Hah, one of my all-time faves just so happens to be "A run of notes getting higher or lower (7)" from a Methuselah a few years back...

oh whoops, that's *exactly* what happened, because i wanted an upwards reversal for an initial draft of 4d that never went anywhere - well deduced...

(as with many ideas one might have for a mini, this one has already been done by @henriwords.com - not long after they were introduced to MyCrossword, in fact! - but I've only gone and one-upped him... or, uh, one-downed him, I guess?)

4 is properly cute and thus my pick of the bunch, even if, like Blah, I'd have stuck a question mark on the end for whimsy. I quite liked the mental image conjured up by 2d, and I like how you managed to get both a fish *and* a river into 3, thus concentrating the crosswordese. Nicely done!

No pressure, 'cause you'll always have the vod - you'd be up second, so ~12:40ish I guess?

I was genuinely wondering how I would deal with that, but I opened up the puzzle first thing and realised ah, no worries, I can get it out the way immediately!

I mean, the checklist was presumably "does he have fur?" and "does he look cuddly?", and since the answer to both those questions is "absolutely", I can hardly disagree!

Henri's decision to have what he calls a "cuddly toy" slideshow on the website is one I fully support, and honestly it's made all the better/funnier that that's the set where he's put Aaron's pic of himself...

It's all really neatly done; the same columnar layout is used throughout, for puzzles and otherwise with the standard cryptics each getting a full page to themselves. Particularly like that there's always a jotting space below the setter's name, as you can see here!

Thank you for the solve! Wish I could have stayed for a bit longer, but I'll have to catch up in my own time...

My pleasure! I hope you enjoyed watching it back as much as we enjoyed solving it, and that it was, if not useful, at the very least entertaining!

Well, I gave it a sporting chance, and while I'd say 22a was the best of the relevant bunch, my favourites were actually 2d, 18d and 26d, the latter being a particularly funny bit of surface work!

Quite a few felines today - I approve! 18a hasn't been mentioned here yet, but was categorically my pick of the bunch.