Guardian 26,335 by Rufus

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The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26335.

The top half of this puzzle seemed to be all cds and dds, but the bottom half was a little more variied.

completed grid

Across
1 FANTASTIC A fact isn’t treated as very odd (9)
An anagram (‘treated’) of ‘a fact isnt’.
6 PAIR Match‘s quiet atmosphere (4)
A charade of P (‘quiet’) plus AIR (‘atmosphere’)
8 SUBURBIA It’s out of town and out of the country (8)
Cryptic definition.
9 RECIPE Crêpe one cooked — instructions provided (6)
An anagram (‘cooked’) of ‘crêpe’ plus I (‘one’)
10 SHERRY Drink sounds dear to the French (6)
A homophone (‘sounds’) of CHÉRI (‘dear to the French’)
11 HERCULES M Poirot has a point — a strong one (8)
A charade of HERCULE (‘M Poirot’, Agatha Christie’s character) plus S (‘point’ of the compass).
12 BRUNEI Be about to manage one part of Borneo (6)
An envelope (‘about’) of RUN (‘manage’) in ‘be’ plus I (‘one’).
15 REDEEMED Got your own back? (8)
Cryptic definition (from a pawnbroker, say).
16 BIGAMIST He breaks more than one union law (8)
Cryptic definition.
19 ESTATE Property gets one thousand short of estimate (6)
A subtraction: ‘est[im]ate’ less I (‘one’) and M (‘thousand’).
21 DELIGHTS Joys of French windows (8)
A charade of DE (‘of French’) plus LIGHTS (‘windows’).
22 PRIEST Father tries moving piano first (6)
A charade of P (‘piano’) plus RIEST, an anagram (moving’) of ‘tries’.
24 BASSET Take a chance injecting dope in dog (6)
An envelope (‘injecting’) of ASS (‘dope’) in BET (‘take a chance’).
25 IN QUOTES Sort of question found in inverted commas (2,6)
An anagram (‘sort’) of ‘question’.
26 ONUS Burden of love to star making a comeback (4)
A charade of O (‘love’) plus NUS, a reversal (‘making a comeback’) of SUN (‘star’).
27 WAGNERIAN Wearing an outfit, like a dramatic opera singer? (9)
An anagram (‘outfit’) of ‘wearing an’.
Down
1 FLUSH Having lots of money from a poker hand? (5)
Doubled definition.
2 NEUTRON Turn one out, though it’s free of charge (7)
An anagram (‘out’) of ‘turn one’.
3 ABBEY Where all men are brothers? (5)
Cryptic definition.
4 TEACHER He may be a master of form (7)
Definition.
5 CARTRIDGE A charge will be made for this case (9)
Cryptic definition.
6 PICTURE Fancy a movie? (7)
Double drfinition.
7 IMPLEMENT Complete tool (9)
Double definition.
13 RAISE CAIN Kick up a fuss, as Adam and Eve did (5,4)
Definition and literal interpretation.
14 IRISH STEW Meat dish rises with cooking (5,4)
An anagram (‘with cooking’) of ‘rises with’.
17 ALIASES They’re assumed to raise sail in rough sea (7)
An envelope (‘in’) of LIAS, a reversal (‘to raise’, in a down light) of ‘sail’ in AES, an anagram (‘rough’) of ‘sea’.
18 TOSSING Unable to sleep, due to ship’s movement? (7)
Double definition.
20 TRIPOLI Oil change needed after journey in capital (7)
A charade of TRIP (‘journey’) plus OLI, an anagram (‘change’) of ‘oil’, for the capital city of Libya.
22 PIQUE It sounds like the height of irritation (5)
A homophone (‘it sounds like’) of PEAK (‘the height’).
23 SKEIN Woolly lot of wild geese (5)
Not quite a double definition – more a sesquidef, since ‘woolly’ is an attribute of a skein or hank of wool..

*anagram

32 comments on “Guardian 26,335 by Rufus”

  1. Thanks Rufus and PeterO

    A very gentle start to the week with no real holdups. SUBURBIA was the last in – and did take a bit of prising out …

    4d was interesting as it relied totally on misdirection of a horse racing nature to guide one away from what is basically a direct definition of a TEACHER.

  2. Thanks to all. I normally take this opportunity on Mondays to rain on Rufus’s parade, but I liked this one. The cryptic definitions were clever rather than head-scratching, with some nice surfaces in many clues.

    My only quibble is that “in inverted commas,” as a definition for “in quotes,” uses “in” as a definition for “in.” But I’m not sure how that could have been avoided.

    If you parse the SKEIN clue as “Wolly lot / (of) wild geese” you do get two full definitions.

