Good morning, the usual Rufusian mixture of stuff and a grid that shouldn’t provoke too many whinges.
Seemed like there were fewer CD/DDs today than usual and some taking a little while to suss out fully.
Definitions underlined as appropriate.
Across
1 No hero of football team at home (7)
VILLAIN
(Aston) VILLA & IN (at home)
5 A right from one US state to another (6)
KANSAS
(A & R) removed from (ar)KANSAS
9 Where to keep the money when you’ve made a profit (2,6)
IN POCKET
Double definition
10 Compel someone to act as a substitute? (4-2)
MAKE-DO
Compel (make) act (do)
12 Subscribed and accepted financial responsibility (12)
UNDERWRITTEN
SUB (under) & SCRIBED (written)
15 Blunders — gives short change (10)
OVERSIGHTS
[GIVES SHORT]* has changed.
17 Heart-to-heart listener (3)
EAR
The heart, middle bit of (h)EAR(t)
19 Low state of mind on departure of daughter (3)
MOO
D(aughter) removed from MOO(d)
20 Man of principle made riches the right way (10)
ARCHIMEDES
He of the Screw and Eureka [MADE RICHES]*. You’ll be glad I didn’t run down the street naked after solving this. 🙂
22 Strong defence, yet speedily broken (5,7)
SOUND BARRIER
SOUND (strong) BARRRIER (defence)
26 Eye disease — girl catches it (6)
IRITIS
IT is caught by IRIS (girl’s name)
27 Fish I caught in a basket (8)
BASSINET
BASS (fish) & I & NET (caught)
28 Ann set out for a city in France (6)
NANTES
[ANN SET]*
29 Pope with aspiration, leading to becoming emperor (7)
HADRIAN
H (aspiration) & ADRIAN (choose any one from six of them)
Down
1 Broadcast live coverage (4)
VEIL
LIVE* is broadcast, A veil could be a coverage of the face.
2 Rounds of drinks? (4)
LAPS
Double definition
3 Head gets most important lead, showing cunning (8)
ARCHNESS
ARCH (most important) & NESS (head)
4 Exact about a point being relatively close (5)
NIECE
NICE means exact with E (a point) inserted and a cryptic definition really.
6 Scored slowly (6)
ADAGIO
Sort of musical cryptic def, but I suspect there will be complaints of it’s not even cryptic. I’d point out that it’s written to make the solver believe it’s actually a double def.
7 Knots rope with loops (5,5)
SHEET BENDS
Wouldn’t be Rufus without something nautical, SHEET (a rope) & LOOPS (bends)
8 Belly jeans, for example? (10)
SPOONERISM
Well, erm yes it could be for JELLY BEANS I guess.
11 Light whip for light control (6)
SWITCH
Double def
13 A cut above other ranks? (10)
COMMISSION
Double def. Commissioned officers were considered a cut above the ordinary seamen and a cut is a commission. Edited following comment #1
14 Heads rolled in this French affair (10)
REVOLUTION
Cryptic def.
16 European composer (6)
GERMAN
Double def This English rather than German one.
18 Put into liquidation? (8)
IMMERSED
Cryptic def
21 Respect number trapped in a sticky situation (6)
ADMIRE
D (500 a number) in A MIRE (sticky situation)
23 Make master, finally a head (5)
REACH
Final letter of (maste)R & EACH (per person, a head)
24 Not in favour of social worker being put over one (4)
ANTI
ANT (hackneyed social worker) & 1
25 Machine gun nest blown up (4)
STEN
NEST* is blown up
*anagram
I think 13 Down (Commission) also refers to a ‘cut’ of the profit.
Sorry – not really tried annotating for others before so not sure how better to put it!
Thanks Rufus and flashling.
I struggled in the NW until I saw VEIL; also I didn’t parse REACH, and wasted some time trying to justify “CAST A NET” for 27a.
I’m a little uneasy about SHEET BENDS, though can’t quite put my finger on why. Aren’t they so called because they are bends (a type of knot) in a sheet (or rope)? Thus “rope = sheet” twice in the clue?
(Old trick question: how many ropes were on the fully-rigged Cutty Sark?)
I found this a fairly benign Rufus puzzle, but, on the whole, a pleasant start to the week. I thought that the clue for ‘reach’ at 23d was very good, but was not so impressed with the one for ‘immersed’ at 18d. which seems to invent a new meaning for ‘liquidate’.
Glad I wasn’t the only one unable to parse REACH.
A rare early start for me, and a rare quick finish for Rufus, whose mix of clues often gives me more problems than other ‘harder’ setters. Perhaps it’s due to the relative lack of cd/dd, classes that often give me problems, as you pointed out flashling. Most of those we had today were very straightforward – REVOLUTION, IMMERSED, GERMAN etc, though I did dabble with BERLIN for the latter.
SW gave the greatest delay, with perhaps the best of the dds – COMMISSION – last in.
