It’s Monday and Rufus is up to his usual tricks
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PACIFISTS: and they don’t like to strike! |
| 6 | AGED: anagram of AGED |
| 10 | EVERY: E (cigarettE end) + VERY (a signalling light) |
| 11 | VENTURING: anagram of GIVEN TURN |
| 12 | TAKEN IN: double definition |
| 13 | ULYSSES: anagram of SLY SUES |
| 14 | GRANDCHILDREN: cryptic definition |
| 17 | ANTICLOCKWISE: turning the clock backwards! |
| 21 | ALCOHOL: anagram of OH and LOCAL |
| 22 | DEPRESS: anagram of SPEEDS and R (river); don’t see why this is both sides of the river as that would be RR |
| 24 | BRIGADIER: BRIG (ship) + A + anagram of RIDE |
| 25 | INTER: double definition, referring to one of Milan’s football teams |
| 26 | GAME: double definition |
| 27 | SANDGLASS: cryptic definition |
| Down | |
| 1 | PRESTIGE: anagram of PRIEST and EG (reversed) |
| 2 | CHEEK: obviously CHEEK is nerve; but chap? Is it a reference to cheeky chappy? |
| 3 | FLYING DUTCHMAN: double definition |
| 4 | SEVENTH: as in ‘seventh heaven’ |
| 5 | SENSUAL: anagram of SUN in SEAL (impression) |
| 7 | GLISSANDI: not sure about the cryptic part of this |
| 8 | DIGEST: double definition |
| 9 | RUDYARD KIPLING: anagram of DRYING UP ID LARK |
| 15 | ANARCHISM: anagram of CHAIRMANS |
| 16 | BEDSORES: anagram of ROSE BEDS |
| 18 | COLLINS: LL (two pounds) in COINS |
| 19 | OLD IRON: double definition |
| 20 | MAY BUG: double defintion |
| 25 | EXTRA: another double definition, this time based on cricket |
As easy as they come and a welcome relief after struggling with Paul and his Antipodean mystery on Saturday.
Many thanks!
Egad, Diagacht!
Thanks, Diagacht.
I particularly liked 22ac as an original way of saying “insert the letter R in anagram of speeds” – i..e. “on both sides of the river”
2dn refers to Bath Chaps – a delicacy made of beef cheeks.
I put in GLISSANDO for 7D so had a little trouble with ANTICLOCKWISE till I had most of its crossing letters.
I can’t see that the wording of 7D reliably defines a plural. I would suggest an alternative:
In Italian they translate “sliding one’s fingers along the keyboards” (9)
which is also a bit more cryptic.
7dn: I too put in ‘glissando’ to begin with but it’s an anagram of SLIDING I’S
No it isn’t!
I meant SLIDING A [one] S!
Thanks Eileen that explains it nicely. That clue was obviously cleverer than me.
Thank you diagacht.
A good easily digestible Rufus puzzle to start the week.
I too thought of GLISSANDO then noticed that there was no “O” in the anagram fodder. I agree, beermagnet, that it could have been better worded to indicate the plural.
I liked 14a. My daughter is still trying to get her head around issues being offspring!
While I was typing, correcting, typing etc, Eileen got in first.
Actually it’s an anagram of “AS SLIDING”.
Re:GLISSANDI, I didn’t want to use this word but it was the only one that fitted as I struggled to fill in the top right corner! But finding that an anagram turned out to be its English meaning made me think it had possibilities. My intention was that the anagram indicator was “translates” and the letter fodder was “as sliding” – the quotation marks did make it more confusing. I tried to indicate the “I” ending by making “keyboards” plural.
Crypticnut : may I copy your start: “While I was typing…..etc” Thanks!
Rufus – I await the puzzle!
Thanks for the correction, Crypticnut and Rufus. Nice to hear from you, as always! Thanks for a nice puzzle and Diagacht for the blog.
Thanks for the blog. And it’s nice to hear from Rufus!
Also had ‘glissando’ for a while.
Invented a new insect — the ‘may bee’ — which prevented me from getting 26ac.
NeilW: 2dn. Bath chaps = beef cheeks? Always thought they were pigs’ cheeks.
Yes, Cholecyst, you’re right. Only know of them from crosswords, not personal experience, whereas I’ve often had beef cheek. Here in Indonesia we don’t have much experience of pig recipes. Anyway, “cheek” was the point.
[2d] Yup! Chaps are pigs’ cheeks (the lower parts), not beef. My Gran used to buy chaps to make pork brawn, here in south Devon, nowhere near Bath. ‘Bath Chaps’, I believe, just describes a particular way of preparing this meat.
I’m late, so you’ve already corrected ‘aged/egad’ and comprehensively covered (glissandi)*.
But I blithely wrote in [20d] ‘gad fly’, until realising that didn’t allow ‘game’ and that I was taking the clue literally rather than cryptically. Idiot! Having started wrongly it took me too long to spot ‘ability’ for ‘may’. Nice!
It’s always so good when a compiler drops in. Thanks Rufus for your regular visits.
Hi Neil.
Glad to see you and liz had similar problems with 20d as I did.
I’d heard of MAY FLY – not MAY BUG but already had BRIGADIER so there was much scratching of heads (I thought of BEE), until I realised that irritate = bug.
Wasn’t helped by the local paper this morning featuring Araucaria’s “araubetical” prize puzzle from about five weeks ago, which I hadn’t seen before(your Saturday prize puzzles are published here on a Monday), so I was doing two at once.
Thank you to Rufus and diagacht.
I enjoyed this crossword today. The first Guardian daily (after only four years of cryptic solving) I have finished without recourse to my elders and betters. As a representative of the comprehensive system the crossword was not completed out of my head entirely – much insulting of books (and flagrant guessing) was required. (Glissandi?!?)
I particularily enjoyed 17a which leapt off the page at me and I happily filled in (in ink!) without a second thought.
Thanks.
Late to start so late to finish and as usual it’s all been said by now, egad (he said topically).
Thanks to diagacht, Rufus, and everyone.
I’m going to pick a nit with 13ac simply because I can — finally, a topic I know something about! Ulysses is not Joyce’s character but Homer’s. Joyce’s character is Leopold Bloom, who is a metaphorical Ulysses, as it were, making his own small poignant odyssey around Dublin.
I was also going to raise a query with 13ac. I spent a long time trying to get ‘Bloom’ or ‘Daedalus’ as they are Joyce’s characters. It’s a while since I’ve read the book but I’m sure there is no charcter called Ulysses in Joyce’s book.
Re 26a, although I’ve seen GAME written in the sense of ‘lame’, I’ve only ever heard it as ‘gammy’, which also appears to mean the same thing, at least in some dictionaries. Yet GAME (=lame) is pronounced the same as in its other senses. Which is right ?
If both, why ?
‘Dagnabit’, as a handle, sounds so macho … and yet … ?
Derek – I’m late too – and at the risk of being banned (off-topic) – “Charlotte Edwards”.
Mr Beaver: dunno, but where I’m from (Devon), we’ve always spoken of a ‘gammy’ leg. Always seemed to be a leg that was thus afflicted. Never heard of another body part that might be ‘gammy’. Quite lately, I have come to understand the word might be spelled ‘game’. (Handy for crossword puzzles).
Maybe it’s regional?
Next thing you know, the Cornish will be claiming exclusive regional rights to the Pasty. What arrant nonsense! (Did I mention I’m Devonian?). And let alone their thin, pale version of clotted cream!