Ok so here are the answers and the warped justifications for them. I think next year I'll need to make it a bit easier.
1. The Walk of Life, LIFFE is a trading exchange, less f is life, a walk of life.
2. Grotto Slab Not hard, Mod, Stanage Popular End, Santa's grotto etc
3. Batchelor's Left Hand, local to Keele BA, Soup, not right.
4. Caesarian, Member of the Royal College of Obs & Gynaecologists, delivery C section E4
5. E1, MRCoS is a Surgeon, leisurely walk is a saunter, Surgeon's Saunter is E1.
6. Banana at Bowles. Peter Bowles was famous for staring in the TV sit com only when I laugh, and fruity.
7. Freddies Finale, Andrew Flintoff, aka Freddy Flintoff, Freddie, swansong = finale
8. Video Nasty, Stanage
9. Mutiny Crack. Substitute an 'I' for a 'Y' in 'in a crypt' and the anagram is Pitcairn, with the Bounty should lead you to Mutiny, and Crack and VS should do the rest. One of the harder ones?
10. Living in Oxford. Resident = living, Basra is in Mesopotamia which is also the name of an area in the Parks in Oxford, with arete
11. Incantations. Defn. words spoken during a ritual, either a hymn or prayer invoking or praising a deity also ESK capitalised and the grade.
12. Old Faithful, Very Sound = VS; S . . . AGE = Swanage. Old Faithful is a Geyser, never been let down = faithful.
13. Culloden, the last battle on mainland Britain and the date of the FA of the route by Ben Moon in 1990.
14. Andy Pollitt, clue Boot Boys; real bloke's bloke = tru(e)man capote the fight about rumble in the jungle
15. Hunky Dory, Bowies fourth album, the end of a spliff = roach, plural ~ roaches.
16. Arcturus, missing out on bronze, fourth brightest = intelligent, the fourth brightest star in the Northern sky is Arcturus.
17. Brant. Natural fibre = bran, before time t, also the cliff of the cauldron
18. The Marisco Tavern Lundy, Lundi has it's roots in the name for the Puffin and Swailing is forestry term for controlled burning.
19. Nosferatu and Bat out of Hell. Both related to vampires.
20. Borstal Breakout. Short Sharp Shock was the policy to deal with youth crime and Jim and Dave were the FA's.
21. The YDS system, take yds and add a the A from the grade and the R from right to form the word YARDS, after all how many grading systems are there?
22. Font(ainebleau) a gift
23. Grand Opera, Grand Ole Opre (less the olé) and with a slightly different pronunciation.
24. .5 gully 1 – 8 – 15 in the word order are base, rate, interest and the current BoE base rate is .5% a historic low
25. Help the Aged. Should be obvious
26. Cavalry, religious connotations, 12, stations, angry = cross, nailed I'm going to hell.
27. Birchen's edge, naval references being consistent with the proliferation of naval route names, AB = able seaman, and so on.
28. Stanage without Oxygen, crag, Stanage Stan . . . an Ge, no phone signal = without 02 mobile phone company.
29. Lost in France, Burbage north, Bonnie Tyler's long song and a short route. Not Tyler Landman, deary me yoof of today....
30. Perfect Day, Gardom's Edge. The clue is Lou Reed's Transformer, the middle track being Perfect Day,
Cheers
