Solving time - about 30 mins

Very apposite theme with New Year’s Eve fast approaching…I was held up for a long time because I foolishly put in EPSILON for 4dn, without reading the wordplay properly. This prevented me from getting 11 and 13ac for a long time, until I finally got the anagram in 7dn and everything fell into place. Quite a few unusual words today too, but only 5dn and 17dn were unknown to me.

Across
8 SHAKES UP - HAKE inside PUSS rev.
11 SHITTAHS (that’s his)* - easy with the right checking letters, as I’d come across this before, but for a long time I had I_I at the start and was trying to figure out why the answer should be “IRISHMAN”.
12 FIEF, i.e. “thief” in a London accent.
13 BILL, BRYSON (Byron’s)* - another one that I got quickly once I had the right checking letters, but at first I had B_O_ for the first word so it looked like BOOK something.
15 POLYGAM - hidden in MonoPOLY GAMe.
16 R.E.,QUITE - meaning “pay back”, the reverse of “back pay”
18 ATT(MEN,U rev)ENT(ion) - took a bit of figuring out.
22 TW(1L)IT - a smacker=a pound=IL
23 MO,USER

Down
2 SKIN OFF YOUR NOSE - I’ve heard of the phrase “It’s no skin off my nose” meaning “I don’t care about it”, but I don’t get this at all. Anybody care to explain?
4 E(PIST(o)L)E - caused me a lot of trouble (see above) because I had _P, saw “letter” and “in quarters” and thought EPSILON, without reading the clue properly.
5 KAKI (”khaki”) - a.k.a. the Chinese date plum - I checked in the dictionary just to make sure it wasn’t CAKI. A couple of the less well-known words had some very unfriendly unches.
7 NIGHT ON THE TILES (Not the hit single)* - took longer than it should have to get this. I think my first attempt gave something like “stone in the light”. I only cracked it when I got 2dn from the checking letters.
17 T(ED)ESCO - straightforward wordplay when you see it, but with _E_E_C_ it could be anything. It’s the Italian word for “German”. Last one I got, being very tempted to guess TERENCE as it was the only word I could think of that fit at first.

Another excellent puzzle by Merlin , which I mostly solved quickly but was slow to finish.

Solving time: 21 mins

* = anagram

ACROSS

1 GO (energy) + SPEL(l) (endless charm)

9 BEAT + IF (provided) + I + C

10 ROOMS. Good image and misleading context. MOOR (rev) +S (spades - cards). Digs = lodging (less common today than once)

12 THOUGH (allowing) + ST (rev) = holy man = saint (St)

18 AN + TEA + TER(mites) i.e. “not” small ones (mites) . An & lit as well of course.

21 o(RATIO)n

23 ENTRANCE Double definition - a wonderful clue with a pleasing picture.

24 TAT + TOO (besides)

DOWN

2 OMEGA Cleverly hidden.     Only got it late on. “The last of a series”. In this case the Greek alphabet, in which Omega is the last letter - also used figuratively “Alpha to Omega”

4 The last I solved. Think of office = the loo. In the wordplay element “down”, I think, means “disappointed” after losing the seat. LEFT THE SEAT DOWN

6 PERSONALITY CULT (COPY STALIN RULE)* + T (tyrant’s foremost) A wonderful &lit clue giving an accurate description and involving the man to whom the term was, I think, first applied after he was denounced in 1956. Solved it first time round, but it might depend on whether you were familiar with the history and/or the phrase. Lot of Old Left stuff recently with Hammer & Sickle on Boxing Day.

7 STOP + GAP Another wonderful clue

14 HIT-AND-RUN Cryptic definition. “Repair” here in the sense “go off” as the car causing the accident does. “Straight I will repair to the Curragh of Kildare” as in the old folk love song.

1 7 NEGLECT C (cold) in (GENTLE)* More excellent surface.

Solving time 14:30

This one slipped my mind in the run-up to Christmas so here it is about 5 days late. Lots more high-quality clue-writing from Nestor here. If you think I’m exaggerating, sit down with some squared paper, make yourself a grid and set of answers, and then try to write some clues that read as well as this. Lots of novel devices used, so a fairly tough puzzle, but I was never really badly stuck. I don’t think there are any hidden messages in the grid but I wouldn’t be very surprised to be corrected.