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Hiya everyone,

Here is the Solution to the Christmas Special grid. Also the wordplay file thankfully created by AB again.

Hope this answers any question marks, however, feel free to comment on clues and give any plaudits to fellow setters cryptic work.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18643289/Joint%20Effort%20Xmas%20Special%202012%20SOLUTION.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18643289/Xmas_JE_Solution_and_wordplay.pdf

Thanks again to all who took part in setting and solving.

Les40

Very many thanks to Les for the organisation and entertainment, and to AB for producing the wordplay file.

Just one letter wrong - I had NOE (singular of "noes"?) instead of NOR at 82dn, but several I couldn't parse - EA (to be deleted) in 55ac passed me by, and I hadn't heard of the magnate STEAD.

One question - 47ac why is DWARF = CHECK?

As previously stated, favourites wre the contentions 24ac from bullfrog, 17ac from BBM2 and 70ac from Les.

Already looking forward to the next one!

Many thanks Les I managed about 3 / 4 in the end. Highly entertaining and diverting over Xmas. Favourite clue has to be 24a from Bullfrog.

chris e, I think if you dwarf something, like a tree, you check its growth

My favourite is still 24 ac. Also like 17 ac very much (though I had put A Bomb), BBm, 8d Bob's Mum, 25 ac (aristo) and 61 dn (Les) when I finally understood it!
Ive never watched "Only Fools and Horses" so that clue foxed me, and I only got the Linford Christie one with Les's hint.
I had written down Adrenals as a possible answer to 65dn but didn't get the definition of "boosters". Clever!
Finally (you'll be pleased to see) should it have been "First Labour PM?" not MP, as the first Labour MP was Keir Hardie and I got stuck on that (22dn). Or was that deliberate?

@rosalind - sorry, didn't mean to confuse. Obviously PM got transposed to MP by mistake (I never noticed it)

No worries RE- and actually I had thought you must be SLH and grinned. Are you going to become the EB?

I can't believe i made that mistake Rosalind, well spotted. The original clue had PM and I made the mistake of typing it the wrong way round as MP. It wouldn't be the Joint Effort if I didn't make one mistake, I think I've dropped at least one clanger in the edit of every one I've done.

New Years Resolution = Don't make mistakes.... Yeah right! Ha ha

Only one question: isn't A-BOMB just as good as H-BOMB for 17a ??? It's my only one "wrong"!

@rosalind - probably not, have run out of email addresses!

In answer to my own question: Bikini was the scene of the first A-bomb test in 1946; in 1956 of the first H-bomb test (source: American People's Encyclopaedia !). OK, bigbadmarty2 , les , and others: are we going to allow both?