The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26365.
I thought this was Rufus at his best: the numerous double definitions were of good quality, and I was particularly taken with 30A.
| Across | ||
| 9 | DROOP | A number with inadequate backing slump (5) |
| A charade of D (Roman numeral 500, ‘a number’) plus ROOP, a reversal (‘backing’) of POOR (‘inadequate’). | ||
| 10 | ARMOURERS | They were once responsible for the mail (9) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 11 | LUDICROUS | I leave ridiculous organisation — it’s farcical (9) |
| An anagram (‘organisation’) of ‘r[i]diculous’ witout th I (‘I leave’). | ||
| 12 | TOOTS | US sweetheart gets whistles (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 13 | FANFARE | An enthusiast to get on and flourish (7) |
| A charade of FAN (‘an enthusiast’) plus FARE (‘get on’). | ||
| 15 | DERIDED | Jeered at performance after free admission (7) |
| An envelope (‘admission’) of RID (‘free’) in DEED (‘performance’). | ||
| 17 | DWELT | Stayed and spoke at length (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 18 | SET | Conventional group of people (3) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 20 | URBAN | Abraham’s birthplace has to proscribe municipal status (5) |
| A charade of UR (‘Abraham’s birthplace’) plus BAN (‘proscribe’). | ||
| 22 | PIERROT | Report written about one performer (7) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of I (‘one’) in PERROT, an anagram (‘written’?) of ‘report’. | ||
| 25 | ATHEISM | Lack of faith in humanity (7) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 26 | REFIT | Note on qualified dockyard job (5) |
| A charade of RE (‘note’) plus FIT (‘qualified’). | ||
| 27 | MASTER KEY | Teacher with the answers required for Common Entrance? (6,3) |
| A charade of MASTER (‘teacher’) plus KEY (‘the answers’), with a cryptic definition. | ||
| 30 | ANCHORAGE | On a charge, being drunk in port (9) |
| An anagram (‘baing drunk’) of ‘on a charge’. | ||
| 31 | GRAIN | Smallest possible quantity of cereal (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | IDOL | I’d look up to see a star (4) |
| A charade if ‘I’d’ plus OL, a reversal (‘up’) of LO (‘look’). My first choice was DIVA. | ||
| 2 | CONDENSE | Swindler, slow-witted, has to concentrate (8) |
| A charade of CON (‘swindler’) plus DENSE (‘slow-witted’). | ||
| 3 | EPIC | Great work from the picador (4) |
| A hidden answer (‘from’) in ‘thE PICador’. | ||
| 4 | WAGONERS | They remove the dead in battles (8) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of GONE (‘the dead’) in WAR (‘battles’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 5 | AMUSED | Morning spent being entertained (6) |
| A charade of AM (‘morning’) plus USED (‘spent’). | ||
| 6 | RUN THROUGH | Transfix in rehearsal (3,7) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 7 | RECORD | It may get broken — put it down! (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 8 | ISIS | As one’s written repeatedly, she was revered (4) |
| I’S (‘one’s’) twice. | ||
| 13 | FED UP | Disgruntled, having had an airline meal? (3,2) |
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 14 | ALTERATION | Change blend of tea on trial (10) |
| An anagram (‘blend of’) of ‘tea on trial’ | ||
| 16 | DENIM | Dug up some strong fabric (5) |
| A reversal (‘up’) of MINED (‘dug’). | ||
| 19 | TRANSFER | Side to side movement by a footballer, say (8) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 21 | BRICKBAT | Blunt criticism of decent chap joining club (8) |
| A charade of BRICK (‘decent chap’) plus BAT (‘club’). | ||
| 23 | EFFECT | Aftermath of force (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 24 | TOMCAT | A Queen’s consort (6) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 26 | ROAM | Empty sheep range (4) |
| An envelope of O (’empty’, with nothing in it) in RAM (‘sheep’). | ||
| 28 | EDGE | The advantage a sword has over a blunt weapon? (4) |
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 29 | YANK | Jerk, but he wouldn’t like to be called it (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
was stuck on 26d not knowing how to parse it. Thanks PeterO. I get it now.
empty sheep = sheep with nothing in it
Thanks Rufus and PeterO
A not particularly enjoyable struggle, with the bottom half taking ages. In fact I cheated on ROAM, though this became my favourite when I saw the answer.
