Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks to Imogen for a topical thematic Prize this week.

Fun mix of tricky and less challenging clues. Got off to a slow start (befuddled by 1), finished in somewhat less than median Prize solving time but not an easy Prize IMO. One of the earliest solutions I got revealed the theme, which helped.

FOI 19a, LOI 23.
COD 6 narrowly over 9. The latter has a tricky parsing, and I initially wrote in an incorrect solution. Also liked 10, 12, 26, 22a, 24 and 3.

Neat theme. Some Vulcanic. Haven't parsed 13d fully.

Not difficult but still enjoyable.. 26 and 27 took me an age and I needed danword to confirm my answers,

Ilippu

Defn 1st 3 words, then 1 (abbreviation) plus 4 letters.

Thanks BuzzyBee. Got the answer from def and crossers; know it only as 'stand'.

Good fun, but on the easier side I thought. 24d was my way into the theme. I don’t think I’d have clued the second word of 19d in this context.

Daisy May in 15d, who I have heard of but I’m certain many won’t have, is surely DBE and deserves a ? at least. I might have gone with Alice.

Struggling. 24d was a write-in, and I have another related answer, but the theme word they suggest is too long for 1d!

Chris, 1d is a general term for the theme items (no matter where they might be).

Thanks jono. I was just about to post that I'd worked that out.

I was thrown a bit by 23d, as DEIDRE very nearly parses!

OK, finished. I'm not seeing all the parsing of 9a, though. I think someone said earlier that it was complicated! Where's the "red"?