Times 28219 – Lord Tweedsmuir, if you please!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 23 minutes
Music: Sibelius Violin Concerto, Belkin/Ashkenazy/LSO

I had to skip around a little to get started, but after that I had little difficulty with this one.  I see the top solvers are already showing up in the SNITCH with single-digit times, so there is definitely nothing here to scare the horses.   Some of the cryptics are a bit convoluted, but most good solvers won’t bother when there’s a nice literal in plain sight.

Having finished the blog, I will say that if I had parsed the clues as I went along, it would have taken another ten minutes at least.

Across
1 Question a couple of females about union leader’s drink (5)
QUAFF – Q(U)A +  FF
4 Pirate English Queen associated with Scottish writer, we hear (9)
BUCCANEER –  Sounds like BUCHAN + E + ER, 
9 Like some legends making us turn a hair, surprisingly (9)
ARTHURIAN – Anagram of TURN A HAIR, not surprisingly.
10 Old government department escaping from external rule (5)
REIGN – [fo]REIGN, where the F.O. was the Foreign Office.
11 Go back and surrender again (6)
RECEDE – RE-CEDE.
12 Around in time, everyone gets tweet, perhaps (8)
BIRDCALL – BIRD(C)ALL, where bird is the usual criminal slang.
14 Discernible dip between islands, one revealed in legend (12)
IDENTIFIABLE –  I(DENT)I + T(I)ABLE.
17 Colonel, possibly, writing about appeal for contests (12)
COMPETITIONS –  C.O. + M(PETITION)S.
20 Where holiday-makers may be affected by builder’s plot? (8)
CAMPSITE –  CAMP + SITE.
21 Vicious man who conspired with Capone, not American (6)
BRUTAL – BRUT(-us,+AL). 
23 Dome-shaped house I travel over, crossing lake (5)
IGLOO – I G(L)O O, a compendium of common cryptic abbreviations.
24 Spiritless detainee visited by an Irish leader (9)
INANIMATE – IN(AN I[rish])MATE.
25 Courier in eating-place served with green bananas (9)
MESSENGER – MESS + anagram of GREEN.
26 Irritable chap digesting Times (5)
RATTY – RA(T,T)Y.
Down
1 Quebec university coach framing a short stanza (8)
QUATRAIN – Q + U (A) TRAIN.
2 Possibly a daughter bound by written contract (8)
ARTICLED – ARTICLE + D, for a somewhat archaic legal term.
3 Supporter of building establishment having a certain weight (10,5)
FOUNDATION STONE –  FOUNDATION + STONE in entirely different senses.
4 Bar on pitch sometimes jumped by miscreants (4)
BAIL – Double definition, cricket and criminal procedure.
5 Study Italian poet, adopting woman as recipient of secrets (10)
CONFIDANTE –  CON (FI) DANTE.
6 Barker publicised drink with little hesitation in German city (8,7)
AIREDALE TERRIER –  AIRED ALE T(ER)RIER. 
7 Lamb judge consumed ultimately with Hebrew prophet (6)
ELIJAH –  ELI(J)A + [wit]H.
8 Continue to fester, having row with the French (6)
RANKLE –  RANK + LE.
13 Daunting activity on course, supporting cricket side (3-7)
OFF-PUTTING –  OFF + PUTTING, as the golfers do on the golf course.
15 Left Burlington House with Italian painting, perhaps (8)
PORTRAIT – PORT + RA + IT, where the Royal Academy is.
16 Small change invested in extremely pricey old stringed instrument (8)
PSALTERY – P(S ALTER)Y, with the end letters from pricey on the outside.
18 One’s entertained by school managers, principally, in break (6)
SCHISM –  SCH(I’S)M[anagers]
19 Underwear safely stored at first outside precinct (6)
SMALLS – S[afely](MALL)S[tored], known as small-clothes in the 18th century.
22 Musical chairs? Not entirely (4)
HAIR –  Hidden in [c]HAIR[s].   Fortunately, there are only three musicals in crosswords: Hair, Evita, and Annie.

59 comments on “Times 28219 – Lord Tweedsmuir, if you please!”

  1. Paused at the end because I couldn’t see how COMPETITIONS worked, having assumed that “appeal” was IT, but for once it wasn’t. I happened to be reading yesterday about John Steinbeck once living near Glastonbury, where he spent some months researching Arthurian legend with a view to writing his version of it, though it was never finished; a somewhat unexpected choice, given his usual milieu.
  2. Held up at the end by BAIL. For some reason I thought of it then rejected it. Although I knew the ELIA clue, I couldn’t see the H and had to come here to find out why. Duh!
  3. Could have been close to a PB if only I hadn’t plumped for QUADRILL instead of QUATRAIN initially — got my dances mixed up with my stanzas, and then spelled it wrong to boot. Oh well, I’m happy enough with my time inside 30 minutes after I had sorted that all out. Thanks both.