I’ve mentioned before that I use the “Check” button far more with Rufus than most other compilers – “Can it really be that?” being a frequent mental question. Today the answer “yes it is” came up for most, but “vega” for 1d and “span” for 26d were shown to be incorrect.
The blog gives “double definition” for “atheism” Could someone explain the second definition, please?
P.S. I’m not sure that “grain” is a double definition, as “grain” isn’t “smallest possible quantity” (“atom”?). Isn’t it just a cryptic definition, “smallest possible quantity of cereal”?
Got stuck on the sheep question too, it became my favourite as well when I saw the answer. Could not understand 24d at first, though I have an inkling now, but my dictionary (rather ancient) does not enlighten me!
Thanks Rufus and PeterO
Thanks Rufus and PeterO
My first one in was DIVA at 1d … my last in was IDOL at 1d. Also originally had ‘audacious’ instead of LUDICROUS and PORTIER instead of PIERROT.
Actually quite enjoyed the puzzle today, where the correct answer when finally found was undoubtedly the right one. A lot of nice misdirection along the way with ‘Queen’s consort’, ’empty sheep’ and at 1d.
I read ATHEISM as more a cd … as in ‘humanity that lacks faith’
Cookie @4
“Queen” is a term commonly used for a breeding female cat.
Ah, now my old Concise Oxford comes into its own…
grain the smallest possible quantity (without a grain of vanity, of love)
Thanks Muffin @6, I should have known that I guess, having several female cats (my mind was turning in the direction of drag queens).
Rufus seems to have reacted to the traditional “it’s far too easy (and by the way I got two clues wrong)” complaints with typical perspicacity – he’s made his crosswords easier.
@2
I think Atheism is a CD (atheism = where human beings lack faith); but I guess Peter O is taking “humanity” to be equivalent to “humanism”.
But “not a grain of truth” means “not the smallest quantity of truth”, so DD seems right for 31a (especially as you could cut a grain of cereal in two, or indeed mill it to a powder).
I really wouldn’t use the check button, especially with a “lateral thinking” specialist like Rufus; I don’t think it serves any useful purpose and I’ve given it up. I don’t actually “get” vega for 1d.
“Anchorage” could either be capitalized (as in Anchorage, Alaska, definitely a port) or not (as in anchorage, generically a place to drop anchor, thus usually a port). Wonder which one Rufus had in mind.
On that note, some setters’ habit of using the word “port” to mean “some city, literally anywhere in the world, that’s sort of near water” is a little annoying. It’s not as bad as “girl” or “boy” to indicate “I’m thinking of one of the thousands of common first names–read my mind!” But it’s close.
Like Muffin, I found the “atheism” clue a bit dodgy.
Found this a bit trickier than the average Rufus. Some really lovely clues and some great misdirection. I too had DIVA in for 1d and SPAN for 26d for a while. Unless I’m missing something, I’m still not convinced about 17a and 25a though.
outoftheratrace @11
17a DWELT….in the Concise Oxford, “dwell” to speak at length e.g. “he dwelt for a long time on the subject” and “stay” to dwell temporarily.
One of the harder Rufus puzzles, particularly at the bottom. Thanks Rufus and PeterO.
I thought 31a was a double definition, the ‘grain’ being the smallest measure of weight in both the troy and avoirdupois systems.
I parsed 25a as overlapping double definitions, ie ‘Lack of faith’ and ‘faith in humanity’. Although I don’t think it quite fair to equate atheism and humanism, believers in one are commonly believers in the other.
Thank you PeterO.
I do struggle with this setter. I end up staring at my answer and doing a Muffinesque “Can it really be that?”
Re ATHEISM I suppose it’s simply ‘Lack of faith within humanity’ but I agree it’s a wee bit weak. Hard to imagine where else one could have a lack of faith.
That aside, thank you Rufus, for easing us into the week.
Nice week all.
I find that I’m echoing Muffin’s somewhat critical note in recent entires, including this one. A bit surprised that ‘key’ meaning ‘answer’ didn’t get included also. Surely a key is a means to an answer, not an answer itself?
Having said that, enjoyed the puzzle on the whole and the blog, so thanks to both.
