26 min. Much easier than yesterdays ice bath I was glad to find. Wasted much time by entering the mis-spelling MARSCAPONE at 1 dn, then trying to solve 9 ac and 12 ac. COD 14 dn DRESS SENSE with its beautifully misleading use of "sporting".

I think 1 ac can be read as: (attach) "drainage challel not charming initially" to "lake" = "poet". Not terribly precise, but I feel that is just sneaks in.

Nicely blogged Sabine, thanks. About 30 minutes for me while on the treadmill Thursday evening. Last entries were NEEDS MUST and MASCARPONE. The cheese took time because I have the same spelling block for this cheese as rosselliot, apparently. I was looking for something simpler for 'perforce'. I haven't heard of DRESS SENSE before, got it from wordplay. COD: TAILORS DUMMY, which I thought clever. I also thought APPRECIATED was very deceptive. Regards for the weekend to all.

Where I live, sched, said, is sked.

Those in the US might know only the 'sked' pronunciation, since the other one is not used here.

Fortunately, I work with a number of project managers in the UK, all of whom use the shed-like pronuncation.

Easier but by no means a stroll in the park for me. Became becalmed in NE for a time. Liked SPOT ON once I erased JUST SO (just what is a jusso I'd like to know?), and finally twigged to TAILORS DUMMY (Cue the Kinks: See that fellow, looking all spic and span..."). COD to DOZES.

Straightforward enough for me to complete in 35 minutes and I probably lost 5 minutes on my last one in, 14dn, by overlooking that two 5-letter words were needed and not one 10-letter.

To be strictly accurate z repeated represents snoring rather than sleep and one might have a very brief zzzz during a long sleep.

After yesterday's "work" I was happy today to see "play" at 23ac which at least narrowed things down to one branch of the arts.

Had to do this in two goes between work stints as I'm on a working holiday in the bush (hence no comments for a while). So not sure of the time. A bit over 15 mins I'd guess. Looked at 12 first and appreciated the irony since one point of (my) getting away from it all was supposedly to leave the computer (and the crossword) alone!
Things fell into place quickly with four giveaway anagrams and lots of split (multi-word) answers. Couple of questions/quibbles.
• How is "appreciated" "rose"?
• If "about what words mean" is the literal in 9, then "semantic" is troublesome -- if "semantic" is used in its technical sense. (Though it probably isn't here.)
COD: "tailor's dummy" for the nice connection between the surface of the clue and the answer; and for its possible? debut in the Times.

Well, let's say that a "semantic problem" may be much more than just a question of "what words mean". Linguistic semantics studies a great deal more than (in fact it hardly ever touches on) the purely lexical level. I guess, though, that both "semantic" and "semantics" have now passed into the vernacular where they can refer to that level of the language. So, using the vernacular: I don't really want to get caught up in the semantics of "semantic".

8:50 - nothing dramatically difficult here but enough to keep you thinking. In 1A, the setter and editor must be treating "to" in the same way as "on" - an indicator of "adjacentness" in either order. At 23, I read "jack of hearts" as a sequence of abbreviations - "J o' H", once I'd abandoned the idea that there might be a weird name for this card, like "pam"= J♣ or "curse of Scotland" = 9♦. Being usually solid on card game terms, I was disppointed that table=dummy was new to me. Also OK on cheeses so no trouble with R in 1D where Al=>CAPONE was a nice change from the other way round.

Following much needed and appreciated CPR from vinyl1 after the near fatal beating suffered yesterday, a chastened plod this morning.
Look-up confirms for pier as support, Asar as a sea, and just to show how ignorant I am King John for a play. Came here for wordplay on Tailor's Dummy and find that not for the first time bridge is my undoing. But is there some point to "beautifully" in the clue?

Absolutely. I think DOWAGER was written-in straight from reading and I think it has appeared once or twice since your advice, though I can't remember where (Mephisto?). Then there was, on a visit to my Mum, hearing "I must do the sprouts" and realising that I use the expression all the time.

A pleasant but hardly difficult puzzle, 20 minutes to solve.

