Guardian 26,562 / Chifonie

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Rufus gets a Bank Holiday break and Chifonie steps in from the bench, with a typically straightforward but elegant and well-constructed puzzle. Thanks to Chifonie.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. CARAMEL Drive Earl in California? That’s sweet! (7)
RAM E In CAL
5. ADMIRER Doctor married lover (7)
MARRIED*
9. MOTOR Travel a short time to a river (5)
MO[ment] TO R
10. COURTESAN Mistress recounts a disaster (9)
(RECOUNTS A)*
11. THREATENED Yarn about Lawrence having opponents browbeaten (10)
T.E. [Lawrence] + N E (opponents in Bridge) in THREAD
12. MESH Engagement revealed in game show (4)
Hidden in gaME SHow
14. TO THE LETTER Scrap dealer keeps Ethel confused? Exactly! (2,3,6)
ETHEL* in TOTTER
18. PEARLY GATES Place of judgement where Penny advanced tycoon (6,5)
P + EARLY + [Bill] GATES
21. NIPS Pinches small quantities of booze (4)
Double definition
22. STARK NAKED Uncovered bet about old vessel reaching pole (5,5)
ARK + N in STAKED
25. IMPUDENCE Thoughtlessness right away leads to rudeness (9)
IMPRUDENCE less R
26. TIDES Head of security to check back for trends (5)
S[ecurity] + EDIT, all reversed
27. GARMENT Man with weapon hidden in clothing (7)
ARM in GENT
28. SUNDOWN Time of day for loose women in Senegal (7)
UNDO (loose) + W in SN
Down
1. COME TO Revive space traveller with oxygen (4,2)
COMET + O
2. RETURN Interest in soldiers’ act (6)
RE + TURN. I don’t think Chifonie does themes, but this is one of several words that are vaguely related to money
3. MERCANTILE Mail centre becomes profit oriented (10)
(MAIL CENTRE)*
4. LUCRE Money leads Charlie into temptation (5)
C in LURE
5. AMUSEMENT A maiden was not accustomed to hold me for pleasure (9)
A M + ME in USEN’T
6. MUTE Silencer Mike put on Victorian pick-up (4)
M + UTE (utility vehicle in Australia, hence “Victorian”)
7. ROSSETTI Poet has single girl introduced to mountain climbing (8)
I + TESS in TOR, all reversed
8. RUN SHORT Become exhausted, like a narrowly-beaten cricket team (3,5)
Double definition – the team that’s a “run short” has been narrowly beaten. The sense of “become exhausted” is new to me, I think
13. KENSINGTON Know Carol’s not up in London (10)
KEN (know) + SING + NOT<. As always I don't like “in London” to mean “a place in London”, but I've noticed Chifonie uses this construction quite a lot
15. TIGHT-KNIT Drunken tackle keeps player well connected (5-4)
TIGHT (drunk) + N (player – Bridge again?) in KIT (tackle)
16. SPENDING Society awaiting settlement of expenses (8)
S + PENDING (awaiting settlement) – or possible PENDING = awaiting and the definition is “settlement of expenses”, which avoids the awkward linking “of”
17. BAGPIPER Brother stores silver tubing for musician (8)
AG PIPE in BR
19. SKIDOO Small child gets spectacles for motor vehicle (6)
S + KID + OO
20. EDISON Inventor in side-on crash (6)
SIDE-ON*
23. REEDS Rushes about with English detective (5)
RE (about) + E DS (Detective Sergeant)
24. IDLE Sovereign tucked into fish in lounge (4)
L (pound, sovereign) in IDE (a useful fish for setters)

28 comments on “Guardian 26,562 / Chifonie”

  1. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew
    As the top was all write-ins, I was thinking “Rufus-lite”. Fortunately the bottom was more challenging for me.

    I liked TO THE LETTER, PEARLY GATES and SUNDOWN in particular.

    I didn’t like the “a” in 9a – “Travel a short time to river” would have been better.

  3. btw Andrew, currently this blog is “uncategorised”, and the title doesn’t include the setter’s name.

  4. Thank you, Andrew, for blogging.

    A gentle Bank Holiday puzzle from Chifonie, but none the worse for that. Some typically elegant surfaces, which I appreciated.

    Favourites same as muffin.

  6. I quite enjoyed this – took me longer than usual to get on Chifonie’s wavelength, but it all dropped out pretty smoothly in the end. Finished in the top left with CARAMEL and RETURN. UTE was new to me.

    Thanks to Andrew and Chifonie

  8. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this, especially COME TO, TO THE LETTER, PEARLY GATES and IMPUDENCE.
    At least the doctor here had better morals than another recently!

    typo 1a, in, not In.

  9. Thanks Chifonie for a nice Bank Holiday canter and Andrew for the blog.

    Good to see the dear old ide swimming back to view!

