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Geeker, an American version of the clue might be “Contest in which losers are smashed."

I didn’t have any trouble with 1d, solving it or the clue itself. However, I was unsure about 17. "For the most part”? Yeah, technically I suppose, but in crosswords for the most part usually means all but the last letter.

darla, I got that, but wouldn't the winners be *more* smashed? Conceivably the losers might not even be smashed if they perform weakly...unless the rules stipulate a "penalty" for losing.

Scratch that, I just read raffles's explanation.
Learn something every day...pity I gave up the activity in question in 1998. ;-)

Spent over half of my (much longer than usual) time on the LOI of 1D. Suspect that will be a typical experience for many solvers today.

Quite fun I thought. 1d didn’t bother me too much. The £15 book token prize is new I think, or perhaps I hadn’t noticed before.

Has anyone found today’s Gemelo? It doesn’t appear to have been uploaded.

Although 1D is clever, I feel it's slightly unfair to have little-used abbreviations as both part of and the whole solution.
3D made me laugh out loud when I finally parsed it, appropriately enough after much head scratching, so I guess that should be my COD ... even though it held me up for ages.
Finally, acolytes of the wonderful Ms Newsom may question what's specifically Irish about 23D.

Re my post @16, of course there is no Gemelo today as there is an Azed Competition puzzle which is in the Azed section on the Observer site.

I'm stuck on 2 and 9. Any hint most welcome.

I agree, mostly straightforward but with three head scratchers: 1d, which I thought good when I got it via the crossers and abandoned my theory that I was looking to delete a u from a word meaning love;
12, which I believe relates to the kind of activity that could sometimes be observed in student union bars in the days of my youth but doesn’t convince me as a definition;
and 17 for which I have a shortened version of the current UK PM’s name but don’t understand what, if anything, that has to do with “household “
Also, rhyming pair?