Puzzle time

A change for this special Christmas edition of Digest. Rather than regurgitate everyone’s tweets about Monday’s snow or Friday’s over-eating, Digest is following in the best tradition of Christmas publishing and giving you a crossword!

You can either download a printable version, which might be easier, or the clues and grid are below. All the answers to clues in italics are to do with the area (that’s most of the down words and a couple of the across ones). Then rearrange the letters in the shaded squares to find a phrase associated with the neighbourhood in 2009.

Answers will be printed in next Sunday’s Digest Review of the Year. If you’d like to send in your solution, contact @WHampstead for an e-mail address. There might even be a prize.

Across
1. Girl in chains meets locals here (3,5,5)
7. I don’t go north-east in old London bus (5)
8. A judge decrees you can call me (5)
10. Caesar spends second millennium in Norwegian town (4)
12. Only time will tell of Clannad split (4)
13. Fish’s raw greeting (2)
14. Abbreviated sum of online chat (2)
17. Breathe in album from the classical/modernist tradition (5)
19. Need one of Titmuss’s 51 excuses for 4 down (5)
20. Heading in that direction (2)
22. A millionth of the Greeks can’t be wrong (2)
24. Slow birds get confused at night (4)
27. Sediment pressure reshapes list of soils (4)
28. Amid the wailing sir, enchanting music (5)
29. Puzzled goat on South Island (5)
30. Habito, ergo sum (4,9)

Down
1. Staging Wagner’s Ring three times (8)
2. Walk slower than Pele (8)
3. Johnnys come to the bar after hours (7)
4. Blackberry maker falsely claims it falls within European standard (5)
5. Go lightly this season to avoid prick (5)
6. Kilburn icon’s condition (5)
9. Posting bits long before Twitter (5)
11. Separates Frognal from Thatcher’s thoroughfare (3)
15. Grind out the pathway (4,4)
16. Dwarves’ Hi-Ho drags us to Kilburn panto (4.4)
18. Step up to the dining table this Xmas (5)
19. Fry et al. tell of Norse God down under (7)
21. Initially preceding Silverlink (3)
23. Route in front of Spanish square (5)
25. Tool raises money for #whampforgood (5)
26. Mates power early Met Line trains (5)