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Thanks Les and ab for all your efforts. So many good clues, but my favourites were Bullfrog’s 24ac (surely the pick of the answers for cluing, but so well done), ixion’s well-constructed 80ac, bobs mum’s 8dn for its clever misdirection and slh’s 41dn for a good anagram and surprising answer. My New Year’s resolution is to finally solve one of ab’s without having to wait for the wordplay to know why.

Happy New Year to all.

rosalind: Of course ixion's evil. Haven't you ever done his Weekend Warm-up? He uses it to prepare us for hell.

peterm: Have there been adjustments to your shadowiness? We know (for example) that pastille is a naughty collectivist plotter, that ixion wrote his PhD thesis on Family Guy, and that THEA's sermons have got to be many-layered, but what do we know about you? I perhaps missed your tell-all post with downloadable bio. :)

All done bar chrise's fiendish 78d - all the more annoying because somewhere in the deep recesses I was aware of the quote - and a blank first letter at 17a (I couldn't decide between A & H)
Favourites include aristo at 1d, bobs mum at 8d, ab at 42 (although I needed the parsing explained) slh at 85a, and, as usual, anything by that international man of mystery peterm.
Thanks for all who appreciated 24a (I'd love to say that I slaved long and hard over it, but I'd be lying) and thanks to Les & ab for the hard work. Is it nearly time for the next one yet?

Wow. In 2 posts I've gone from "shadowy" to "international man of mystery". I'm beginning to feel like James Bond.

My life is an open book.

Yeah, right.

Have now just managed to finish the Christmas JE (albeit with some help from the wordplay).

So thanks to les40 and ab for their unstinting good work and to all the other contributors who are a very clever and devious bunch.

Thanks to peterm and bullfrog for the mention (loved your 24a bullfrog) .

Thanks again to Les and AB for the time they put into this, thought this was the trickiest one...so far.

Thank you Les and of course AB ....have to admit I only got half way through before reverting to look at the answers, enjoyed trying though.

Thank you for the mention Mr A, the original International man of Mr A....

A naughty collectivist plotter....I like it....I think?

Mr A...get back to me....

Very good, pastille- man of Mr A.