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Thanks to Philistine for a gentle, but nevertheless, fun puzzle.

After I got 3d and 7d I did wonder if a theme might be appearing but, other than the possible 16d, nothing else came of it.

COD: - I think I'll go for the witty 7d.

How did you get on, did you find it difficult or, like me, at the easier end of the scale?

Let us know in the comments.

Stay safe:-)

I accidentally left the word 'Prize' out of the title in my initial post but, as there are no other contributions yet, I decided to repost it with the correct tile and have emailed Norah and asked her to delete the incorrectly titled one.

Sorry for the confusion:-)

Thanks Ilippu,

I'm judging by your early reply that you too thought it was at the easier end of the scale.

27a - I meant to say that I had to double-check that "can be grotesque" is a valid definition for this but, even though it's not mentioned in Chambers, a quick trip to Google confirmed that it is indded correct.

24a - It will be interesting to see how our overseas solvers will get on with this:-)

Brendan,

Overall it was slightly gentle, but my solving time was greatly extended by 18, 20, 24 and 26 in the SW quadrant. Otherwise it'd have rated as easy.
Struggled terribly with 18 and (especially) 24 (as you suspected) before pennies dropped. Suspected the solution to 26 right off but took ages to parse. Simply drew a blank on the rather straightforward 20.

Many delightful clues but a handful of "gimmes".

FOI 4, whose unusual wordplay has become trendy (ISTR an example in yesterday's excellent Fed).
LOI the unaccountable 20.

Got 7 quickly, but parsing eluded me until I noticed the clever paired clue.
Co-COD 17 and 18.
Also liked 5, 13, 8, 16, 12, 3 and 7.

Pangram head-fake...looked likely but a couple letters wound up missing.

Thanks to Philistine.

Morning brendan.
Funnily enough, this took me longer than usual to solve, but I did start late after perhaps too many beers and a curry.
Much to enjoy though.
FOI 2, LOI 7, because it could only be one thing with the crossers, but I had to come back to it and did not know (or had forgotten) one of the components. Not my COD, as it happens, pace you, brendan, only because the surface doesn’t make much sense to me. And because I love a good surface, 17 and 23 do it for me, among a number of other competitors for COD.
Lovely crossword, thanks, Philistine.

Sorry, mistyped. Intended 27 and 18 as co-COD.

Hi geeker
If it’s any consolation, 20 was my last but one in, and I don’t really like it. Ah well.

Thanks, rog. I thought 20 perhaps the weakest clue in the strong puzzle.

Agreed, geeker. Without giving the game away, I think that one aspect of the definition is loose, to say the least.