Ran into a few unfamiliar terms, but got there in the end. Favourite clues 20ac, 26ac and 16dn – thanks, Rufus.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DUCKS AND DRAKES | Birds skipping over the water (5,3,6) |
| =a British name for skipping stones over water [wiki] | ||
| 8 | CHARM | Captivate a church member (5) |
| CH[urch], plus ARM=”member” | ||
| 9 | SPORADIC | Picadors are involved here and there (8) |
| (Picadors)* | ||
| 11 | ANEMONE | Plant name one needs to change (7) |
| (name one)* | ||
| 12 | LIMEPIT | Quietly it goes behind a tree for the quarry (7) |
| P[iano]=”Quietly”, plus IT; both behind LIME=”tree” | ||
| 13 | OMBRE | Man in Spain loses hard game (5) |
| =a card game [wiki]. [h]OMBRE=”Man” in Spanish, losing h[ard] | ||
| 15 | GARIBALDI | Red shirt for one getting into clothes laid out (9) |
| a red shirt, in imitation of the followers of GARIBALDI [wiki]. I=”one”, getting into GARB=”clothes”, plus (laid)* | ||
| 17 | SCRATCHED | Injured, withdrew from competition (9) |
| double definition | ||
| 20 | FUSEE | American in charge of the match (5) |
| =a type of matchstick. US=”American” in FEE=”charge” | ||
| 21 | IN IRONS | Situation of a bad sailor — or his boat (2,5) |
| double definition: of the sailor, clapped in iron restraints; of his boat, IN IRONS means stuck heading into the wind [wiki] | ||
| 23 | EVANGEL | Unusually, Len gave four good books (7) |
| =the four books of the gospel. (Len gave)* | ||
| 25 | FAMILIES | They may be happy playing cards (8) |
| reference to the card game of “Happy FAMILIES” [wiki] | ||
| 26 | OWING | To be paid nothing to fly (5) |
| O=”nothing”, plus WING=”fly” | ||
| 27 | HEALTHY RESPECT | Esteem shown for those that are fit (7,7) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DICTATORSHIP | It’s not popular, as a rule (12) |
| cryptic defintiion: “popular” meaning ‘of the people’, rather than ‘well-liked’; and “as a rule” meaning ‘as a form of government’, rather than ‘usually’ | ||
| 2 | CEASE | Stop giving cold comfort (5) |
| C[old] plus EASE=”comfort” | ||
| 3 | SOMNOLENT | Dreamy but not solemn composition (9) |
| =sleepy rather than dreamy, I thought. (not solemn)* | ||
| 4 | NEST EGG | Gets inside information coming up for savings (4,3) |
| GETS inside GEN=”informatioN”, all reversed/”coming up” | ||
| 5 | DOODLER | Odd role rewritten by an idle scribbler (7) |
| (Odd role)* | ||
| 6 | ALARM | This may cause a number to take up weapons (5) |
| A, plus L=”number”, plus ARM=”take up weapons” | ||
| 7 | EXIT POLLS | Ways of forecasting election results that are on the way out (4,5) |
| cryptic definition? | ||
| 10 | STRIKE A LIGHT | Refuse to work and get off? Blimey! (6,1,5) |
| =an expression of surprise. STRIKE=”Refuse to work”, plus ALIGHT=”get off” | ||
| 14 | BARRICADE | A revolutionary fortification (9) |
| cryptic definition – associated with revolutions, rather than being a revolutionary innovation | ||
| 16 | BUFFALOES | Wild animals have to rub on trees (9) |
| BUFF=polish=”rub”, on ALOES=”trees” | ||
| 18 | HASHISH | Drug used when man’s between hospitals (7) |
| AS=”when” plus HIS=”man’s; all between two H[ospitals] | ||
| 19 | DRESSER | She puts on other people’s clothes (7) |
| cryptic definition – someone who helps others put on their clothes, rather than someone who wears the clothes of others | ||
| 22 | ORIEL | Gold that is left to an Oxford college (5) |
| OR=”Gold”, plus I.E.=”that is”, plus L[eft] | ||
| 24 | GUIDE | Handbook for girl in uniform (5) |
| double definition – the second as in Girl Guides | ||
Thanks, manehi – a fairly quick solve, again.
Needed elucidation for IN IRONS, and confirmation for BARRICADE and EVANGEL
So, back to bed.
Thanks, manehi. I found the top almost a write in but then got bogged down in the bottom. I thought ALOES were plants, not trees? FUSEE, STRIKE A LIGHT and DUCKS AND DRAKES (in the sense of skimming stones) were all new to me. HASHISH, I mistakenly parsed as H+ASH IS+H but of course in the movie Alien, Ash was android, not a man…!
