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Thanks to the Guardian for not rerunning the retracted Kite puzzle from last week, and to Paul for this week's Prize diversion.

A clear theme, which I managed to see early but is difficult for Stateside solvers. Thus it proved beastly for me, and Google was required for several solutions. Too much of a struggle to call it exactly great fun, but there were some notable clues and a healthy (?) dose of Pauline naughtiness.

FOI 12.
LOI tie between 6a and 17, which I saw at about the same time, but 8 was the big time-waster and I only got it with Google's assistance.

COD 14 narrowly over 16. Also enjoyed 6a, 23, 7, 13, 20, 29, 22 and 1.

Curious about UK solvers' opinions.

8 deserves some COD consideration but it was too painful for me.

Finally parsed everything, albeit with Google assistance. 28 the last holdout, but will excuse myself on grounds of lack of geographical knowledge.

geeker - I’m very impressed that you managed to solve this so quickly from your side of the pond. I managed it without Google, but it took a while, and 8 was as painful for me as it was for you. Indeed my first thought, which held me up for an unnecessarily long time, was that the 5dn creation was something entirely different with the same enumeration and the same constant but in a different place. Which of course was utter nonsense.
FOI was in fact 5, so I should have made quicker progress thereafter.
LOI 9, for some reason, perhaps because I resisted it through dislike.
COD also for me 14 - very clever. But I also enjoyed 25,3, mainly because of the pleasure I knew it would give to a friend of mine.
All in all a brilliant offering from Paul, but one which I know some will dislike intensely. Watch this space….

Way too much 5D GK needed for this to be any fun, but grudging respect for 27/6 once I finally understood it.

I would add that the theme and the setter are closely intertwined!

rog, 9 took me a long time to solve. I quickly thought of the correct "enthusiastic lover" component, but rejected it due to crudity. Returned to the idea when revisiting stragglers and groaned...it's the reason for the "?" in the intial post.

Agreed that some will dislike this puzzle!

Yuk. Basically an exercise in Googling. Still 4 or 5 clues that I have absolutely no idea how they parse, but at this point I'm all googled out.

Getting 5d right away meant nothing.

Was buried deep in related GK, needing Google to verify many answers. As with Paul, correctly clued and very clever.

Liked "Article buried in 5 down", "5 down event charging partner" and "Attention-seeker in energetic lover".

Btw, Kite's puzzle is sch. for May 17. Looking fwd as I was preoccupied with Maskarade.

Extremely slow start but better now. FOI 10a and favourite so far 14