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This one was definitely tougher than usual, but I didn't think it was off the charts so. My COD is 23a; got the entry right away, but took quite awhile to figure out how it worked. Nice misdirection there.

16a. Gibberish to me.
17 a.
19a.

I'm afraid I'm now going to have to eat humble pie for my Bah Humbug earlier. I'm 1a sorry chaps.
I took another look and immediately got 1a, then 3d, and the 11d rhyming pair. It all started to click and went 1a well from that point on.
15a slowed me down as I'm more used to the other spelling for the 'long time'.
Btw why do posh people use 1a to mean 'very'? I've never understood, probably because I'm a 1a long way from being posh ;)

Darla@50, your logic is sound, but Chris’s point is that with the third word, “anger” you don’t just take the “g” …

Well, what a slog, been looking at this forum all day, in between bouts of DIY. Not had time to really check the hints. So, agree it was more difficult than usual, and yet how does one define that. Anyway got there eventually when i had a PDM for 1d which enabled 9a. But are any of you really going to take an interest in how I got there? More importantly is to offer you a decent festive season. When will we see Spooner again I wonder, been absent for a while.

druh
16a OH = I'm surprised
M is abbrev for Monsieur (Frenchman)
last 4 letters is a kind of salad
def. is the last 3 words

druh
17a def. mistakenly

in terror (how you may draw back ) minus T

druh
19a. def. somewhere on the Med(iterranean)
IS + I ( the writer) inside 4 letters for a latge fish

Don't know if this is the right way to post a new comment but don't see any mention of 3 dn where "board" is not the same thing as the second word of the answer. That's why you can have both or or just one of them.

Thank you