Haven't really had a good look at this yet as I'm watching the World Series but, after a quick glance, it looks like there's a letter missing in 8d - unless I've misunderstood it?
Can't quite put my finger on it, but I just found this crossword weird. Held up a bit in the bottom left by a few interlocking clues, none of which seemed to make sense, but once I spotted an anagram then that confirmed my uneasy answers, and was able to finish it off.
Definitely missing an "s" in 8d. Maybe it ended up in 1a, which would have worked just as well in the singular, although grid symmetry requires the plural.
The rest left me somewhat cold. Didn't seem to have that usual Everyman wit. Exceptions were my COD 19a, and 14, which took me a bit, but once I saw it I thought it quite clever.
I'm wondering if I've got 21d correct because it means the 4 letter word in 26a is ?O?D and, while there is an obvious word that fits with eating, it has nothing to do with 'chicken' (other than in a very general sense)
Thanks to Everyman.
Fun to solve, but wordplay a mixed bag. Agreed on the 8 slip.
I really enjoyed a few clues, e.g. 4, 1a, 12 and 16.
But there were a few that didn't impress.
And 23? Really? Never seen that one before...not. 🤣
Brendan, I have the same issues with 26a but wrote in that solution anyway. One of the few clues that didn't impress.
I wrote in the obvious guess to 21d but parsing escapes me so far.