What makes Brendan tick, increasing learning (10)
I believe the answer is:
memorising
'learning' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are present participle verbs.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'what makes brendan tick increasing' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'brendan' could be 'me' (where the crossword setter is 'Brendan') and 'me' is found in the answer.
'tick' could be 'mo' (both can mean a very short amount of time) and 'mo' is found within the answer.
'increasing' could be 'rising' (rising is a kind of increasing) and 'rising' is found in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?