It’s Monday, it’s Rufus, so the usual preponderance of cryptic/double definitions (perhaps not quite so many as there have been at times) with an anagram, a hidden and a few charades. Not my cup of tea, I’m sorry to say, but it will appeal to some.
.
Across
9 Strange story told in article (5)
ALIEN – LIE (story told) in AN (article)
10 They cater for a private reception (9)
EARPHONES – cryptic def.
11 Frightened about agent returning, did a bunk (9)
SCARPERED – SCARED (frightened) around (about) REP (agent) reversed (returning)
12 No permission for recesses (5)
NOOKS – NO OKS (permission)
13 Annoyed at being stung (7)
NETTLED – double def.
15 Appalling melee at National Trust unit (7)
ELEMENT – an anagram (appalling) of MELEE plus NT (National Trust)
17 An indifferent movement (5)
SHRUG – {not so} cryptic def.
18 Very new boy (3)
SON – SO (very) N (new)
20 Pound / sign? (5)
LIBRA – double def.
22 In general exit, one left something behind (7)
LEGATEE – GATE (exit) in LEE (general)
25 About to be put back in school ground (7)
TERRAIN – RE (about) reversed (to be put back) in TRAIN (school)
26 US city infamous for its bad spelling (5)
SALEM – {another not so} cryptic def.
27 Getting married again after things patched up? (9)
REPAIRING – RE PAIRING (getting married again) and a rather oblique def.
30 Ten inflated and deflated (9)
FLATTENED –TEN in FLATED (ten inflated)
31 Single unfronted fireplace (5)
INGLE – [s]INGLE (single unfronted)
Down
1 Document that allows father onto ship (4)
PASS – PA (father) SS (ship) with an extended def.
2 Doctor said rest can cause terrible trouble (8)
DISASTER – an anagram (doctor) of SAID REST
3 It’s the same / photograph (4)
SNAP – double def.
4 Where they have female grooms? (8)
HEBRIDES – HE BRIDES – if the grooms are female the brides must be male
5 Infant rock’n’roller (6)
CRADLE – cryptic def.
6 Fortune, pounds, gold — all go into his purse (10)
CHANCELLOR – CHANCE (fortune) LL (pounds) OR (gold)
7 An unparticular person (6)
ANYONE – cryptic def.
8 Goddess is after Spanish agreement being lifted (4)
ISIS – SI (Spanish agreement) reversed (being lifted) IS
13 Alan’s unusual manner of speaking? (5)
NASAL – an anagram (unusual) of ALAN’S
14 It’s OK to run away before I get married (10)
LEGITIMATE – LEG IT (run away) I MATE (I get married)
16 Direct / transport (5)
TRAIN – double def.
19 Are they used for jotting down music? (8)
NOTEPADS – cryptic def.
21 Engineer’s responsibility / taken by the navigator (8)
BEARINGS – double def.
23 Illegal wayfarers seen around part of Ireland (6)
GALWAY – hidden in (seen around) ‘illeGAL WAYfarers’
24 Short service commission? (6)
ERRAND – cryptic def. using the Chambers def. “a commission to say or do something usually involving a short journey”
26 Riddle provided in a way (4)
SIFT – IF (provided) in ST (a way)
28 Flag of Eire shortened (4)
IRIS – IRIS[h] (of Eire shortened)
29 A catch / one is delighted to exhibit (4)
GLEE – double/cryptic def. – the first being ‘a form of short part-song, strictly one without an accompaniment, popular from the mid-17c to the 19c’ (Chambers)
Couldn’t parse 24d or 29d, but they couldn’t have been anything else.
Definitely not my cup of tea either. I always mean not to do these, but then weaken.
I enjoyed most of this – FLATTENED was quite clever but NOTEPAD was a bit weak, I thought. With this and Orlando’s quiptic it’s been an easyish start to the week. Hopefully we are not being lulled into false security!
