Times Saturday 26718 – May 6, 2017. Wailing wildly!

I struggled a bit, perhaps because I have had a very heavy schedule the last five or six days. I’m not sure it was really so hard – looking at the leaderboard I see that as I prepare to post, the 100^th best time was 13 minutes, about a little faster than the median for a Saturday.

Clues are in blue, with definitions underlined. Anagram indicators are bolded and italicised. The answer is IN BOLD, followed by the wordplay. (ABC)* means ‘anagram of ABC’, {deletions are in curly brackets}.

Across
1. Craft’s put in to make thinner book (9,4)
WATERSHIP DOWN: SHIP in WATER DOWN. 1975 novel by Richard Adams, 1978 movie.
9. Prolonged horizontality that is limited by short line (3-2)
LIE IN: IE (that is), in LIN{e}. Slightly twee definition, perhaps.
10. Record support shown by performance chart (9)
TURNTABLE: TURN=performance, CHART=table.
11. Sell short European articles EU gents sent over (10)
UNDERVALUE: UN (French “a”), DER (German “the”), then EU LAV all reversed (“sent over”).
12. Following craze from the east for flower (4)
DAFF: F=following, FAD=craze, all reversed (“from the east”). Actually a flower, not a crosswordland river for once.
14. Paid out of capital added to present tax relief (4,3)
GIFT AID: {p}AID (“out of capital”, indeed. Missing the “P”, that is!) preceded by GIFT=present. It’s a British tax provision relating to charitable donations, which may not be familiar to all. Certainly not to me!
16. Cake to have covered in cheese (7)
BROWNIE: OWN in BRIE.
17. Misguided lad sick of northern poets (7)
SKALDIC: (LAD SICK*). DNK the word, and made harder by not having helpers for the K and L.
19. Misprint in volume of Alcott heading a line (7)
LITERAL: LITER (an American litre, as used by Alcott for example, since she was an American author), followed by A L{ine}.
Surprising definition: to me, “literal” usually conveys pedantic accuracy. Here it seems to be printer’s jargon for inaccuracy, in the form of a wrong letter (hence, literal) in printed text.
20. American composer is losing pounds (4)
IVES: {l}IVES=”is”. Wikipedia: Charles Edward Ives (Oct 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954), American modernist composer.
21. One surly mongrel gone mad on mire (10)
CURMUDGEON: CUR=mongrel, MUD=mire, then (GONE*).
24. A lot of damage on front of girl’s instrument (9)
HARMONICA: HAR{m}, then MONICA.
25. See vessel that’s green (5)
LOVAT: LO=see, VAT=vessel. DNK the word, but put it in on trust once I had the crossing “V”.
26. Await speech and coughing (13)
EXPECTORATION: EXPECT=await, ORATION=speech.

Down
1. Things wail wildly around heartless group flying up for this? (9,5)
WALPURGIS NIGHT: (THINGS WAIL*) around GR{o}UP backwards.

Semi-literal definition. Wikipedia: Walpurgis Night is the English translation of Walpurgisnacht, one of the Dutch and German names for the night of 30 April, so called because it is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia. In Germanic folklore, Walpurgisnacht, literally “Witches’ Night”, is believed to be the night of a witches’ meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany between the rivers Weser and Elbe. All news to me.

2. Weaver is the source for this northern river (5)
TWEED: double definition – fabric or river.
3. Be sent around to work on Queen on gold coins (3,7)
RUN ERRANDS: RUN=work, ER=queen, RANDS=gold coins. I debated whether “to work” is part of the definition, but I don’t think “on” quite gets us to “RUN”.
4. Balmoral, say, soundly vetoed one ringing the crown (7)
HATBAND: HAT=”balmoral”, say (one of those berets with a pom-pom on top), then BAND=sounds like “banned”.
5. Regularly appears to unrobe? That leads to trouble (7)
PERTURB: alternate letters of “a P p E a R s T o U n R o B e”.
6. Unwilling to cut large obscenity (4)
OATH: Chop the “L” off “loath”.
7. Head managed emergency room, containing one easy problem (2-7)
NO BRAINER: NOB=head, RAN=managed with an I=one inside, then ER=emergency room.
8. Complaint over general fare item (4,10)
BEEF WELLINGTON: BEEF=complaint, WELLINGTON=the general. Definition: FARE ITEM=food.
13. Some called at Rome on the way back for Italian food (10)
MORTADELLA: Backwards hidden word.
15. Large plant flourished a short distance east (5,4)
FLAME TREE: FL=abbreviation for “flourish”, A METRE, E{ast}.
18. Monk society cut short raised Cain (7)
CLUNIAC: CLU{b}=society, then CAIN backwards. A series of monasteries apparently, originating in Cluny, France.
19. Album playing on journey is a pain (7)
LUMBAGO: (ALBUM*), then GO=travel.
22. Last words of unfinished novel I destroyed (5)
ENVOI: (NOVE{l} I*). A word I only vaguely remember from crosswords past. The Oxford says “a line or a group of lines which forms the conclusion to a poem”.
23. Cleaner energy protects oxygen (4)
SOAP: SAP=energy, protecting=chemical symbol for oxygen. It’s one of those oddities of the English language that “sap” as a noun means energy, but as a verb means pretty much the opposite!