Guardian 26,688 by Rufus

by

Good morning, back to Rufus after last week’s unexpected Nutmeg appearance

Rufus as Rufus does, mostly easy with the old curve ball thrown in, but it’s the usual mixture on DDs and CDs. With anyone else the grid would shout Nina at me but it doesn’t have the lack of checking that can upset some solvers.

 

completed grid

 

Thanks Rufus

 

Across

9 Painters may paint it — and in a variety of places (9)
LANDSCAPE

AND in PLACES* varied

10 Pull together on an ash tree (5)
ROWAN

ROW (pull on an oar in a boat) & AN

11 Induct into office when I answer correctly (5,2)
SWEAR IN

[I ANSWER]* corrected

12 Organise gay reel with enthusiasm (7)
EAGERLY

[GAY REEL]* organised

13 Dismissed by monarch and shot! (5)
OUTER

OUT & E.R. A shot that hits the outer bull in say archery

14 Risks of heat in term­inals (9)
ENDANGERS

ANGER (heat) in ENDS

16 Exercise in order to be taller? (7,4,4)
STRETCH ONES LEGS

Cryptic def-ish cum extended def

19 Reliable youngster looking after horses (6,3)
STABLE BOY

Is it just me or is youngster doing double duty? STABLE (reliable) & BOY (youngster). I guess LAD may well have been put in by a few folks which could cause a problem or two later.

21 Island it would be hard to con? (5)
CRETE

With CON it would be concrete

22 Opposing points in characteristic passage (7)
TRANSIT

North and South in TRAIT

23 Poor people take exams outside university (7)
PAUPERS

U(niversity) in PAPERS (exams)

24 Cheese made with some French backing in part of India (5)
GOUDA

DU (some in french) reversed in GOA

25 Unreliable trio let go in opera (9)
RIGOLETTO

[TRIO LET GO]* unreliably

Down

1 They provide poor accommodation (10)
ALMSHOUSES

If in doubt with Rufus, it’s just a cryptic definition.

2 One who suffers from depression? (8)
INVESTOR

And again, a horrible cryptic definition in that during a depression investors take a hit in their share holdings. Clever enough but I’d defy anyone geting it as a cold solve with no crossing letters

3 He takes more interest than you would wish (6)
USURER

And another CD although this is more like just a definition

4 In the clear — not by merit (4)
EARN

In clEAR Not

5 Drug addiction in the country (10)
DEPENDENCY

Double definition, second one often preceded in the UK by CROWN

6 Ships’ prisons and inside are bandits (8)
BRIGANDS

AND in BRIGS, hmm that’s another AND insertion using the word and in the clue

7 Put tennis ball into play, grabbing point by deflection (6)
SWERVE

W(est) in SERVE

8 Simply unique (4)
ONLY

Double def

14 Showers seen at the bathroom trade fair? (10)
EXHIBITORS

Cryptic definition, one who shows, making an exhibition of oneself etc. unless someone can see more to this

15 Temporary sacking on which mechanic under a car may be working (10)
SUSPENSION

Defintion & Cryptic def

17 Mother is surrounded by excited Latins exhibiting charm (8)
TALISMAN

MA in excited LATINS*

18 They can get hot weather (8)
ELEMENTS

Double def

20 Jack and Bill meet us at the counter (6)
ABACUS

AB (salior, jack) & AC (account, bill) & US

21 Join up with the French company first (6)
COUPLE

CO(mpany) & UP & LE (the french)

22 They identify trite Latin quotations (4)
TAGS

Double definition didn’t know the second one immediately

23 Quiet time for a hotel employee (4)
PAGE

P (quiet) & AGE (time)

40 comments on “Guardian 26,688 by Rufus”

  1. Thank you flashling and good morning everybody.

    A few here that I admired for their surface, notably ENDANGERS & ELEMENTS.

    Held up for a while by rushing in with STABLE LAD instead of BOY.

    Ran out of time with EARN and had to cheat – nicely concealed I thought.

    Very typically Rufus, good start to the week.

    Nice week, all.

  2. A good Rufus today, I thought, except that I got held up by putting STABLE LAD instead of STABLE BOY – a typical Rufusian peril. Favourites were CRETE, ENDANGERS, DEPENDENCY and COUPLE. Thanks to Rufus and flashling.

  4. 19ac – a stable boy doesn’t have to be a youngster, there are quite a few around Newmarket who must be close to their pension.

    Thanks to Rufus and Flashing

  5. Thanks Rufus and flashling
    I enjoyed this – I thought LANDSCAPE (semi &lit?), CRETE and ABACUS were particularly nice. Typical Rufus pitfalls, though. I missed the LAD/BOY trap as I had EXHIBITORS first, but I invented INDENTER (?) for 2d (dent as the depression) and had GAIN for 4d until checking showed both to be wrong.

