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Son, you were right about the fancy, anagram - I missed that.

I got lucky quite early as I put a few of the themed answers into Google and got the 26 letter phrase straight away.

I've still got some solving to do but I'm really enjoying it.

What a superb puzzle from Oxymoron - great clues and a fantastic endgame.

There are three clues I can't fully parse....

12a I assume the last two letters are from "yellow" but can't find any justification for the the first five from "trick".

13a again, I assume the last letter is "love" but why are the first five "limited"?

17a If the B is from "breadth" and the final two letters from "sex appeal", how are the first three letters arrived at?

Actually, non of these are themed so the clues are normal...

12a Trick yellow fifth columnist (7)

13a Limited love island (6)

17a English writer without backing, breadth and sex appeal (6)

I have the answers to all three so just need the parsing.

Hi Brendan, I'm just starting this one, but my printed 13th ed. of Chambers has
12a, under 'trick', 'a characteristic habit, mannerism or ......'
13a. the first 5 letters (French) = limited
17a. the first 3 letters reversed (abb. of an Italian word) = without

Thanks so much Mattrom, they were driving me crazy.

You're in for a real treat with this:-)

Your question has given me a good start, anyway.

It's amazing, if anyone was to ask I would confidently have said that I had checked every entry in Chambers for those three clues and nothing was there, but after Mattrom pointed them out I looked again and - hey presto!

A belated - and further - thank you, malone.

I have a full grid with all the undefined encoded & entered + the three with definitions. I cannot, however, figure out the relevance of the title.