Thank you for the birthday greetings: my wife Linda suggests that the time has come to reverse the digits so that we can consider ourselves to be in our twenties again...

Happy Birthday Lex

Happy birthday Lex

Is it M plus embers (for ash) giving us members?

It is indeed, flotsam, my warning about sneakiness in the construction of this particular clue being because breaking a word in that fashion might (I believe) be slightly frowned upon in some purist crossword circles...

Two particular types of clue are fairly common on this thread and perhaps among the easiest of cryptic clue types to master at first, anagrams (probably my favourite) and container/hidden words (much favoured by Sherlock): in each case there will be an indicator word (or words) to let the solver know that the letters of some other words have to be mixed up, or that the answer word is simply hidden in the wording of the clue (sometimes backwards, but that would also be indicated somewhere within the clue).

Your turn again and here is the trophy (which you forgot/omitted to pass on but Sherlock sneaked up and took from you apparently )
===[**WCF**]===

...and thank you for the additional birthday reminders!

Methinks we're going to regret giving flotsam those links!

First of all, I loved this one. Elegantly sneaky. Not sure I'd call it completely legal because there's no indicator to break up "mash".

This bit though is harder than the other. Noodles beware.

Report about taking back what was written (8)

Does this help? I haven't yet mastered the more subtle or usual ways of giving hints.

Report about // taking back what was written (2-6?)

There is no particular rule about hints and some of us are less subtle than others, but some particular types of hint I have seen are numbers of vowels, positions of vowels/consonants (eg ccvccvc for flotsam), which end of the clue carries the direct/definition (or that it is a double definition type of clue if that is the case) and how many indicators the clue contains (by which I mean words which warn of an anagram or other device for moving letters within the clue about).

Reading that back , I may just be making things more complicated for you than they need to be...!

cvcccvcv

seven different letters

Describe = report about, looking like it should mean "unwrite"

I like it, but I would have added a question mark as a signal for slightly dodgy wordplay (as with my previous clue) - which I think is the only time punctuation is used in crossword clues for anything other than misdirection

Like it...

Well done Lex - and I will take on board the dodgy feedback
Here is your belt

===[**CDM**]===

Good one! I agree with Lex about the question mark.

Thank you flotsam

This is one I rather liked in a recent puzzle:

Approve of what twit here can be seen to do (4,4)

Direct on the left, one vowel in each word (not the same)

Answer starts and ends with the same letter, which is a consonant, all letters otherwise being different from each other cvcc cvcc

Sneaky!

Got it from the c/v layout - the last word could well be "with" 'cos that's present as a Cheryl (twit here)

If so, the other word begins with either a W or an H

The rest of the clue is a description of the Cheryl ("can be seen to do") which is to hold the word "with" -> hold with

Yes indeed, a quite neat but sneaky sort of reversed container clue: we worked out that the first word was likely to be hold, but it then took a while for the penny to drop on the second word and its justification!

No doubt Cheryl will try to make use of this twist on her favourite theme...

You can now hold this: ===[**CDM**]===

Too kind!

Making sure is putting king in danger (8)

checking

Love this one as well as Lex's

Hey, that was quick ===[**CDM**]===

Lucky timing. Thank you!

Went by cab, even when carrying hatchet (6)

Is it taxied?
A hatchet is an axe, and carrying the axe suggested it was within the answer and a cab is a taxi.
Apologies if that is a bit messy.

taxied