  7. I got 2D in the end but thought it a very weak clue. A depression normally refers to a period of prolonged weak economic activity, I’d have thought, rather than a reduction in share prices. There is in fact very little correlation between economic activity and share prices. It is true that in the very rare instances when an economy has gone into depression, such as the 1920s, this has normally been preceded by a decline in stock prices. However a case can be made that the decline in stock prices causes, or at least contributes to, the depression, rather than the other way round.

  8. Good morning and thank you to Rufus and flashing.

    Andyk000 @4 and flashing, I read 19ac as reliable = stable; youngster = boy; looking after horses = stable boy.

  10. I thought indenter for 2d was a better fit – it is a real word and in a dent is in a depression – hence the question mark !

  11. There is no such creature as a stable boy whereas stable lad is universal and can refer to a boy,old man or even a girl! Humph

  12. Thanks Rufus and flashling.

    I needed help to parse OUTER and CRETE! Dimmer than usual today after watching the eclipse of the moon. I liked ABACUS, ENDANGERS, ELEMENTS and EARN.

  13. Thanks Rufus and flashling

    I needed some help to parse the second def of 22d.

    My favourites were EXHIBITORS, ABACUS, CRETE & ELEMENTS (LOI)

    Sam@11 – STABLE BOY exists in my online dictionary:
    stable boy
    noun
    a boy or man employed in a stable.

  14. Thanks Rufus & flashling.

    I found this quite tough with all the CDs. I was another ‘indenter.’ I’m not sure that DEPENDENCIES are really countries, more like administered territories although I guess many would think of Bermuda, say, as a country. I see STABLEBOY is in Chambers as one word and is in the ODE as two words.

    Favourite was EXHIBITORs.

  15. Thanks Rufus and flashling

    I agree with all the parsings and the concerns re the ambiguity at 19, however…

    For 22d I still don’t get the second definition, can anyone help?

    13a could refer to darts but I do acknowledge that flashling said “archery say”

  16. Kevin @15
    A “Latin tag” is a short expression that is used to save thinking, and to give an impression that the speaker has a classical education.

    For example:
    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

  17. This got off to a good start with the rather unRufusian LANDSCAPE and then blow me down he does it again with BRIGANDS.

    I did have INVESTOR but it was my last in and I nervously checked here to see whether it was right. Similarly TAGS was entered a bit diffidently – there might have been something to TOGA, I thought, given the Latin reference.

  18. About medium difficulty for a Rufus, mostly straightforward but my last two ENDANGERS and DEPENDENCY took a while to see. No problems with STABLE BOY because both possibilities occurred to me so I waited for the crossers.

    Thanks to Rufus and flashling

  19. Thanks Rufus and flashing. Fairly straightforward, although I too had STABLE LAD at first. One quibble though. Rowan is not an Ash tree (although known as the “Mountain Ash” – it is in fact a Sorbus and a member of the rose family.

  20. Quite nice start to the week. Thanks flashling. Got INDENTER and TOGA in incorrectly. Bit of a financial theme with ALMSHOUSES, INVESTOR, EARN,USURER, DEPENDENCY, PAUPERS. Maybe they could all do with an ABACUS!

  22. I have no idea what you people are on about. There is no such thing as a stable lad. It’s a stable boy. Always has been. (If you can’t tell, my tongue’s in my cheek.)

    I was going to post a link to the opening sequence of The Princess Bride (a movie which, if you haven’t seen it, you owe yourself a viewing of). But it turns out that my memory was flawed: she calls him “farm boy,” not “stable boy.” Oh, what the heck, here it is anyway: Link

    I had to cheat on EARN and INVESTOR, both of which I naturally thought were unfair. For EARN, my first thought was FREE, which fits as a Rufus-style double-definition (if you are free, you are in the clear, and if you got something for free, it was not by merit). But with Rufus, I always hit “check” after every single DD/CD entry, so I knew it was wrong right away.

  23. I was another STABLELAD which slowed me down a little,
    and it took me far too long to see EXHIBITORS and EARN but that’s my fault. I didn’t like DEPENDENCY much but it had to be right. I loved CRETE and SUSPENSION.
    A little harder than usual for this setter but none the worse for that.
    Thanks Rufus.

  24. 14 d: Showers seen at the bathroom trade fair? (10) EXHIBITORS

    Nobody has answered the request for clarification of 14d. If it means both people who show and people who exhibit at a trade fair, where does the bathroom come in? Any ideas?

  25. I think it’s just a pun on ‘showers’ in Rufus’ usual way, a shower being something one might find in a bathroom.

  26. Thanks Rufus and flashling

    Had no real problems with this one today. Contrary to many here, I initially wrote in STABLE BOY and then worried that it should have been LAD. Eventually, the tenuous EXHIBITORS ticked enough boxes to go in.

    Had the same minor queries as most with some of the other clues and didn’t properly parse LANDSCAPES as it turned out.