    Edited at 2022-02-21 12:59 pm (UTC)

  4. 8:05. No horses frightened here, and I biffed quite a lot. At 10ac I just thought REIGN was being somehow extracted from FOREIGN OFFICE: if I had thought about it more thoroughly it might have proved problematic. Sometimes it can help to be a bit sloppy! I know it’s an old department from solving these things.
  5. FOI QUATRAIN, then QUAFF, then off to the races. Although it took me most of lunchtime ending with AIREDALE TERRIER when I was looking first for a city in Germany and then anywhere.
    Did not parse REIGN or BIRDCALL (which I was more worried about).
    COD to the BARKER.
    David
  6. Burlington House = RA seems pretty obscure to me. I often wonder why the likes of this, or EC = City, are still rife even though they have no direct word connection. Shouldn’t they have moved away from these old Londoncentric references by now? You would never see Leicester for LE or Norwich for NR, which would make much more sense.

    Old Vic

  7. I would say Donat too, although the Powell version is regarded as the closest to the book.
  8. Good Monday fare. Hoping for a PB but just couldn’t see BAIL

    There’s a story, probably apocryphal, about Thor Heyerdahl
    once spending hours waiting for a taxi at the BBC only to find the cab had been there all along, waiting for ‘four AIREDALES.’

    Thanks to Vinyl and the setter.

  9. Nowhere near as easy as rumoured, and in fact very nearly a DNF until Recede gave me the final crosser for loi (and CoD) Articled. A bifd Aberdeen Terrier didn’t help, and parsing IT for appeal shows how dangerous a little knowledge can be, but a finish is a finish. Invariant
  10. As I had a day off and it was a Monday, I thought I’d try the big boy’s crossword. I don’t know if there’s an SCC for the 15×15, but if so, I think I’m firmly in it with 73:45. Nevertheless, as Invariant says, a finish is a finish. A couple of things I don’t understand though: why does ‘writing’ mean MS (is it short for manuscript perhaps?) and why does ELIA mean lamb? Thanks all.
    1. Pseudonym of the author Charles Lamb. It will pop up again, so file in the memory banks. MS is indeed an abbreviation for manuscript.

      Edited at 2022-02-21 06:28 pm (UTC)

    2. OK, your SCC membership is confirmed. But it doesn’t matter — you finished it correctly, and that, sir, is an achievement to take pride in.
  11. Struggled home just under 40 minutes – not sure if this counts as a first completion since a check was needed to confirm REIGN. Also joined the club of new dog breeds with an ADDEDALE, admitting only later that ‘added’ and ‘publicised’ probably weren’t synonyms. Glad to start the week with what the SNITCH confirms was probably a more gentle offering, thanks to Vinyl and setter.
  12. 11.38. This was a straightforward sprint to the line for me, albeit over some fairly pleasant terrain.
  14. Very late in the day but have to comment as I’ve never come close to my time today of 23’20”. Doubt I will again … only REIGN was unparsed. No obscure words to struggle with bar PSALTERY which I now know from previous puzzles this beat my quickie times from most days last week I think. Pleased with myself so I’ll no doubt hit multiple 15×15 brick walls in coming days.

    Edited at 2022-02-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

    1. Well done Mango. But you will come close to that time again, in fact you’ll beat it, assuming that’s your aim.

      The pattern seems to be that one achieves an apparent outlier, then maybe a return to “normality” before repeating the achievement. Next thing you know there’ll be another outlier, along with the inevitable setbacks, but an overall improvement in your times.

      I also think the confidence boost helps. And FWIW not all of us found this one to be particularly easy, so well done again.

  15. Very late post but I was an Articled Clerk so didn’t want to let the opportunity pass without mentioning that. Given the age range of contributors I assumed I wouldn’t be alone but maybe I am. From 1969 I served 5 years articled to a small firm of accountants in the City. What it meant was that I was contractually tied to them for that period. As soon as my articles finished I moved to another firm of accountants and doubled my salary! …and I finished the xwd so all good.
  16. Better record the fact that my twin thrashed me on this with his super quick time but above effort not too shabby.

    I too was an articled clerk but it didn’t prevent it being my LOI thinking I was maybe looking for a synonym of “possibly”. Doh!

    Thanks for the entertaining puzzle and blog

  17. 15 dn stumped me – still pleased and still learning – just took 8 hours on and off today

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