  10. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew; good fun. A swift google tells me that there is a river Tor, but only in a gamester’s fantasy world

  11. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew; good Monday fare.

    For 13, could the definition not be just ‘London,’ with ‘in’ being a link word? ‘I’m going to visit my aunt in Kensington/London. Still a bit vague though.

    I liked AMUSEMENT, MUTE and the simple REEDS.

  12. Thanks all
    I foolishly entered bagpipes instead of bagpiper which involved much wasted time seeking garment!
    Otherwise a pleasant solve.

  13. A bit harder than the average Chifonie, I thought, thanks to obscurities like UTE and my un-favourite elision USEN’T.

    And while I’m about it, I really don’t like the lazy tor = mountain. I know it’s in a dictionary somewhere, but other than its specialist Devon / Cornwall usage (not mountains anyway), I don’t know a mountain-climber anywhere who would say they are just off up the nearby tor.

    PEARLY GATES was fun.

  14. Thanks all
    I foolishly entered bagpipes instead of bagpiper which involved much wasted time seeking garment!
    Otherwise a pleasant solveàa

  15. Thanks, Andrew.

    Pleasant enough, with straightforward constructions and some nice surfaces. I hadn’t come across the Australian ‘ute’, but 6d couldn’t have been anything else.

    STARK NAKED is a corruption of ‘start naked’, where ‘start’ is an old word meaning ‘rump’ (as in the bird ‘redstart’ and the modern Swedish ‘stjärt’) – so literally ‘butt naked’.

  16. I have never heard or seen “usen’t” before today. Where in the English-speaking world is it in common use?

    Regarding Andrew’s comment on RUN SHORT, “exhausted” would refer to supplies of something. As in, “we’ve run short of eggs, so we can’t serve any more omelets.” Surely you’ve seen that before.

  17. “Exhausted” means we’ve none left. Our supply of eggs is exhausted. If we’ve run short of eggs, we may have only one or two left. Would you like it boiled or fried?

  18. Thanks to Chifonie and Andrew. I saw SUNDOWN, TIGHT KNIT, and MUTE as solutions but had trouble parsing them (e.g., K(N)IT). For some reason “ute” regularly turns up in N Y Times puzzles as “sports utility vehicle” but without any Australian connection, as does “ide” for fish. Yes, those items with three useful letters can be a boon to setters, though (as noted in an earlier post) “ers” for “bitter vetch” has dropped out of the running.

  19. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew

    Nice to have a more straightforward puzzle after battling through some pretty tough ones last week – finishing quite quickly over lunch.

    Made the same initial entry as RCW with BAGPIPES, until GARMENT said that it couldn’t be so !

    Had not heard of TOTTER as the rag-and-bone man before looking it up. Also, it looks like the motor vehicle is more a SKI DOO (originally supposed to be SKI DOG apparently) – but think that this was debated last time that it appeared.

    ROSSETTI was last in and it took a little while to understand what the cryptic part of it was – and agree that TOR for mountain is a bit of a long bow. Took a little time to see how SUNDOWN worked as well – clever misdirection with the ‘loose women’.

    Unsurprisingly, UTE made MUTE almost a write-in from down here.

  20. Did this on the train on the way back from Cheltenham and found it pretty straightforward- certainly about right for my jazz festival cuddled brain to cope with. I got stuck on REEDS as I . was racking my brains to find a fictional detective. The penny dropped at about Taunton. I thought the puzzle a little stodgier than the usual Rufus but OK.
    Thanks for the origin of STARK NAKED by the way.
    Thanks Chifonie.

  21. Thanks all: I’ve been out all day so unable to reply. I see that the equivalence of “run short” and “become exhausted” is much more obvious than it seemed to me at 7.30 this morning, as some of you have pointed out.

  22. Just me, then, who found this much more difficult than usual? Failed on 11a, 25a, 27a, 2d and 6d! They are obvious now, but I just couldn’t tease out the right words.

    Trailman @ 13. “I don’t know a mountain-climber anywhere who would say they are just off up the nearby tor” How about Mam Tor? Perhaps, not a mountain, but I certainly have said I am going up Mam Tor.

    Thanks, Andrew and Chifonie

  23. Usen’t, completely new to me. You live and learn. i haven’t visited this site for a while, where has uncle yip gone ?

  25. Dave @24
    I think the final blow-up came later, when he was criticised for including spoilers in the visible preamble. I may have got the time line wrong, though.

  28. Re the Victorian pickup in 6 down. “Ute” is actually a slang abbreviation of “utility”, an Australian invention from the 1930s made by replacing the back half of a sedan by a load carrying tray with fixed sides. These are still made and sold in Australia. Try googling “Deniliquin ute muster” to see some OTT examples.

    Cheers

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