In retrospect a fairly typical Rufus, with lots of cryptic and double definitions, though it seemed a bit harder than usual when I was solving it. Thanks to Rufus]
| Across | ||||||||
| 9. | OIL HEATER | Radiator provided by a hotelier (3,6) (A HOTELIER)* |
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| 10. | IDEAL | Showing no flaws, though I have a lot (5) I + DEAL (as in “a great deal”) |
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| 11. | STUMP UP | Fork out for trunk at university (5,2) STUMP (trunk – not sure how there are equivalent, perhaps as the trunk/stump of a tree) + UP (at university) |
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| 12. | NIGHTLY | Regularly late, yet sounding chivalrous (7) Homophone of “knightly” |
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| 13. | RIDER | Equestrian, it’s clear, about to return (5) RID (clear) + reverse of RE |
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| 14. | BEDSITTER | Accommodation for those not wishing to move when they retire (9) Cryptic definition – if you live in one you don’t have far to go at bedtime.. |
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| 16. | PERFECT LIKENESS | Just the same, it can’t be bettered (7,8) Cryptic definition |
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| 19. | SEASONING | Salt recollected in sea song (9) (IN SEA SONG)* |
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| 21. | MARKS | Targets given by teachers for work (5) Double definition |
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| 22. | VICOMTE | Bad habit in which Tom gets dressed as a French aristocrat (7) TOM* in VICE |
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| 23. | MADEIRA | River of wine? (7) Double definition – the river is a tributary of the Amazon |
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| 24. | LISZT | Famous composer? Hear, hear (5) Homophone of “list” (=hear) |
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| 25. | LETHARGIC | Drowsy, left the cigar to go out (9) L + (THE CIGAR)* |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | CONSCRIPTS | They are forced into private service (10) Cryptic definition |
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| 2. | FLOUNDER | Swimmer appears to be thrashing about (8) Double definition (sort of – the “thrashing about” indicates the wrong part of speech) |
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| 3. | TEMPER | Even when frayed, it should be kept (6) Cryptic definition |
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| 4. | STOP | A full one should give you a capital start (4) Cryptic definition – after a full stop the next letter would be a capital |
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| 5. | WRONGDOING | The crime of performing badly? (10) WRONG + DOING |
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| 6. | RINGSIDE | Close to fighting, call on support (8) RING (call) + SIDE (support, as in “side with”) |
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| 7. | BEAT IT | Dismissive order to a drummer, perhaps (4,2) Cryptic definition |
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| 8. | PLAY | It’s somebody’s work, oddly enough (4) Cryptic definition: a play is a playwright’s work, but play is also the opposite of work |
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| 14. | BOTTICELLI | Painter‘s bill to cite rework (10) (BILL TO CITE)* |
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| 15. | RESISTANCE | Insects are developing immunity (10) (INSECTS ARE)* |
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| 17. | ENORMITY | An outrage otherwise concealed by ill-will (8) OR in ENMITY |
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| 18. | EARNINGS | Grannies making money (8) GRANNIES* |
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| 20. | ACCUSE | To make a charge is a county council practice (6) A + CC + USE |
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| 21. | MADRAS | Old city of crazy artists (6) MAD RAS (RA = Royal Academician). “Old city” because Madras is now know as Chennai |
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| 22. | VILE | Evil, possibly depraved (4) EVIL* |
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| 23. | MATE | Sailor to finish the game on board (4) Double definition – the game is chess |
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Thanks Rufus and Andrew
Yes, harder than typical, especially in the NE corner. Several I liked – SEASONING (easy enough, but nice misdirection), LETHARGIC, RESISTANCE, RINGSIDE (for the misleading “Close”) and LOI PLAY.
I didn’t understand LISZT, and had the much more obvious MOSELLE for the “River of wine” for a while. I didn’t think TEMPER quite works as a cryptic definition.
I enjoyed this puzzle and I agree that it was more difficult than usual.
My favourite was MADRAS.
Thank you Andrew and Rufus.
Thanks, Andrew and Rufus.
I think FLOUNDER works if you include ‘be’ in the definition.
Favourite clue was LISZT and I can see nothing amiss with TEMPER – in fact, I rather liked it.
Thanks to Rufus and Andrew for the puzzle and blog.
I was also a bit slower to twig to a few of these than I should have been. LOIs were 1d CONSCRIPTS and 5d WRONGDOING. Now I can’t for the life of me why they took me so long!
I agree with Eileen @3 in her final comment; I had actually circled 3d TEMPER as a favourite; I thought it was quite cryptic enough to be a challenge.
I did like the full STOP at 4d, PLAY as a work in 8d, and MATE for the board game chess at 23d, and thought these and TEMPER were very typically Rufusian.
Good morning and thanks, Andrew.
I enjoyed this even though it was over rather quickly.
I enjoyed TEMPER, LISZT, & STOP in particular.
SW corner slowed me down as I didn’t know about the MADEIRA river and took an age to spot MARKS. (Still not totally convinced by marks = targets but I suppose it’s near enough.)
Rufus continues his prodigious, high-quality output, bravo.
Nice week, all.
“Now I can’t for the life of me SEE why they took me so long!” And I previewed the comment before posting!
…apologies, all, just realised I was being thick re marks. Of course it’s a target, der.
Julie @6 Knew what you meant! I find it virtually impossible to proof my own work, I’ve just printed 500 business cards with only one ‘l’in my Christian name!
Thanks for the reassurance, William @8, but your error sounds more costly and annoying! My sympathy.
