Solving time: 5:12

The quickest of the week so far for me. A couple of excellent cryptic definitions (12dn/13dn). No theme that I can see, but then I usually can’t.

Beginners’ tips of the day: ‘alien’ = E.T.,’meadow’ = LEA, ‘the main’ = the sea.

* = anagram.

Lots of traditional Christmas references which forced some of the other words to be a little less familiar, I guess, but Quixote gave accessible clues for them. Reminded me of when I first began to tackle crosswords - at Christmastime, and, just like this, they had that seasonal feel.

Solving time: 25 mins

ACROSS

11 HO(L)LY Was tricked by “religious decoration” - in fact the definition/wordplay split is between those two words. Good

13 A + PP + END + IX (nine in Roman numerals). Got this first time round.

20 NO WELL Favourite clue in puzzle. Excellent. Spring meaning well and also “not winter”.

24 PINNER (in Middlesex) in SET

28 AL (Capone) + LEG = on + RO (run out) - the last two are cricket references. Allegro is quickly (musical instruction). No indication of this in definition such as e.g. “scored”. I think this is quite OK.

DOWN

1 DISH (Something like CHRISTMAS PUDDING) + EATEN (consumed) around R last letter (end) of December. Tricky and among the last I solved. “Consumed” is often used as a containing indicator, though not of course here which was part of the trickery of the clue.

3 BINYON - Poet whose works appear often on war memorials . YON = that. “writer originally held up” means, before YON, put NIB (reversed) “held up” in a down clue.

6 P(ASS)IONS little things = small particles (physics). Last clue I solved, though had ASS pencilled in from early on.

7 CUMMIN “Comin’ ”

8 INNS Regularly - take every other letter of Winnings

17 ILL + IN + O (duck - more cricket, i.e. scored no runs) + IS. “State” appearing in a clue always screams to me US state (of which there are only 50, some more suitable to crosswords than others) so I solved this first time round.

19 A P (PAN) AGE Friendly wordplay for the unfamiliar word which means, among other things, a perquisite.

21 WE (Our group) “dominating” (link in a down clue) IR (Irish) DO (party)

25 RAGS Hidden (reversed) Indicator (for a down clue) is “turned over”

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.