Cryptic crossword No 2,314

Nice one. Fez. Nice to see you back. Everything solved and parsed bar one which I meant to go back to and forgot! What a lot of solutions you managed to pack into the grid. 11a, 16a, 29a, 37a, 39a, 5d, 12d, 19d and 35d the pick of the bunch for me but there were plenty of others I enjoyed. Thanks. PM

Welcome back! And a Fezzy puzzle for sure 😁 loved the theme (even though I fell slightly short, more in reply) and especially liked the clue surfaces where you worked in proper nouns, often in a very sneaky way (looking at 1a, 16a, 38a, 35d) ->

That was a delightful full-fat Fezzy puzzle putting a smile on my face from start to finish. Similar to Henri, I was particularly enamoured with 1a (satisfyingly chunky), 16a (satisfyingly tricksy) and 38a (satisfyingly realistic surface and cunning use of a song title), while other faves include 9a (very cute trick), 10a (neat), 14a (smooth), 33a (likewise), 12d (likewise), 21d (nice) and 32d (not seen a good one of these in a while)...

About 1/4 though and greatly enjoying this! Stopping briefly to applaud 9a

Thanks Fez for an enjoyable romp. My top picks were 9a, 24a, 34a, 7d, 19d, and 30d. I needed your notes to understand 11a, 18d, 28d, and 35d. More in reply.

Lovely stuff Fez, thanks. Solved yesterday evening and back now to comment. Great to have a dose of Fezziness again. Hard to pick favourites, but … : 9a, 16a (COTD), 33a, 37a, 39a, 5d, 12d and 17d.

Wow, I got some of the way, mostly by luck and guesses! I will need to do many more of your puzzles to get a handle on your tricks. Of those I actually got via wordplay, 38a was my favourite, along with 9a (I tried someone who could be argued to be an intellectual artist)and 27a. Thanks for the workout!

With other priorities ATM, I solved this (nearly!) over around 10 sessions. But even though I only snacked rather than gorged myself, it was such a wonderfully Fezzy puzzle. So much wit and ingenuity to enjoy, all delivered with seemingly effortless ease. A joy! FWIW I really liked 11a, 16a, 24a, 33a, 4d, 7d, 18d, 28d, 32d, 35d but pick any other 10 as well!

Cheers Fez. Lots to like (too many to list) but my favourites from a great bunch were 9a, 18a, 37a and 38a