I solved but could not parse 14d, 21a, and new word for me was FUSEE.
My favourites were STRIKE A LIGHT, GARIBALDI & DICTATORSHIP.
Thank you Rufus and manehi
Ah, a barricade is an improvised barrier erected by revolutionaries, eg in the streets of Paris. I spent a bad 5 minutes trying to make an association with Jack Cade!
Thanks, manehi, for blogging.
I don’t always have time for Rufus on Monday (I’m an Indy fanatic myself) but I was glad I did have time this morning because this is a delightful puzzle. I learnt some new words and definitions (FUSEE and GARIBALDI) and enjoyed DUCKS AND DRAKES because it’s the only game that I can still beat my children at. They’ll always thrash me at anything electronic.
Thank you to the red one.
Thanks Rufus and manehi
A rather odd one even by Rufusian standards. Several unusually obscure words (OMBRE and EVANGEL for instance), some strange “cryptic” definitions (EXIT POLLS for one), and some “clues” that were more distant allusions rather than actual clues – DUCKS AND DRAKES, FAMILIES, BARRICADES.
I don’t think aloes are trees either!
I’ve done a bit of sailing, so IN IRONS was familiar, but I suspect it would have been baffling to anyone who has never had this problem.
NEST EGG was very nice.
Thank you Rufus and manehi.
I enjoyed solving this puzzle, but FUSEE and IN IRONS (as regards a boat) were new to me, or forgotten, and I could not reconcile ALOES with “trees”.
The clues for DUCKS AND DRAKES, NEST EGG and FAMILIES were fun.
Thanks Rufus and manehi
Chambers gives ‘aloe’ as “Any member of a mainly S African genus aloe, consisting mainly of trees and shrubs…”, so I think Rufus is home and dry.
Simon S @8
Wikipedia (grudgingly!) says “Some aloes native to South Africa are tree-like (arborescent)” – the majority are therefore not “tree-like”, so clueing them as “trees” is somewhat perverse! 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe
Thank you, manehi.
Enjoyed this although it was over rather quickly.
Particularly enjoyed finding out about DUCKS AND DRAKES. Anyone know the origin?
I was going to get a bit precious over the use of US for American, until I realised he is using it in the adjectival sense not as a noun, eg., “It is of American manufacture” or, “It is of US manufacture”. (No doubt everyone else understood this perfectly well already!)
I have been IN IRONS too many times to be unfamiliar with this excellent clue.
Good stuff from Rufus this morning, I thought.
Nice week, all.
Not one of his best I’m afraid – a mixture of the very easy and a couple of obscurities (OMBRE and FUSEE) that must have been there purely to solve grid-filling difficulties.
Thanks to Rufus and manehi
William @10
When I played stone skimming as a child, my Welsh father called the game “ducks and drakes”, but we Devon kids always called it “dabbies”.
Thanks Rufus and manehi.
Enjoyable crossword; I liked learning about FUSEE, OMBRE and EVANGEL.
I think LIME PIT is two words and I don’t think this sort of pit could be described as a quarry.
My only recollection of “ducks and drakes” is from a 1950s book about space travel, where it was used to described a technique for reentry where the spacecraft dipped in and out of the atmosphere. It came as some surprise to me as a child when the manned space missions started and reentry was achieved by slapping a heat shield on and coming in back end first.
Thanks Rufus and manehi. Great to have the occasional puzzle I can solve in a reasonable time. Note to self: it’s ANEMONE not ANENOME.
Good to see Rufus back in his Monday slot.
25a While FAMILIES makes more logical use of ‘happy’ I chose VANITIES since I imagine that VANITIES playing cards (Google ‘vanities “playing cards”‘) would evoke a degree of happiness (did I see Paul’s name anywhere?).
Thanks to Rufus & manehi.
I would expect to find aloes listed in a book about succulents. The South African tree aloe is so called because it has a visual similarity to a tree (based on size and shape).
I was confused by the Redshirts part of the Garibaldi clue. To me redshirts are the security officers in Start Trek who are always getting killed.
or even Star Trek
A very brisk solve this morning. Indeed I finished it before Phillip Hammond
got to his feet at the Tory bunfight. This means I can spend my time more profitably by shoutingshouting at the television!
EVANGEL and OMBRE were new but the rest was straightforward.
Thanks Rufus.
Er, perhaps just shouting!
Matrixmania @2 — you will find Ash included in lists of recognised given names for human boys. Fictionally, Ash was used as a character name (albeit a surname-derived diminutive) in the television series Casualty.