Can’t see how anyone could object to this. Ok it’s easy, but why not set yourself a challenge to complete it in, say, 4 minutes?
Liked FLATTENED – very neat.
On 29dn GLEE: near me (in Northumberland) there is a long-established male voice choir, The Prudhoe Gleemen.
Thanks Rufus and Gaufrid
I would have preferred FLATTENED if FLATED were a word.
Otherwise I quite liked this, I find some of the typical Rufus stuff e.g. SHRUG, SNAP and CRADLE quite refreshing.
How do you get Salem, from US city infamous for its bad spelling
Thanks
Ah I see its bad spelling as in witches..
Thank you Rufus and Gaufrid.
This “unparticular person” enjoyed the crossword very much, especially NETTLED, EARPHONES, HEBRIDES, CRADLE, CHANCELLOR, FLATTENED and “INGLENOOKS”. BEARINGS brought the navigator Vitus Bering to my mind.
dutch @5, Wiktionary gives this (there are also different recent usages of FLATED)
flate verb (third-person singular simple present flates, present participle flating, simple past and past participle flated)
(intransitive, obsolete) To feel nausea.
Origin: from *vlate, a dialectal variant of wlate (“to feel disgust or nausea”). Compare Scots vlatsum (“wlatsome”).
Thanks Rufus & Gaufrid.
I enjoyed this overall. I thought 27 might have been reuniting at first.
I liked EARPHONES and SALEM.
This was the usual pleasant sort of thing for a Monday. I liked LEGITIMATE which made me smile.
One slight quibble: 27a doesn’t quite seem to work to me. “Patching things up and getting married again” would have been OK, but I don’t see how “after things patched up” can mean REPAIRING.
I am struggling to see how glee at 29d is “one is delighted to show”. Wouldn’t that need to be gleeful?
Thanks to Rufus and Gaufrid. No surprises here, though like NNI@1 I had to pause over GLEE and ERRAND.
I enjoy Rufus as a change from the more complicated cluing of other setter. Didn’t get CRADLE – I thought it the second half must be DIE (a roller) but couldn’t get the ‘rock’ part. Liked SIFT, HEBRIDES and CHANCELLOR. Thanks to R & G.
Found this a bit tricky to finish – GLEE as a song was distantly familiar but it took me a long time to see it, and CRADLE took far too long. Not sure I like TRAIN crossing TERRAIN given that the latter uses train in the wordplay.
Thanks to Rufus and Gaufrid
Thanks Gaufrid and Rufus.
4d great; two trains, as beer hiker points out, not so great.
Thanks Rufus and Gaufrid. Rufus is my cup of tea, as it was my late father’s. I don’t always find him easy either.
I admire his elegant clueing and surfaces: 22a, 30ac (delightful), 6dn are good examples.
Struggled to justify 28d & 29d until it finally dawned on me that the iPhone chambers dictionary is not that comprehensive. Any better ones out available?
Well done and thanks cookie@8 for finding a meaning for flate. The dictionaries don’t seem to have it (and my spell-checker just complained!).
I did feel that the elegant ‘inflated or deflated’ went a log way to allay the concern
Bayleaf @11: I think the definition in 29d is in a way the whole clue. That is, something that can be a catch that is also something one is delighted to exhibit. I’m not sure I’ve expressed that very well but that’s roughly how I saw it.
Last one in was glee. That was my feeling when we read of the York event. Nice easy start to the week.
Isn’t 7d a little more complicated than just a cd?
‘An unparticular person’ also gives some wordplay: an + y (variable) + one.
Thanks to Rufus and Gaufrid.
Had to have two or three stabs at this. Cholecyst @4 reckoned a four-minute challenge. Ha! you have to be on Rufus’s wavelength first, and I never am.
I thought 27a repairing could also mean mending something as in patching up. Thank you Rufus and Gaufrid. I quite like a gentle start to the week.
Not my cup of tea either, Gaufrid.
