenced in 29a is really famous enough to be clued by just "Dave", especially outside the UK, so well done for getting that:-)

22a - Thanks for that Geeker, the 5 is a new word for me too.

Brendan, I didn't solve 29 based on the comic's name.
To be honest, it was one of several clues that completely baffled me, and only yielded answers via crossers and "by process of elimination, this must be a thematic!" Parsing was the last step ;-) , but I was then able to get his surname.

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