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Hiya folks,

Well, I'm in a real tizzy this week with lots of superb clues with many very intricately compiled wordplays, some great extractions and straight anagrams, foriegn words, acronyms (new to me) and hidden pieces, however, you all know I love a great surface read and two clues stuck out for me this week which read quite beautifully.
So in a close second place, i've gone for the eloquently devised offering from mattrom at POST 8 with what I feel was an uplifting Def to say the least (likely to get your Irish up) but maybe could rouse a few political wrangles with the Sinn Fein/IRA Ref.
And in First place this week for a clue which I thought had all the inner workings of a perfect clue, excellently place exclamation marks to point to a partial &lit and surface reading that is short, sweet and, in my opinion, faultless, goes to -

Rambler at POST 2 for his beauty:

Manicured? Not me - I'm bristly!

Well done Rambler, here is your prize (No offence intended to Iracund ladies)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwPg2oarG_c

Lovely rambler, hit the spot even on first read. Cheers Les, "proper job".

Congratulations rambler, first cab off the rank and a great clue!
Thanks les40 for hosting and the word - also I really appreciated the mention.

Congratulations, rambler. Very nice. Thanks, Les.

Excellent rambler , thanks Les

Congrats, rambler and thanks Les

I had almost decided not to enter Clueless because some of the clues submitted are so clever that I can't parse them even with the answer and I struggled last time I set the competion. When I looked in this week in and saw the set word I exclaimed 'oh dear' or words to that effect. However, my little clue emerged straight away and I couldn't resist.
Hilarious prize, les, have we had 'misogynist' yet? ;)
Thanks for the kind comments - see you all next week .

Congrats rambler
Cheers Les

While you are all looking in....
I'm aware that some Clueless setters hate entrants to parse clues and others encourage it, which makes it difficult to make rules about this. In next week's preamble I've put 'please parse complicted wordplay', putting the onus on the entrant to include a parse if they wish and allowing me to ignore clues I don't understand.

Well done Rambler. I agree!