I liked the 4-minute challenge suggested by cholecyst @4. It would take me 2 minutes to fill the grid with capital letters (actually 125 sec – I’ve just tested it), and that would leave 3.5 seconds on average to solve each clue. I surrender! There are a few clues (4 going across and 4 going down) that I’m pretty sure I did solve within that time, but that’s not much counterweight to those that took a good deal longer. Some of the recorded times the top, top experts take to solve harder puzzles than this one amaze me.
Thanks both
Surface of 22 is poor. Surely, the person who leaves something behind is the legator.
I thought this rather a poor Rufus. INGLE and IRIS would have been more at home
in the Quick crossword. I didn’t understand GLEE which was my LOI but,now I know,it’s one of the better ones. HEBRIDES has surely been done to death- perhaps BH can tell me.
Perhaps I’m being unfair. About half my day has been spent trying to deal with an insurance company on the telephone and getting nowhere despite my call being “important to them” and this has soured my mood. I suppose I should be grateful it wasn’t Enigmatist today; I’d be crawling up the wall by now!
Thanks Rufus.
P.s. I did like EARPHONES!
Thanks Rufus and Gaufrid
I got to this late, but found it very entertaining, despite all except the NE being a write-in. Rufus does a “lift and separate” for IN FLATED!
Tyngewick @25
I read it as “one who is left something behind, which seems fine for LEGATEE to me.
Muffin @27, what is the function of the word ‘behind’, in that interpretation?
………well, presumably the legator didn’t take it with him. so the “it ” had been “left behind” 🙂
Typical Rufus, by which I mean tidy surfaces, witty clueing and, almost, an absence of “shortened” and “starting” or “ending” indicators which to me indicate that setter is struggling. Nice to have puzzle in which it was possible to work out the answer from the parsing and not solve (i.e. guess) first and parse later.
PA@26
I am sure most of us will sympathise.
You figured in a recent Private Eye cartoon listening to a recorded message, “Your call is important to us. Please hold on until it is no longer important to you”.
A late post I know.
Thanks Rufus and Gaufrid, and others on the forum.
Nothing much to add, but I liked the wordplay, as others did, in 26a SALEM (“The Crucible” being one of my favourite dramas), and I enjoyed 27a REPAIRING, as I perform quite a few second marriages.
Peter Aspinwall @26: INGLE is very much at home in this crossword (as noted by Cookie @8).
Thanks, Gaufrid, and thanks too to Rufus. I always enjoy Rufus crosswords because I’ve got a chance of finishing them.
Gaufrid, could you explain the “catch” meaning in 29d and the “pound” meaning in 20a? I got the latter, without parsing, but not the former and even knowing and understanding the musical definition of GLEE I don’t see how that relates to a catch.
Hi ValM
I gave one of the Chambers definitions of GLEE in my parsing and under ‘catch’ the same source has “a round for three or more voices, often deriving comic effect from the interweaving of the words (music)”. Collins is more specific – “music a type of round popular in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, having a humorous text that is often indecent or bawdy and hard to articulate”.
For 20ac, pound (sterling) = LIBRA, usually abbreviated to £.
Thanks, Gaufrid. I didn’t know that meaning of catch and had never known thatbthatvwas where the GBP symbol came from. I’m now wondering about the “lb” abbreviation too, but will research that myself. Thanks!
Thanks Gaufrid and Rufus
I could not parse 24d, 28d – now I understand!
Thanks Rufus and Gaufrid
Took 21 minutes … so a very long way off being able to hit the 4 minute mark !!!
Although I did struggle to justify GLEE for a while, it was HEBRIDES and EARPHONES that were my last two in.
Apart from his occasional weak ‘non’ cryptic definition, I find his puzzles mostly my cup of tea – even if it is a weak green tea rather than a strong English Breakfast – it is one of the features of the daily English puzzles that I do – the wide variation of setter styles.