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As expected, Azed's Christmas offering is a special, on this occasion a Playfair puzzle. The Playfair encryption code, named after its inventor, substitutes letters in pairs rather than singly - more details in the preamble. It also requires a key word. In this puzzle, four solutions are to be encrypted before entry. There are computer algorithms for finding the keyword if you have sufficient encoded letters, and this worked without ambiguity on this occasion.
Happy solving!

I gave this a miss. A bete noir along with Printer's Devilry.

Bete noire!!

It's mostly a straight-forward solve and there are now tools on the web which you can use to find the Playfair code word once you have several pairs of letters provided by solved normal clues.

Barretter and Buzybee, I’m aware of the tools offered by Quinapalus (although I’ve never fully explored the depths of that site). Are there others?

Jono
Quinapalus is what I used. Very straightforward.

Thanks, BuzzyBee, I’ll give it a try.

To be honest, online tools are not necessary for this Playfair. The pairs given are extremely generous, and it only took me ten minutes to work the word out with a pencil and paper. A sequence of four letters appears very quickly, and after that there are precious few options (only one, actually). It’s a shame that solving them has become a dying art, imho. But I know it’s a minority view!

Well if makes any others feel better I' m two hours down the line and have still not solved it. I have a four letter sequence but mine suggests lots of options. I'll battle on and come back in when the family depart.

Williamseal, I didn’t mean to sound smug, sorry. I think two other letters in the keyword also reveal themselves, and the Chambers app should do the rest. Fair play to you for trying it without aids 😉