Wasted years following a tip from bogus analyst (7)
I believe the answer is:
assayer
'analyst' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'wasted years following a tip from bogus' is the wordplay.
'wasted years' becomes 'ayer' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'following' says to put letters next to each other.
'tip from' suggests removing the centre (I've seen 'tips from' mean this).
'bogus' becomes 'spurious' (I've seen this before).
'spurious' with its centre removed is 'ss'.
'a'+'ss'='ass'
'ayer' after 'ass' is 'ASSAYER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for assayer that I've seen before include "Analyst who tests minerals" , "He allocates marks" , "Tester of metals" , "I'll carry out a test" , "Metal/ore tester" .)