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Thanks Kite.

Somewhat underwhelming as the real thing. Not Kite's fault.

geeker here mentioned something last week, and it happens.

25a, 11d last two in. Not sure of the correct spelling of 11d; guessed the last four letters and worked the wordplay.

Likes: 15a, 25a, 13d, 21d

COD: 25a

Lovely themed offering from Kite. Not too tough but very enjoyable. I can imagine that it will please some regulars here in particular.
FOI 9, LOI 7 (for some reason the lateral thinking eluded me).
COD? Probably 25, even though the surface doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Ilippu
I didn’t know 11d at all, to my shame, so it was all wordplay and crossers for me.

Thanks, Kite.

I've been sapped by hot weather this week, which decreased motivation. Fun solve but rather gentle. The expected theme quickly revealed itself. About 3/4 of the grid was a write-in, but there were a few toughies. Needed Google for 22, 23 and 17 (I'd seen the latter word but it didn't jump to mind).
Being American, I was rather chuffed to solve 11 from wordplay sans Google assistance, though the crossers were a big help.

FOI 1a, LOI 11.

Not many clues stood out. COD candidate list 11, 16, 18, 21 and 25. The nod goes to 25 because I like the tricky wordplay device; solved it quickly because a similar clue appeared in last week's Prize (8d).

Thanks to Kite for this timely puzzle.

There are two answers I can't fully parse...

17a - I can see 4 "invalid" then "one" and the definition, but can't see how the last 4 letters are "short diver" - I can see that it's an abbreviation for a 10 letter 'professional' shall we say, and yes, they definitely jump sometimes - but when do they ever "diver"?

8d - There's only a few words that fit the letter pattern and I was surprised to see that one could mean "ruin", but I cannot see the wordplay at all - is "charles the second" the last letter, if so how do the rest come from "depressed about"?

Brendan,

"sky XXXr"?

8d: "Charles the second" is 2nd letter of "Charles". Parses as 3, 1 where the 3 is a reversal.

Thanks Geeker,

I actually had an I for rhe second letter of 8d and stopped looking (even though there was an obvious word for "depressed" reversed/'about') because Chambers says the word I had does mean "ruin"!

Like I said, it really suprised me because I've never heard it used in that respect - gossip maybe, but that's not the same thing.

Brendan, re. 8d I've heard this phrase often
https://tinyurl.com/myk7anm5
and thought it was fairly common usage.

No sorry Geeker, I didn't explain myself correctly.

It was my incorrect initial answer (spelt with an I) that Chambers says can also mean "ruin", and so I stopped there.

I have no excuse for not seeing the more obvious correct answer.

Senior moment, maybe!

Thanks to Kite for a timely puzzle. Also had 11 and 25 at the end, but I have 25 as my COD. Like geeker I’m feeling proud of myself for piecing together 11. Appropriately, a good day for the Yanks.