Thanks Rufus & PeterO.
I started briskly but then got bogged down, missing most of the anagrams at first. I thought the ‘blend of tea’ was Assam. 🙁
ROAM had a super clue and I also enjoyed ARMOURERS, MASTER KEY & TOMCAT.
Parky @15; ‘the key to the mystery…………’
Parky, I think the key to a map or chart can be considered a set of answers, as in “What does ‘PH’ on this Ordnance Survey map mean? Ah, it means it’s a pub.”
I still don’t really get 25 ac.
May I just digress for a second? I had a stroke three months ago, and I progressed from the inability to speak or read in the first hours, on through slowly completing Quicks, before attempting and eventually completing Rufus, then the other setters and finally completing the Prize. I can’t tell you how encouraging and reassuring (because so measurable) this process was. So many thanks to all the setters, and to the bloggers and commenters for putting me back on the right lines.
parky @15
Even more directly than Robi’s example: note that 27A indicates KEY by ‘the answers’ plural, and Chambers, among the yards of definitions of KEY, gives “a set of answers to problems”.
I enjoyed this puzzle. Count me as another who found the bottom half trickier than the top half, and REFIT/EFFECT/ROAM were my last three in.
19 was the highlight for me. The misdirection of “side to side” had me looking the wrong way for quite some time.
Thanks to PeterO for the blog.
Nice bit of misdirection in 14d: ‘blend of tea’ has the right number of letters for the anagram fodder but yields nothing.
Bronterre @18
Welcome. I suspect that you are right in not understanding 25A. It is not the happiest of clues, and the explanation I gave in the blog does not help. It is heartening to hear of your progress, and that this diversion may be doing some good. Keep up the good work.
Cyborg @21
I agree. 19D is a top CD from Rufus.
Following on to nos. 15, 17, and 19: As an educator, I make answer keys all the time. The key is the set of solutions; you use it to grade an exam. This is an extremely common usage (at least on this side of the Atlantic; I’m assuming teachers over there do the same thing, and call it the same thing too.) Hence, “Teacher with the answers” for “master key” is entirely fair, since the educational milieu is already suggested in the clue.
I think ‘humanity’ just means the human race, as opposes to the quality of being human or kindness.
A grain is the smallest unit in two systems of weights and measures. (Possibility doesn’t come into it and should not be part of the clue.) It is less in avoirdupois than in troy.
As a measure of truth it is not clear whether it is smaller than an iota, scintilla or whit.
Bronterre @18. Welcome, and heartiest congratulations on your recovery. Long may it continue.
Thanks all
I find Bronterre’s account in 18 to be very interesting.
Last year following a stroke induced by an operation I had a quite different experience regarding crosswords. As my various faculties returned a measure that showed clearly that my intellect(?) was still amiss was the fact that from a pre-stroke solver of every Guardian cryptic plus Azed mostly I had been reduced to staring blankly each day and rarely managing a single clue. This continued for several months right up to and including a Friday. Then with a shock on the following Monday I solved the whole Rufus! Wondering how much this was due to the Rufus effect I then managed to have a complete clean sweep of the ensuing week’s puzzles.
Looking back I think what was missing was not somuch my intellect, whatever that is, but more my ability to persist in the thought process when there was no early success.
Today’s: I liked 24d and 26d (last in ) but doubted 23d. Effect is the aftermath of anything, isn’t it?
Shan’t bore you with similar comments as above, but it occured to me that 4d could have been in a Quick Crossword with the answer Valkyrie.
WAGONERS was last in but one of the first thought of – I’d assumed it was a fairly lame cd, the cryptic aspect having completely passed me by. And when I finally got ROAM, I mentally went through all the RO*AM combinations wondering which was a sheep, until I came to 15squared. Thanks for sorting tat out for me, PeterO.
that not tat PeterO … sorry for any offence !
Rhotician @25
What about a grain in the systems Tower, Merchant, London and Metric. Seems there is a lot of possibility.
rhotician @25
I agree that in 25A ATHEISM, ‘humanity’ is to be interpreted as humankind, I think that Rufus may have been attempting something for which he shows a fondness, namely a surface that suggests something contrary to the answer. I do not think it quite works here.
I think 31A GRAIN works better if GRAIN is taken metaphorically (“there’s not a grain of truth in it”) rather than as weights and measures.
