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hikE uP is the "ends to" part, wretched means anagram. Fuji is a type of these.

3D is a type of fruits without the word fruit in it, making another (plural) fruit.

Thanks ParadigmShifter (Grampida). I got it all in a moment. Always thought reverse was Eastern European, but maybe shortened is American.

Didn't realise Grampida was answer to my username clue :)

It's from my old username on Gamedev.net and it refers to the paradigm switch in thinking about the world with regards to object oriented programming vs. procedural programming.

"Always thought reverse was Eastern European, but maybe shortened is American."

Don't know what you mean by that... the clue refers to what you would want in an American 25 (in fact a 4 25) instead of 22D, which is why you would send it back to the kitchen ;)

PS, 17 is a 4 letter reversal (an American term for 25) containing a 3 letter word of which 22 is an example (‘say’). Defn is ‘these are different’, as in a different variety to 22

Ah ok. It made sense to me without having to do that anyway :)

And it was also obvious because of the clue to 4 25, I guessed 25 seeing the themed words and then worked out 4 when I had most of the crossers.

Well thank goodness I jopined the forum at 3.00pm after 2 hours of not getting any. That is when I discovered I was doing the wrong crossword (Friday's Paul instead of today's Philistine).

I've actually finished the right one now (it must be a record for me). Maybe it was the painkillers I'm taking for my back, but I found it easy. I haven't read through the thread yet as I like to see how many I can get before asking for help. One or two questions:

Despite getting the answer for 8ac very early, I'd never heard of this and it wasn't in my Chambers. I've now googled it.
I can't explain 17ac, but it fits with other clues
I had trouble with 20ac , but finally saw it.
4,25 I got from crossers and other answers, but where is the definition in the clue?
13d I can't parse all the answer
16d what has the decond half got to do with taking oath?

I shall now read the thread and see if the answers are there.

In case you are interested my back went on Wednesday after a traumatic experience getting a new phone and sitting on a terrible seat in EE. I've been to my physio, but it is still bad. I found some ancient (2011) painkillers that seem to be working, so hope to be back to normal tomorrow.

Most of those are covered in the rest of the thread.

4 is an anagram of the first part of clue and the rest is "may be a combination of" e.g. in the common(?) phrase "word 25", I think.

13D: First 3 letters + last letter is the car. Surrounding words which could mean "working battery" ;)

16D: letters 4-7 in the answer is an (archaic) mild oath, and then you should see the Frenchman :)

And best wishes regarding your back.