I suppose that it is a characteristic of Rufusian clueing that I use the “Check” button to confirm my answer far more than with most other compilers. Does anyone else have this experience?
Thanks Rufus & flashling.
Another one who failed to parse REACH. I didn’t know the SHEET BEND. BTW the link doesn’t seem to work, should be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheet_bend without the ‘s.’
I did like ‘subscribed’ for UNDERWRITTEN.
Thanks Robi, link has been fixed/changed now.
Thanks for explaining (AR)KANSAS as I couldn’t see it on my own.
I still don’t understand GERMAN. “This English rather than German one”. Don’t get it. Can anyone help?
Hi muffin @6, today was one of the rare days when I solved on-line, and yes the check button helped – in some cases eg SPOONERISM because the answer seemed too easy!
Thanks Rufus and flashing
My favourites were 17a, 5a, 1a and 1d (LOI).
New word for me was SHEET BENDS, and I was unable to parse 16d & 23d.
I agree with Stozzel @1 regarding cut/commission.
@Bob Clary #9 click the link….
Thanks flashling. Now I know what to do when the text is in blue.
With only the R checker I also dabbled with “Berlin” for 16dn before settling on the correct GERMAN. I thought this was a decent Monday puzzle and I got the wrong end of the stick a few times before all the answers were in. A prime example of this was REACH which was my LOI after HADRIAN, and VEIL was another which I didn’t see until I had VILLAIN.
Thanks flashling.
In 27A, how does net mean caught? Should it not be netted?
Perhaps I’m being stupid, but I don’t see how “caught” = “net” in 27a. “Catch” would equate to “net”, but “caught” seems to be in the wrong tense.
jvh@15: We crossed. So I’m not the only one.
I wasn’t a big fan of “net” either, but you could perhaps stretch to interpreting it as an adjective, “remaining after all deductions”.
Thanks to flashling for the blog.
I am another who sees caught as a past tense but net as present tense – so they do not agree.
Another one for net. Plus – am I the only person who doesn’t define ARCHNESS as “cunning”?
And ADAGIO wasn’t too easy to be my last in.
Note to Gladys @20: one person’s meat is another’s poison – ADAGIO was my first in 🙂
Thanks Rufus and flashling
ADAGIO was about in the middle for me 🙂
Last couple in were REACH and IMMERSED.
Enjoyed it more than most puzzles by this setter – just liked the subtleness of a few of his clues, such as UNDERWRITTEN – I just had it as a dd, but the lift and shift of sub – scribed just added to the clue.
Didn’t think too much of it at the time, but now that it has been mentioned – NET does look a bit out of place.
Another who initially had plumped for BERLIN at 16d, before the crosser of OVERSIGHTS changed that.
I usually do well with Rufus, and I did. Things like immersed would just leap at me. We must be on the same frequency. Usual head scratching with kansas, reach and sheet bends. Glad I was not alone. Thanks for the blog and the explanations
Yes I know I’ve underlined the wrong thing in 29a. I’ll fix at home as it’s nigh on impossible on my phone.
Thanks Flashling and Rufus.
I enjoyed this but just couldn’t get SHEET BENDS despite having all the crossings.
Particularly liked ARCHIMEDES, VEIL and LAPS
@stozzel, thanks and don’t worry about that, I miss stuff and as long as I can see what you mean, and I did, it helps.
Another Monday, another Rufus. Found this straightforward apart from the unfamiliar SHEET BENDS (eventually guessed) and the last in REACH, which I couldn’t parse so thanks for that. Quite liked HADRIAN.
Thanks to flashling and Rufus
Last summer I visited “Hadrian’s villa” (actually the seat of government at the time) at Tivoli (outside Rome). It is known locally as the “Villa Adriana” – no aspirate!
[btw I would recommend anyone near Tivoli to see the Villa d’Este – it was better than I imagined it possibly could be.]
I knew SHEET BENDS, since they were among the knots I had to learn in the Boy Scouts. (I have long since forgotten the knot itself, though–I just remember the word.) I agree with the suggestion that the clue was a bit suspect, since the sheet bend is called the sheet bend because it’s a bend in a sheet–thus this wasn’t a double definition, but the same definition twice.
However, I had not heard of a composer named German.
My last one was ARCHNESS.
mrpenney @ 28
Thanks – you have expressed my doubt about SHEET BENDS more eloquently than I managed.
@29 MrPenny: The composer named German is irresistible to cryptic setters. I think he is probably more known to cruciverbalists than concert goers 😉 Another baker named Sam German invented the German chocolate cake. So far I have not see a clue mixing these two Germans yet. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/GermanChocolateCake.htm
Usual Rufus fare.
I did parse REACH and had also learnt the SHEET BEND in the Boy Scouts.
As has been pointed out, a few of the clues seem to have errors but of course Rufus is allowed these. 😉
Thanks to flashling and Rufus