In a mirror image of Peter's experience I knew DUMMY=table immediately but didn't know the cheese which I derived from wordplay. In the same way as him at 23A I read jack=j; o=of;h=hearts; it must be the bar crosswords, Peter.

Barry, I think the "beautifully" at 4D is to indicate "wearing the best clothes", which a tailor's dummy does and to improve the surface reading over "one dressed" on its own

A pity we had yet another obscure poet, also derived from wordplay. I liked the construction of BE-CALM

Didnt have a printer today so manually wrote out all the clues and the grid from sight on the crossword club!! Was a little disappointed that after about 20 mins work "printing", the actual solving was quite quick. Got stuck for a while in the NW corner until MASCARPONE went in, and then rattled off 1,9,17 & 4 to finish. Probably about 20 mins with conversations with the wife included.

COD - showing sporting talent for DRESS SENSE...

Thanks fmks and Jimbo. I agree "one dressed" needs something else but I am still not sure that "beautifully" is it.

On the other hand and in the same sartorial ballpark, my COD or perhaps Definition of the Day is "sporting talent" for DRESS SENSE. Anything that makes me grin has a chance with me.

As already mentioned a relief after yesterday's monster.

The only clue I didnt get was 20dn. Even when reading the answer it took me two goes to work out why.

Didn't understand the clue for 'Dummy' but when I got 'tailors' it couldn't be anything else.

Regarding 23ac I guessed a play name starting with 'King' and justified John as being an alternative name for Jack. Even though rest of the clue made no sense!

Don't know whether to be happy I got the answer right or worried that I did get the right working.

W

4:36, a PB (if not quite a JC*) that I don't expect to beat for a long time.  On several occasions I had the giddy experience of solving the next clue while writing an answer in, and the only ones I had to pause on were 1ac (MEREDITH), 19ac (DOZES), 22ac (ASTRAL), 6dn (PIEBALD), 14dn (DRESS SENSE) and the last in, 4dn (TAILOR'S DUMMY).

Clues of the Day: 12ac (AWAY FROM IT ALL), 18dn (SUSTAIN), and 19dn (DOWAGER) – and, following Barry's lead, Definition of the Day to 14dn (DRESS SENSE).

* John Cage.

Yes, I had difficulty finding your prediction, not least because it was on Facebook, but I eventually got there thanks to my records – it was when I broke the 6-minute barrier on the 7th of May.  Similarly successful predictions would be most welcome!

Not massively quick but very pleased to have broken the 10 minute barrier (by seconds) with this one. Most of it fell into place very quickly but it was 1A that saw me running through every M.R.D.T. pattern I could think of - not thinking, of course, of proper nouns. Hadn't heard of the poet and the wordplay was tough to crack. Fair dos though, the name itself is far from unusual and I think it was more down to me not being particularly well versed in poetry.

Very good puzzle all round. Difficult to follow yesterday's tour de force, but this was in the "tough but fair" department without being spectacular. DOZES nearly got my COD nod (as ever, a sucker for a good &Lit) but I have to join the DRESS SENSE Appreciation Society on this occasion.

Q-0 E-6 D-7 COD 14D DRESS SENSE for that wicked def.

10:23 here, solved while also keeping an eye on a troublesome server build at work, so with full concentration I'm pretty sure I would have beaten 10 minutes. I agree with Anax, Mark and others about DRESS SENSE as COD for the definition.

For me too this fell within Anax's "tough but fair" classification - practically a stroll in the park (albeit it a 35-minute one) compared with Thursday's stinker. Most of the comments I would want to make have already been said. I had no trouble spotting the cheese required at 1dn, but fussed unnecessarily trying to justify the wordplay because I had mistakenly read the two letters before "cheese" as A1 instead of Al, and spent minutes trying to work out how CAP ONE could denote a road or a synonym for first-class, before the penny dropped. Might I borrow your dunce's cap, Peter? Congrats to Mark T for a supernaturally fast time. I'm not sure I could have completed the puzzle much faster than that even if I'd known all the solutions in advance!

