Quick Cryptic no 3279 by Alex

And I got off to a less than auspicious start here, misreading “bum” as “burn” and trying (and of course failing) to find an anagram meaning something like scorch.

I suspect better solvers than me will say that this is a fairly straightforward clue and solve it without any trouble, but I needed both checkers to get this and it was a nice PDM when I saw the answer.  Add the very smooth surface and the clue is one of my two CODs.

I read this clue all the wrong way at first and was looking for a wine constructed by taking R out of a 6-letter word for a bed.

Terrace is a standard synonym for Veranda in all the reference books, and I am fairly sure this is what Alex has in mind, though for me, the essence of a veranda is that it is (a) attached to the side of a house and (b) covered, neither of which are implied by the word terrace.

This resonated greatly with me, as some time ago I had to have my house completely rewired (the wiring was circa 1950s and failing frequently).  It firstly caused considerable inconvenience (in retrospect I should have simply vacated the residence and gone to live somewhere else while it was being done), and secondly made a huge mess (a complete redecoration was required once the rewiring was done, to my great resentment).

Though in passing, a slight MER at the definition, as is not Ire more anger than resentment?  To me, Ire is hot and of the moment, whereas Resentment is colder and builds over an extended period of time.

A slightly odd clue, with the word “start” repeated in it, which led me briefly to think that the first start was the wordplay and the words I was taking the first letters from started with Having.

E as a drug is a standard piece of Crosswordlandese, being the common abbreviation for Ecstasy, which in turn is the lay or street name of the synthetic drug known formally as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine.  One can see why the formal scientific name is not widely used!

I was momentarily confused here by “tips off”, as I though that meant take the tips of and discard them, leaving me with IGH.  Which naturally I could make nothing of.

This took me some time, as Spat and Rained did not immediately come to mind as synonyms, and I went down various rabbit-holes of Spat as small fight.  But one can talk of light rain as “it’s spitting”, so presumably after the light rain has stopped, one can say “it spat”.

We need to lift-and-separate northern from Indian state here, as Goa, India’s 28th state (and smallest by area), is actually in the south west of the country.  It was a Portuguese colony from the early 16th century and was retained by Portugal when India achieved independence in 1947, much to Delhi’s dismay.  Years of negotiation followed with no resolution, until India took matters into their own hands and invaded in 1961, forcibly throwing the Portuguese out and incorporating the territory into India.  The state retains many Portuguese colonial buildings and habits, including cheap and plentiful wine, which along with its beaches form the basis of its thriving tourist industry today.

You would need to be of a certain age (at least 60) and with an interest in Rugby League to make the connection, but for me this brought back memories of Eddie Waring, a much-loved (and much-mimicked) BBC Rugby League commentator in the 1970s whose best known catchphrases included “he’s going for an early bath” for someone sent off.  And that’s bath as in math, not as in hearth.

Prepared here as in “I’m prepared/willing to do this”.

I think F as an abbreviation for Fellow is common enough to not need any further indication that one is taking the first letter of the word – for example FRGS for Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and similar for other learned bodies.

For a 4-letter clue this took me a very long time, as I could not see how the wordplay worked at all.  A real PDM when I got the answer and a second when I (subsequently) worked out the parsing, and for that double “D’oh” it is my joint COD.