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Goodness, that was fun. Beautifully themed, lots of wit. Huge thanks to
Brockwell
FOI 26, LOI 17a (took me longer than it should have to parse).
COD? Spoilt for choice. But the 70s child in me loved 11 and 8.
What a joy.

Fully agreed.
Hats off to Brockwell for a brilliant (trademarked) thematic construction.

Fortunately I saw the theme early, and it helped greatly with solving, but I still rank the puzzle on the difficult side. Enjoyable time well spent.

FOI 5, LOI 7 which required Google for unknown GK.

Many of the thematics were COD worthy.
I'll go with 6 as my somewhat arbitrary COD. Others of note: 18, 13, 9, 23, 12, 13 and 8.

Another excellently themed puzzle by the Forum favourite Brockwell.

I found this much more challenging than his other offerings but that's no bad thing - it is a Prize after all:-)

I still haven't parsed 17a and the final 3 letters of 11a, and am not sure how the answer to 9a equates to "solver" - but it's late and I'm tired so perhaps I'll get a PDM after some rest.

How many themed answers have you spotted? Let us know in the comments.

COD:- 5d, purely because I had her album on constantly when I was on holiday in Tenerife in the 80's - great days.

Thanks to Brockwell for a real workout.

Stay safe:-)

On the thematic side, given 16a I was shocked to find no allusion to (avoiding spoilers) a Soviet department store. 😏

Hi Brendan
I’ll leave you to sleep on 17 and 11, but as you asked how many themed answers we could spot, I will say that 9 is one of them.

9 is a great clue IMO, albeit one of many in the grid.

Very good, geeker! No need for me to chew over that one 😉

Thanks Geeker,

I've just Googled the name and recognised it straight away.

I've now parsed17a so that just leaves the final 3 letters of 11a (assuming the first 3 come from "essentially foulmouthed")

Your assumption is correct, Bren.

Ahh, I get caught out by that definition of "terms" every time!!

Many thanks Roger:-)