  3. I usually can’t call myself a fan of Rufus, what with all his double and cryptic definitions actually making things harder (for me) than they need to be, but I too must admit this was a joy to solve. 13 and 16 in particular gave me a chuckle 🙂

  5. I quite like Rufusian crosswords as they remind you of the basics. I am not sure I would be as good at the harder ones if I didn’t have one like this from time to time. It’s like being a drummer – you can’t do the clever stuff without a thorough and reproducible knowledge of the rudiments. No shame in that.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  6. Thanks Rufus and PeterO
    Although this was virtually a write-in, it was still very enjoyable. I loved BIGAMIST, IRISH STEW and ALIASES.
    I mentioned last week that I use “Check” with Rufus much more than with other compilers; this prevented me for mistakenly entering REGAINED for 15a – I thought that this clue was very loose, with several plausible solutions (until the crossers were entered, of course).
    I don’t really understand SUBURBIA, and the clue for HERCULES is a bit weak, as HERCULE is just the French (or Belgian!) version of the name.

  7. Thanks Rufus and PeterO.

    I enjoyed this puzzle, with my favourites being 10a, 22a, 16a and 13d.

    SKEIN = ‘flock of wild geese’ was new for me.

    Muffin @ 6: I thought that the clue for SUBURBIA was fine as it is neither in the middle of town nor in the country(side).

  8. Easy, but enjoyable.

    I would say, however that 25a should have been clued as:

    “Sort of question found between inverted commas”

  9. Michelle @ 7
    I suppose so about “suburbia”; not my favourite clue, though.
    Do you know the difference between “a skein of geese” and “a gaggle of geese”?

  10. It’s Rufus isn’t it. Pretty plain sailing, but a good start to the week.
    I found the Nutmeg Quiptic a little more taxing, but still not too difficult: her puzzles are consistently a joy for me, whether Quiptic or main cryptic.

  13. Well said, Tim at no 5. And Muffyword at no 11, contain yourself, please.

    Apart from Muffyword’s comment, my laugh out loud moment this morning was ‘complete tool’ for IMPLEMENT. I’m not entirely sure that Rufus intended it, but ‘tool’ is the word of choice among young people these days for ‘idiot’, ‘prat’, ‘dickhead’ and so on. So a conversation around the dinner table in our house might well involve the ejaculation: ‘William, you are a complete tool’. Made me smile anyway.

    Loved this one. Thanks to S&B.

  14. Bob @8
    A skein of geese would be on the wing, whereas a gaggle of geese I infer (by onomatapoea) to be on the ground. Flock I would reserve for domesticated birds or starlings or w.h.y.

  15. Thanks PeterO. I agree that this was a v enjoyable Rufus. Usually I find his CDs and DDs annoying but 4dn and 13dn in particular gave me a smile this morning.

    Bob Clary @8 did come up with a much better version of 25ac though!

    Last one in was REDEEMED.

  16. muffin @ 9 – no, I don’t know the the difference between “a skein of geese” and “a gaggle of geese”?

    But maybe Newell White @ 14 has explained it now?

  17. Ater last week it was nice to complete a grid with ease! Although very straightforward, as others have remarked, I found it strangely satisfying.

  18. Michelle @16, I associate “skein” with the typical v formation geese use in flight to save energy

  20. This was one of the most straightforward Rufus puzzles I have seen in a long time and it was the proverbial top-to-bottom solve with IN QUOTES my LOI after PIQUE and SKEIN. Enjoyable while it lasted though.

  21. Thanks Rufus & PeterO for a fairly straightforward solve.

    I’ve just posted on another site that IRISH STEW is a clue for one of the posters called rishi. 🙂

    I did like the clue for BIGAMIST. I’m glad we’ve sorted out our SKEINs from our gaggles.

    I suppose the FANTASIST NINA is just a coincidence. 😕

  23. Rattled through it but hit a brick wall with 16 (LOI). I don’t know why, but I never considered the cryptic definition.

  24. Thanks all
    I always like to discover a new (to me at least) anagram, so I enjoyed 25across.
    “suburban” caused a short delay for “teacher” and “Hercule” was a nice misdirection.

  25. Thanks to PeterO for the blog.

    I thought 2d was a nice bit of misdirection: it initially sent me off looking for words meaning gratis.

  26. I’m probably the only one held up for ages by REDEEMED, everything else having gone in pretty much at first sight.

    ALIASES one of my favourite ever Rufus clues, designed to look like a cd but in fact not.

  27. This was one of Rufus’s easier ones for me too, though I did cause myself a minor delay by writing SUBURBAN for SUBURBIA, which made TEACHER less obvious than it should have been. Last in was REDEEMED.

    Thanks to Rufus and PeterO

  28. Very easy start to the week. Rufus puzzles have been getting trickier of late but this was pretty much a write in. NEUTRON was the only- minor- difficulty.

  29. Enjoyed this but went slightly wrong at the end, entering IF SPOKEN for 25ac which gave me PISTE as last in for “height of irritation”, thinking along the lines of ski-runs – I was a bit dubious about this as it seemed rather Pauline for Rufus. Probably in too much of a hurry with the finish line in sight.

  30. Usual Monday fare with the usual mixture of pleasant and questionable clues.

    Surely too ephemeral to be actually enjoyed 😉

    Thanks to PeterO and Rufus

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