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I was half expecting a bank holiday special, but instead Kite has provided us with a (I think) slightly more challenging than normal standard Prize, with a self-referential theme.
FOI 11, LOI 5, but only because I had put a misprint in 9.
No real standouts for COD, but I quite liked 16, 24 and 17d.

Hi Rog,

Okay, this is confusing: The Guardian phone app (Anderoid) has a Maskerade Easter Special (only pdf, not interactive) puzzle as this week's Prize, while the website on Chrome has both the Kite puzzle, to which you refer, and the Maskerade puzzle - both shown as the Prize and both numbered 29,673!

No doubt by the time people get up in the morning the Guardian will have clarified matters but, at the moment, that is how things stand.

PS The Kite (interactive) puzzle has the usual Prize info referring to 'first correct 5 enteries...' on its pdf version so maybe it won't be changed?

... apologies, I meant Android - now I've got a Devo earworm (what are you talking about Bren! 😀)

Gosh, thanks, Brendan, that is confusing.
As a (straightforward) Maskarade cryptic appeared only on Wednesday I wasn’t expecting a Maskarade special today. It will be interesting to see what appears in the newspaper tomorrow.
In the meantime, I need to sleep so won’t be looking at the pdf tonight!

Most weird...
Online (Bing) I originally got a Maskarade jumbo, on which I passed as usual.
After seeing this thread, I now get a Kite puzzle which I will try.
Thanks for the update!

Hi Geeker,

Yes, I meant Maskarade - so many typos lately (typo Bren, looks like more like mispelling!)

I too will stick to the Kite Prize.

I suggest we use this thread for the Kite prize and a separate one for the Maskarade Easter Special, just to avoid confusion!

Agreed Jono, I'll contact Norah and ask to amend the title.

I've just set up a separate thread for the Maskarade puzzle and included an interactive grid for those that prefer to work that way.

Thanks to Kite, who salvaged Friday crossword night from a Maskarade jumbo abstention (no disrespect, just personal taste and time allocation).

Agreed with rog on the theme, I had labeled it as "meta" but "self-referential" is better.

Slightly more challenging than Prize norm because of a handful of very tricky clues. Took a long time to get started, a fair amount of low-hanging fruit to scratch the pad, but the last several entries burned a lot of time. The lower part of the grid was especially slow.

FOI 7. LOI 27, partly because of difficulty and partly because I struggled with the crossing 17d.

Enjoyed many clues. COD 8. Others of note: 24, 22, 17a, 17d, 23, 25, 27, 11 and 16.