Wow!! That was tough. Several easy ones and then a brick wall. Several revisits until I got the theme and some more fell into place. Finally I only had 11a left - which I still couldn't work out even given the fact that I had 6 of the 12 letters and was aware of the process required to complete the word! It's in there now and I've learned a new word :-) Thanks Puck. That was a struggle but an enjoyable one.
All done now, thanks for the tips along the way. Last ones in were 12d and 25d, been a long time since I did any Spanish. 11a and 20a were also new words to me. Think I'll stick with 23a as my COD. Thanks Puck :-)
13a was my FOI as I visited Edinburgh fairly recently.
11 and 20 were also new words for me.
There were some easy write-ins but also a few that I still need to parse properly, although I'm sure the answers are correct.
I think the point that was being made about the lack of proper definition for 9a is that the second word is well-known in this context, but the pair of words isn't (and it's difficult to see how it could be achieved!)
I saw 7d described as having 2 letters removed from a word meaning excites, but I think it's just the "first stripper's top" that is removed - the second "stripper's top" remains as the final letter.
Hi brendan
After jono's hint, I think it's more complicated than that. Take the word for "excites" and remove its first letter and also an internal "stripper's top". Not a good clue, as I said earlier.