Yep, SW corner stumped me for ages too,and having solved it I can’t see why- ROAM suddenly becomes easy. Oh well.
Thanks Rufus
Thanks PeterO.
WAGONERS defeated me. I gave up on this one expecting it to be a cryptic definition. Having seen the explanation it is my favourite clue of the puzzle.
I liked ATHEISM once I twigged how to read ‘humanity’, it made me smile and I am glad Rufus included it. I’m not sure it is actually a cryptic clue though – more an amusing definition for a word.
For some reason I just couldn’t see TRANSFER for love or money. I got a bit of tunnel vision with TEAMSTER as a possible word for a member of a (football) team… and having discarded that, thought “side to side movement” might be some sort of STEP. CRABSTEP was out due to the T at the beginning, but I very nearly filled in the rather bizarre TOADSTEP…
Cookie @31
You’re confusing ‘possible’ with ‘possibly’. Within the possible systems mentioned there is only one smallest quantity, as is implied by the word ‘smallest’ itself. (What’s the smallest quantity in the metric system?)
PeterO @32
Of course GRAIN is to be taken metaphorically. I was jesting in comparing quantities of truth, but ‘smallest’ is really only appropriate when used with not. Here ‘very small’ would be better. Indeed when we say that something has a grain of truth in it we just mean small.
Which is all by the way. The more obvious reading of the clue is as a straight definition.
I’m afraid I didn’t like ROAM. I still don’t get it! I had URAL (range) as an empty sheep (URIAL). Just saying… First time I’ve commented on here but have been following for over a year. Excellent stuff here.
rhotician @ 36
“Metric grain” nowadays is a weight used for pearls and diamonds, 50mg, 1/4 carat. It was known in the past as the Jewellers Grain or Pearl Grain.
(The smallest quantity in the metric system, at the moment, is nano 0.000 000 001 billionth)
pompeyjimbo @37
An empty sheep is one with with nothing in it, i.e. put O (zero, nothing) into RAM (a sheep) to get ROAM (range, as a verb)
‘Side to side’ excellent. Witty and concise. No idea about 25ac, however, despite bloggers efforts. Come on, Rufus! Explain yourself! You have often generously done so in the past.
rhotician @36
Just checked on Wiki. Now it is yocto 10 to the minus 24, the years have left me behind.
Pompeyjimbo@37, 26d is as PeterO explains. Ram (sheep) has O (nothing) in it, ergo it’s empty. I also failed to parse it, by the way…. and failed, too, with tomcat. So I won’t be getting on my high horse about Rufus being too easy!
Wagoners got me – thought it could be bayonets but couldn’t understand why. Very enjoyable again. Thanks Rufus and Peter
If you want to walk through a wall, the thing you put in the lock is the key, but the door is the answer!
I’ve done crosswords since childhood 60 years ago but although my wife has been solving the cryptics in a ‘more lightweight’ newspaper for a year or two now, she’s always left the Guardian to me. But having recently retired from a mentally energetic career, she is looking for things to keep stretching her brain, so she has finally joined me in my ‘heavyweight’ crossword solving.
I suggested we try today’s Rufus together as her first attempt. “Rufus will break you in gently,” I said. Hours later we were still struggling to finish with the SW corner! But she made several contributions and enjoyed the quality of the clues, judging EDGE to be the best because it made her laugh out loud.
So thank you, Rufus. (And Peter O for the parsing)
I think 25ac is OK. Isn’t just a misdirection, pointing solvers towards synonyms for cynicism, etc?
By the way, best wishes to Bronterre who corrected me last week about possible interpretations for “slender” when I was having a go at what I regarded as sloppy definitions.
I found some of this a real struggle, and couldn’t finish it on the train back from Scotland yesterday. The ones I couldn’t see were WAGONERS and ARMOURERS, two crossing cryptic definitions with nothing to go on in terms of wordplay for those of us who have little to no interest in military history. These never get any easier for me – with other compilers familiarity makes a big difference…
Thanks to Rufus and PeterO
Surprised no-one commented on the top row of unches. They spell ICE WARRI….. (as in ice warriors) Is there more to this puzzle Nina-wise that we’re all missing or is this pure coincidence? Surely not.