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I suspect fans of Paul will enjoy this. A somewhat devious device makes several appearances, but after the first one I found the others easy to spot!
I’m left with 5a unparsed for now…

Hi Jono,
The house in 5a. is royal.
Apart from the definition, I can't see 23a.

23 a caused a smile. The winning beauty (female)

Thanks Mattrom, I saw that word but didn’t connect it with ‘house’.
If you split 23a 4,4 it’s a sort of cryptic description.

Ah! Thanks, Jazzgirl and Jono. I had the wrong word, which seemed to fit better with the definition.

A curious mixture. Some I liked very much - 19 and 26, for instance; some rather loose wordplay; and the recurring "trick" grew a bit irritating.

Stuck on 24a
A blind partner's exploit in rave (6)
e?f?s?

Your letters are correct Chris, definition is rave as a verb. Parses 3,3

ah! thanks jono. the blind partner foxed me.

Of course, as a chemist the word meant something different to me!

14 across made me laugh.