If it’s Monday, it must be a Rufus day! And thank the Lord for that! I always enjoy Rufus – his puzzles are often easier to solve but never boring. This one has lots of Cryptic definitions or riddle style clues, which is typical of Rufus. This was done quickly (for me) but it wasn’t without its puzzlement – see 2dn.
Across
1 ROSEBUD Cryptic def.
5 BELIEVE Another cryptic def. – simple but good.
9 AVAIL A+V+AIL
10 BANTERING B(ANTE)RING
11 MATCHSTICK Another ‘pure’ cryptic, and pretty obvious.
12 LONG double def.
14 ATOMISATION INTOAMOIST* – took me a while to work out what should be the anagram fodder here – I knew it was an anagram though!
18 STIPENDIARY STI(PEN)DIARY ‘it’s back’ = STI, ‘the accounts book’ = diary, ‘to write in’ = put PEN in between them and the whole thing is “paid”. Stipendiary is an adjective meaning receiving a stipend.
21 IMAM hidden
22 BLACKGUARD BLACK = boycott + GUARD = warder, a scoundrel or blaggard. I thought to boycott something was to blackball, but black also apparently means to boycott.
25 ANCHORMAN cryptic def.
26 TWILL (I)T+WILL get one (I) off ‘it will’ and you have twill which is a material also known as drill. Very clever and the last one I got.
Down
1 REALMS RE+ALMS ‘unite’ seems superfluous other than giving a smoother surface reading.
2 SPARTA Anyone tell me why ‘luggage sent up’? Probably being thick here.
3 BALDHEADED To my mind a brilliant cryptic def!
4 DEBUT DEB(U)T ‘limited’ means that u is put in debt, a debut is an entrance. This got me thinking of debit for ages until I realised.
5 BONE CHINA cryptic def.
6 LEER rev.
7 EPISODIC IDCOPIES*
8 ENGAGING double def.
13 LARYNGITIS ATINYGIRLS*
15 OLD FLAMES cryptic def.
16 ESTIMATE EST(IM)ATE
17 FINANCES FI(N)ANCES
20 ADDLED ADD+LED
23 CANOE CAN(O)E a good misleading definition of canoe I think.
24 BOAR BOA+R boa is fur and round head = R, but surely the ‘a’ is superfluous here?
2dn puzzled me, too, but I find TRAPS means ‘luggage’ [“poss. contr. of ‘trappings'”].
Another enjoyable Rufus. I liked 18ac and 13dn.
I’d have preferred ‘kingdoms’ to ‘regions’ in 1dn but that’s nit-picking.
[I read 21ac as IMA M-uslim leader [first letter] but yes, it is a hidden word, too.]
A drummer’s stands and fittings case was hight a traps case in hys fadre daye.
Paul B: is “hight a traps case in hys fadre daye” anglo-saxon? Not a language I’m fluent in.
Sorry – just being silly about how elderly the phrase is.
In 1920, 18-months-old Buddy Rich ‘was carried onstage by the seat of his pants to play drums in his parents’ vaudeville act. At six, sporting a sailor suit and Lord Fauntleroy curls, he played the Tivoli theater circuit as “Traps, the Drum Wonder”‘.
It’s in Chambers Online as ‘personal luggage’.