I'd like to have a stab at Blob's - is it THEORISE? (I wouldn't be surprised if it was wrong though.)

Raak copied the buggy v1.0 of my outstanding clue. It's:
Small animal said to be run over by learner driver (6)

Is Rab a learner driver? If so, I wondered if it could be RABBIT (that is, Rab-hit)... just me clutching at straws again, I suppose.

No. It doesn't require anything outside general knowledge - although it could be a rubbish clue. There is a big clue in the amendment. The definition is 'driver'.

Been thinking about this one for ages now - the small animal combined with the learner might suggest the word: GOLFER - GOPHER with 'L' a driver is used in golf, etc etc. I'm having a problem, however, with the phrase 'run over' . If I'm correct perhaps you can explain the last bit of hidden text.

[Chalky] I believe you've got it: Small animal = GOPHER. Small animal said = GOFER. "Run over by learner" means insert an L, hence GOLFER, who drives from the tee.

[Raak] Thanks. 'run over by' as an insertion indicator is new to me, but the rest is much as I thought. Have we solved all the outstanding ones now? If so, before the serious stuff begins again, here's a little light-hearted diversion:
Be alert when one's aurally deviating? (5, 2, 4, 4)

[Chalky] Well I reckon that must be Prick up ones ears (or "your" for "ones" - but "ones" is commoner in Xwd answers).
Still my Presume the leader is back in place (8) to do. rab may well complain that the penultimate word is unnecessary and confusing, so you can ignore it if you like.

[Chalky] Have a coconut! My understanding about the use of terms like run over is that it's ok if it could be taken in the intended crossword sense without too much difficulty. This might be on the edge of fair play, but lenience may be granted as it carries on the English language sense of the clue, and strengthens the misdirection of "driver" as a controller of automotive transport. Well, anyway.

[Blob] Nice one. Have you seen this clue before? My late father was convinced he was the originator. I just adapted it a little. BTW - The 3rd word is 'YOUR' which I feel is more idiomatically natural ['ONE'S' is perhaps too formal?] and besides, I wanted to use 'one's' in the clue giving 15 letters to strengthen the anagram red herring.I shall now take a break from work and give some thought to your outstanding clue, unless someone has posted the answer while I've been faffing around.

[rab] Cheers. It was quite a relief to see that some literary license *can* be taken when indicating insertions etc. It would be awfully dull if we had to adhere to a strict list of accepted words/phrases. Cavalierism is good. Can we have some more clues? I'm learning lots.

[Chalky] Heh, I doubt you'd learn much from my clues.

I once saw that clued, in a book on crosswords I once read, as
Pay attention, or a new sexual perversion? (5,2,4,4)

If this was really a crossword, then you would probably have a few letters in my clue by now - so how about ...

Presume the leader is back (in) place (8)
_ O _ I _ I _ N

Well it's obviously POSITION = POSIT (presume) + ION (Iliescu, Romanian leader). The in doesn't bother me - you need link words occasionally and you get used to ignorning them. However you've exposed my pet hate, albeit one which I don't have time to expand upon as I need to go to try and reverse the effects of a weekend's drinking with a session at the pool.

I don't get that. I mean, I follow POSIT but not how you get Ion Iliescu from just "the leader" - is he the only leader? Perhaps this has some connection to rab's pet hate, whatever that is?

[Darren] You got it! In order to avoid the Tippex® effect, I shall assume that everyone's had a look at this and shall assume that Darren and my reasoning is correct. The problem is that "the leader" does not define "ion". I know we often get "the girl" etc in crosswords but we simply shouldn't. As Darren points out, Ion is not "the leader" he is "a leader". So the definite article should be made indefinite, or dropped completely. The importance of articles in clues really should not be overlooked.

But this is only part of the problem: "leader" is simply far too vague an indication for "ion". You have no idea as to what kind of leader to look for, nor how many letters it might be. This renders any kind of investigation into what it might be utterly futile, leaving you only with 'presume' and 'place' left to hint as to what the solution might be. You could just about get 'posit' as the common ground between these two words, so the clue might just about be ok as a 'filler' where you can be sure that the solver will have got some of the intersecting letters. But as a solvable clue in its own right - I think we've demonstrated it's too vague.

So my pet hate is the use of overly vague indications for components of the solution. Vague definitions are fine: that's rather the point. Words with many different meanings are also fine: setters should ruthlessly exploit these as much as possible. Manley suggests that "point" for any point of the compass, or "many" for any roman numeral is too vague. I think that you can get away with this: there are, after all, only about 16 points, so your search is reasonably restricted. However, Manley seems quite happy with the use of "boy" to mean "DES", "SID", "TIM", "IAN", ... and about 3000 other possibilities which I find inconsistent to say the least. I try and avoid puzzles with boys and girls in because I know I'm not going to get those clues: the Everyman used to be very fond of this kind of thing, but seems to have bucked its ideas up recently.

In the case of Blob's clue, you don't need to stoop so low. Here are two plausible alternatives which I think make for a better clue - although I expect to be alone in this opinion.

Presume one is on location (8) (the 'is' might be dodgy' but we can maybe let this ride - the alternatives destroy the clue)
Fundamental particle gives up right to one place (8)

So, in all, how many outstanding clues are there now? I think it's just my Punctuation... one above.

Woo-hoo! I actually managed to complete Araucaria's Saturday Guardian outing unaided this week! Not much to brag about by the standards here, but quite an achievement for me. There were definitely a couple of weak clues, including one of those "girls" rab was just complaining about and what seemed to me a very dodgy thing about drifts, shelves and breakfasts. Happy bunny all the same :)

[matt] Wow! I think I've only ever got a single Arucaria. Once. We are not worthy, etc.

Well the reason you're all making such a song & dance about the ION of POSITION is that it isn't ION(ESCU) ... you're all ignoring the "back" NO.1 back = ION, and I think No.1 is a reasonable leader.