A very pleasing 13 minutes after an abject 8 days! Some nice defs, DRESS SENSE and APPRECIATED particularly. Held up slightly by having IN AS MANY WORDS, but got there in the end!
Oli

Having been ridiculously busy at work lately today was the first time in a couple of weeks that I've been able to do a daily Times puzzle in my lunch hour so this puzzle was a nice gentle way of easing myself back in to the routine.

17 minutes in all having been becalmed in the NE corner at the end until becalm came to the rescue and unlocked the others. Last in scheduler, COD dress sense of course.

42 mins here. I was quite happy with this, as I'm a little out of practice. I can normally get the cheeses by running through the well-known Python sketch in my head, but this must be about the only common cheese not in it! So I needed most of the checking letters before it went in.

Last ones in were 3d (I hadn't spotted it was 2 words!) and 9a. COD probably 19a, but 1d quite good too, and that wonderful definition in 14d.

First Times puzzle I have done for nearly a month, so was very pleased with just under 20 minutes.

Didn't get going until I got to the SE corner with ORE, AGGRIEVE and DOWAGER, then it all flowed steadily. Last one in though was also in the SE corner - KING JOHN.

I liked 1 down MASCARPONE with it's different way of linking Al and Capone.

This came as a relief after a difficult week in which I had begun to doubt my ability ever to complete a puzzle successfully again. It was what my old maths teacher used to call a follow your nose problem. One answer leads to another until you find that you have finished.

In common with others I was orthographically challenged by Mascarpone. Furthermore, I originally got the wrong parent, trying to justify Parmigiano.

There are some good examples of lift and separate here (thanks Peter), Lake Poet, English rose and also Black and White, which looks as though it is a lift and separate but is not.

I’ve been compiling a database (OK its an Excel spreadsheet) of poets, composers, authors etc used in crosswords. The hope was that certain names with their vowels in the right place would recur, as does our old friend Tiepolo for artists. So far results have not been helpful for poets. In recent weeks we have had Larkin, Poe, Hood, Tennyson, Rossetti, Neruda, Horace, Skelton, Sydney, Homer, Rilke, Carew and now Meredith. Only the setters’ favourite poet, Poe recurs with and frequency.

I checked my database for Scientist and it has one entry: Newton. That just about sums it up.

7.53 which I thought was farily speedy ... until I saw Mark's time - Well done!
MEREDITH does seem a bit obscure and could have been time-consuming but for getting the Cheese and Steak clues quickly.Have occasionally used MASCARPONE for cooking a nice Scallop and Black Pudding risotto dish (James Martin recipe) so that helped. (By the way I don't know how to put in a website link so if anyone can give me a brief guide please send me a mail - appreciated).
For 22 I didn't see the sea until I saw Sabine's blog and took a bit to work out how DOWAGER worked. Otherwise plain sailing

...because although I solved it, I did not make a concenntrated effort. I did find 'mascarpone' and 'Meredith' very difficult, because I had never heard of the cheese and because George Meredith is primarily a novelist.

I finally ended up solving 1 across by interpreting it wrongly - 'drainage channel' = 'mere ditch', take away the 'C', and there's a poet! Of course, George Meredith was not big on tramping around Grasmere, but you can't have everything.

I had the same hesitation about 'semantic', because I felt it should be 'semantics'. However, the presence of 'about' in the clue turns it from a noun to an adjective, so all is good.

I guess I was the only one who appreciated 'trail blazer' not too difficult but witty.

about 30 mins without recourse to aids, so for me about as easy as it gets. meredith actually rings more of a bell as a poet than novelist. this was a huge relief after the total capitulation of yesterday.

I found this the easiest of the week. I didn't know the cheese, but the wordplay was clear. The clues were a bit of a mixed bag. 14, 17, 19 were all very good. The surfaces of 1ac and 1dn were pretty lame, and 9 was just inaccurate. A hyphenated word is considered just that, one word, so I don't accept that "half-clear at first" indicates anything other than H. The surface would not have suffered with the omission of the hyphen, so why put it in? There's a big difference between deception and inaccuracy.

Didn't get a chance to finish this one in one setting, didn't even get to start on it until after lunch so I'm way late. I liked this, some tricksy stuff like NEEDS MUST and TAILORS DUMMY. Loved the clue for KING JOHN and the definition in DRESS SENSE