Got stuck on FUSEE and FAMILIES, but I liked this Rufus. Hadn’t heard of EVANGEL or OMBRE; worked out HASHISH and initially dismissed it, as ‘has’ + ‘hish’ doesn’t sound like anything – then the penny dropped amidst much mirth. Thanks to Rufus and manehi.
Thank you Manehi. There have been many Rufus offerings which I have completed almost as fast as I could write but today I was left with a half-filled grid which refused to yield. A few I could perhaps have guessed but to be confident I needed aids for DUCKS AND DRAKES (never heard the expression), LIMEPIT, FUSEE, FAMILIES (never heard of the card game), and BUFFALOES (the mysterious Aloe “tree”.)
Did I enjoy it more? Not really because there was no way to really work out most of these without the missing knowledge.
But it is a good excuse to remind myself of the curious grammatically correct (American) sentence – Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Thanks Rufus for bringing back some childhood memories (not the drug).
We indeed used to play Happy Families as a family when I was a kid – not something I’ve seen since then, though I’m sure its still around – nowadays my kids just thrash me at anything electronic (I share the pain, Kathryn’s Dad)
I hesitated with IN IRONS, but not for long.
Many thanks manehi
Thanks to Rufus and manehi. As usual I’m weak on names of games, but I did know OMBRE from Pope’s “Rape of the Lock” and managed to piece out the others (happy FAMILIES was the last). Other items were also new to me (the second meaning of IN IRONS, STRIKE A LIGHT, and especially FUSEE, my last in), but I did get through fairly quickly. Enjoyable.
HKrunner @23, intriguing, here is the Wiki entry for anyone interested Buffalo sentence
I am not sure that the sentence IS grammatical. If you substitute baboons from London for buffaloes from Buffalo, the sentence would go ‘London baboons confuse London baboons confuse London baboons. Shouln’t there be a ‘which’ before the second ‘confuse?
A Pedant
Thanks Rufus and manehi. Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog. Also an interesting forum discussion, although the buffalo sentence has my head spinning.
To Izzythedram at 27. You have moved the second capital indicating the city. If I use your substitutes and the original pattern, the sentence would read ‘London baboons London baboons confuse confuse London baboons.’ No-one said it was a sensible sentence or that it wouldn’t be made clearer with a which or two and punctuation, but it works.
Izzythedram @ 27:-
Shouldn’t it be “A pedant”?
Just saying….
Enjoyed this one. Fusee was deep in the recesses of my memory and only when I had f space s space e did it make an appearance. Last one in, too. Thanks to everyone.
Totally buffaloed me, it did.
I’m sure everyone has moved on by now, but I didn’t have time to solve this until afternoon Chicago time.
I’m mildly surprised that people didn’t object to “buffaloes” being described as wild animals. The overwhelming majority of buffalo (individuals, that is, not species) are domesticated–both the water buffalo of Asia and the American Bison (not strictly a buffalo).
The Buffalo buffalo buffalo sentence became known to me through a number of college friends that took an introductory linguistics class that talked about it. It’s true that “buffalo buffalo buffalo” can be a noun phrase meaning “the bison that bison flummox,” and that it can therefore be substituted in for either noun occurrence in the simple sentence “Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” (Bison flummox (other) bison). That means (via proof by induction) that you can make a grammatically correct sentence out of an arbitrarily long string of the word “Buffalo.” But grammar is not math, and you rapidly reach the point where you need those supposedly “optional” relative pronouns “which” and “that” for the sentence to make any sense at all.
Didn’t know a bunch of these, including DUCKS AND DRAKES (which is skipping rocks here), OMBRE, Happy FAMILIES, and STRIKE A LIGHT (as a phrase in a non-literal sense). All of these except FAMILLIES went in well enough, as they could hardly be anything else. Cheated on families. A problem with cryptic definitions is that you only have one way into a clue, and if that way isn’t working for you, then–well…
For me, ombre is a design effect where a color gradually becomes more saturated as you move up or down (say) a fabric.
Paul Robinson @14 I am glad I’m not the only one who wants to write ANENOME.
mrpenney @33
All the water buffalo I’ve seen (in South Africa) were distinctly wild, and probably the most feared wild animal in the country (altough apparently hippos kill more people than any other mammal does – shared environment).
mrpenney @33, having lived in up country Uganda for several years, I can echo muffin @35.
Going further back than Paul Robinson @ 14 I seem to remember Long John Silver saying in Treasure Island that when they find the treasure there’d be enough gold coins to play Ducks and Drakes with them.
There are lots of “tree aloes”.
Whether most of the ones shown here are really trees is debatable http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/212 but this one surely is http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/aloe-dichotoma-quiver-tree
What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
You can’t, as most of you probably know, wash your hands in a buffalo.