Across

  7. Planet with assumed name endlessly becomes December festival of revelry. (10)

  9. Repents being Mediterranean shrubs. (4)

10. Fashionable fit of ill-humour as teens are upset and given to heavy drinking. (15)

11. Wise man has some imagination! (4)

12. Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
      Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that,
      Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
      He’s but a ---- for a’ that. - Robert Burns. (4)

13. Shelter with just a fork? Be wary. (5)

15. Repair minaret roof to create a great religious revolution. (11)

19, 18dn. Medieval festival has pleasurable abundance of pureed fruits and custards. (5,2,5)

21. This mischievous ruse often comes with a fee. (4)

22. Fish makes crazy shout when using a driver perhaps, or iron. (4)

24. Scottish equivalent of 8 dn. if a baboon’s fortune is mixed. (5,2,8)

25. Start some nasty idle talk to bring on fit of sulking. (4)

26. Drive from here with little supporter, but hardly the way to experience 10 ac. (10)

                                                           Down

1. Dispute with Georgia an awful sin? Yes, indeed! (7)

2. Certainly, pull the trigger – it’s infallible. (8)

  3. Small hotel ghost, one hears, is someone who checks things over. (9)

  4. Truths that can have alternative versions, per Kellyanne Conway, (5)

  5, 6. Consider steps to convert French equivalent of 8 dn. (6,3,4)

  8. Christmas revels leader turned sour with older film. (4,2,7)

14. Place to keep potatoes, perhaps, or roots more exotic. (9)

16. Perfume from a parsnip has poop stirred with an ax! (8)

17. Aussie tree with antelope and insect going up to note. (7)

18. See 19 ac.

20. Young salmon from south sheds feathers. (6)

23. Stall chap who shot man in box. (5)

                                                                  Notes

E-mail your solutions of The Very Logical Prize Puzzle No. 396 by the closing date of 4 p.m. (EST) on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, to johnnolan755@gmail.com and include your name, postal address and your choice of a Strip T’s shirt***, should you be the drawn winner. Please include a second choice (design number and size) just in case we are out of stock of your favorite T-shirt. The items on Café Press are not in our stock and thus are not available as prizes.

Solutions can also be mailed to John Nolan, 27 River Road, Farmington, NH, 03835.

Most answers, except proper names, appear in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 10th edition and/or The Chamber’s Dictionary, revised 13th edition. In this "British-style" crossword, punctuation marks in clues are best ignored, as a rule.

The solution to The Very Logical Prize Puzzle No. 396, along with the name of the winner, and everyone else submitting correct solutions, will be published on this site towards the end of January.

***P.S. The cost of mailing one T-shirt overseas has quadrupled in recent years and is now over $24 a pop, effectively killing the trade of small businesses like Strip T’s. Thus, the prize now offered to winning puzzlers from outside the U.S. (and within if preferred) will be a signed Stephanie cartoon rather than a T-shirt.

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