Thank you everyone - it wasn’t the richest word to work with but you created a wealth of delightful clues. Particularly good to see some new or nearly new setters who are really most welcome and all already on the money.
Mattrom got us started and contributed two clues in which I would have struggled with the parsing – her erudite is my recondite! Her second included the first of two false presidents that we were to encounter, with Bush moonlighting, double duty. For her third - I had wondered if Stanley Bay might be visited – I think there’s one in Hong Kong too.
Hannah followed shortly, again I struggled, I was looking for a LREL to put the gold into but I see her point.
Jack then fired up with a pithy pair – including the first of a few uses of UR; I don’t know what everyone else made of “The foreigners” but it made me chuckle. He returned later with a neat subtractive anagram.
Paul joined the party with 7 & 8; I’m glad he tweaked 6: 7 was a much smoother clue. 8 smooth too.
Faiton then exploded into view with a mighty five contributions: 11 good and pithy: with 12 I felt that the problem was that it was arguably non-cryptic, but had he/she riffed on Hardy perennial (which of course Laurel is) he/she might have got somewhere very interesting. 15 was fun; then you went with those films in 16 and 20, thank you Faiton for being so patient with my ignorance!
ChrisE ever the anagrammer gave a smooth, succinct 13.
Tango then matched Faiton with a handful of artful clues… for me 17 was a little wordy, but others may disagree. El was new to me in 21; 24 was very clever although I think a solver would be doing very well to figure out the Jefferson! 26 really very neat and 32 was a charming clue!
Liked Granama’s Siren – very clever wordplay!
Jamoza – 22 very inventive and like Granama’s, nice and smooth.
Tyke gave us a smart trio: an ultra pithy 23: 25 was very stylish though some might have struggled with that reference. 27 disarmingly smooth.
Marty – I almost loved 31, it was so nearly a winner, but I couldn’t see why it needed ‘iconic part’? For ‘laurel’ Chambers gives ‘crown of laurel’ which for my money makes G/garland a perfectly good definition.
So to the horrible job – I’ve got a shortlist of 6 clues from as many setters but I’m going to plump for Granama1 @ 19 with his/her witty
Sounds like the siren was cut short leaving the bay (6)
Congratulations to Granama and here’s your prize. Thanks again to all competitors and well done all for making my job so hard!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNwKIsguo-Q
See you next week, I hope.
M