    Finished in the mid east with SUSPENSIONS, DEPENDENCY and ENDANGERS the last few in.

  28. Thanks to Rufus and flashling. I correctly guessed DEPENDENCY but did not know the “crown” connection. Like others I had trouble with INVESTOR and did not fully understand EXHIBITORS and my first instinct was for “flophouses” rather than ALMSHOUSES. Still (as always) lots of fun from a Rufus puzzle.

  29. The National Association of Stable Staff used to be called the Stable Lads Association. This clearly identifies the term Lad as pertaining to adult workers. The clue specifically says young and is therefore looking for something which does not mean adult wotker. Regardless of what may or may not exist now as a job title, or even in yesteryear when there was child labour, it is quite clear between LAD and BOY as to which the clue is looking for, provided you know the subject matter. If you don’t know the subject matter then tough, as has been duly noted by others with respect to my own areas of ignorance.

  30. I had STABLE LAD but I also had OFFER instead of OUTER at 13a. I guess I was thinking if you put an offer in you have a shot at it.

    Came here with 14d, 5d, 2d all left (2d hindered by my rogue F).

    I do find the multiple possible solutions for the typical Rufus cds very hard.

  31. Thanks all
    I agree with RPHiscocks re indenter,much more direct than investor. In fact a lovely totally non cryptic definition from this setter as usual!

  32. Like huggie @30, I had OFFER at 13a.

    For what it’s worth, “stable boy” has been somewhat more common than “stable lad” for the 200 years.

    Like others, I have mixed feelings about Rufus in general, but I thought this one was good fun. And, for the second time in a row (counting the Quiptic), I understood the parsing of all clues before coming here. (Well, except that I didn’t know what the definition of OUTER was about.)

  34. BOY went straight in, LAD not occurring to me at all!

    14d last in. The BATHROOM did its work on me and I could just not switch my brain to “people who show” from the “water spray in the bathroom”, until I came here. Doh!

    I quite liked Rufus’ CDs for once.

  35. I parsed STABLE BOY like pvb @8. I saw both possible endings, so I held off entering the last three letters until EHHIBITORS resolved it. INVESTOR was my LOI and it took quite a while even after getting all the crossers.

    My favourites were LANDSCAPE (for the surface) and CRETE. I liked both TRANSIT and SWERVE for their surfaces too, even though their constructions were so similar.

    Thank to Rufus and flashling.

  36. Ted, Is that really a valid way of comparing UK social usages? Google books include many more non-UK books than UK books and hence no-UK usages, but this is a UK crossword. They are also written by authors who may have a phraseology bias not common to the general public. For example, authors, as you go back through the centuries, were less and less likely to be from the lower classes and therefore have a class bias to their phraseology. If this is indeed a valid method of comparison, then it implies two things, 1) you are saying the clue is wrong to include ‘young’ as it would be spurious; and 2) the founders of the Stable Lads Association didn’t know their own job titles, which seems somewhat unlikely.

  37. Well I thought this was certainly not a typical Rufusian offering as it was rather good.

    There were no particularly dodgy clues and lots more rather good clues than is usual. (I think Rufus likes to ration his good clues so he’s got some left for neext week 😉 ).

    There was a hidden answer which totally threw me as it is so unusual for “R” (No doubt someone will now produce a statistic that Rufus is the most prolific user of this type of clue!)

    I thoroughly enjoyed this and thought it tougher than the usual fare from this setter.

    I was also a STABLE LAD for a while until I came to a halt!

    Did nobody else fall into the trap for 15D? I was convinced that Rufus, with his background, would clue “Temporary sacking” as a defintion for some word derived from “Rusticate”. Rustication obviously didn’t fit physically or in the sense of the wordplay. I spent quite a while looking for a word which did until the more obvious answer occurred to me! That’s one to you Rufus 🙂

    Thanks to flashling and Rufus

  38. Brendan: “I was also a STABLE LAD for a while until I came to a halt!”

    No doubt the smell of the horse pies also put you off.

  39. My dear old mum always tried to assure us that the “smell” of the country which was a medley of “pies” both horse and cow and various other delights to the senses was a healthy one.

    Howvever she also said the same thing about the sea air at Blackpool (a very popular seaside resort in Lancashire which served the workers from the cotton mills which blossomed during the industrial revolution). It now turns out that this healthy smell was from the partially treated raw sewage which was disgorged into the sea at each high tide! 🙂

    I can smell it now. So invigorating. Also very good for the bathers’ complexions.

  40. Same old Rufus. Same old frustrations.

    Surely a DEPENDENCY is not a country in it’s own right.

    Knowing him, I held off putting in LAD or BOY until I had the crossers.

    But I will still tackle his puzzles because there are some gems – I thought that the clue for LANDSCAPES was excellent.

    Thanks flashling.

Comments are closed.