I keep worrying that these are the first signs that I am losing the plot, despite the promise that doing crosswords will stave it off.
Julie@9 latest evidence is you need to do something new eg learn a language. Suppose it depends how long you’ve been doing cryptics.
I got stuck on 19a today, misled by sea in clue and solution, thought I must be missing something.
Fun and challenging in parts. Still scratching my head over Liszt.
And the usual gripe over “mate” as the ending for a game of chess. While the answer is obvious it is also the case that a serious match always ends before mate as the weaker player resigns.
Thanks Andrew and Rufus. As others. I found this tougher than usual as I was doing it, though it’s hard to see why now.
Re PLAY, I think the reference is to the saying “one man’s work is another man’s play”
Thank you Rufus and Andrew.
This was most enjoyable, even though it took me longer than usual to solve. The clues for LISZT, TEMPER and STOP were great.
Steve@11 Liszt sounds like list which is a possibly archaic form of listen so when we hear Liszt we hea ‘hear’. Hope that helps.
Sorry, hear not hea – butterfingers
I’m also confused by 24a.
Can anyone explain in what context list and hear are synonyms?
robert @16
It is in the sense as used in the folk song
http://www.joe-offer.com/folkinfo/songs/10.html
I’m not entirely convinced it works, though!
Thanks muffin.
I did an ‘extensive’ web search and couldn’t find them listed as synonyms anywhere, if I had looked in the dictionary sat above the computer I would have seen list described as an archaic/poetic word for listen; there’s probably a lesson in that somewhere!
No, it is OK. I was thinking “hear” should be “list to”, but Chambers gives:
list (5) (archaic or poetic) vi to listen – vt to listen to
Thanks Rufus and Andrew.
I found this very difficult with no easy way into some of the cds. Like Andrew, I’m a bit mystified by STUMP = trunk, although it is in my Chambers Thesaurus – perhaps someone can give the context.
Steve @11 – yes, but as you say the different ending is in a serious match. Chess often ends in amateurish fashion with a mate.
Robi – think of trees.
Enjoyed the more difficult Monday offering. Liszt was an obvious answer, but it took me 5 minutes work out why it was the answer!
PaulW @22
Liszt might have been the obvious answer for you, but I spent some time trying to explain where the L came from in LEHAR!
muffin @17, there is the well known song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Gondoliers”
List and learn, list and learn,
List and learn, ye dainty roses,
Roses white and roses red,
Why we bind you into posies
Ere your morning bloom has fled. etc.
I agree that this seemed oddly harder than the usual Rufus. I think, for me, this is because I really loathe cryptic definitions–they feel like a deliberate refusal on the setters part to come up with any wordplay, plus there’s nothing in the clue with which you can check your work–and this puzzle had more than the usual quantity of those.
I also agree with the sentiment that stump and trunk are not all that equivalent. Even when I “think trees,” Simon Harding @21, I think you only get a stump after you cut down the trunk.
I’ve never heard the term “bedsitter,” so I cheated on that one. In this country, that kind of apartment is called a studio.
I sometimes find Rufus a bit challenging with his DDs, but today was fairly easy for me except that I couldn’t get WRONGDOING. All good fun as usual. Thanks to R & A.
I liked this crossword a lot. The cryptic definitions seemed to just leap out at me, giving me the very unusual experience of feeling what it might be like to be a skilled solver. Something I ate? Hope it happens again sometime.
BUT I don’t undertand why UP = ‘at university’ in 11 ac. Is that a standard crosswordy thing? I did go to Uni myself but never was UP (as far as I know).
I thought this more difficult than usual too. Quite enjoyable though. The NE took me longest, with PLAY and RINGSIDE being the last to yield. I must admit that I guessed MADEIRA was a river but I didn’t look it up.
I liked TEMPER.
Thanks Rufus
A little trickier than the average Rufus, but not much. WRONGDOING was last in…
Thanks to Rufus and Andrew
mrpenney @25 — I really like Rufus’s cryptic definitions. At his best, he has the knack of providing solutions that do not need any checking because they are obviously right. Obvious to me as a British reader anyway.
Crumplehorn @27 — had you gone to Oxford or Cambridge, you would have known.
Crumplehorn @27
You are probably more familiar with the unfortunate reverse – if you are unlucky enough to be expelled from university, you are “sent down”.
“up” is one of those completely illogical expressions which just hangs around in the understairs cupboard of English.
If you were on the peak of Ben Nevis you would still go up to London on the up line!
Hamlet’s father tells him to “list, list, O list”.
I enjoyed this one. Somehow Rufus’s cryptic definitions seemed more cryptic and entertaining than they often do (to me).
I came here wondering about FLOUNDER, but Eileen’s remark about including “be” in the definition cleared it up for me.
Going to London is going “up” and at university is “up”. Which way is up if travelling between the two?
JimS @35
Simple solution – put all universities in London!
It is all explained to students in the introductory lecture on uppishness.
“You have hissed all my mystery lectures, and were caught fighting a liar in the quad. Having tasted two worms, you will leave by the next town drain”
Mike @38 – to the tune of “Streets of Laredo”
“So ask the old barman to pour me another
My throat is fair bleeding for want of a wet
And the good resolutions I made to my mother
Are the good resolutions I drink to forget”
This finishes “I failed my prelims and they’re sending me down”
I enjoyed this, just as I usually enjoy Rufus’s puzzles. The one which stopped me for a long time was WRONGDOING, though it seem obvious now. I had to check that the MADIERA is a river, but with those crossers I couldn’t see any alternative.
Thanks, Rufus and Andrew.
As usual, an enjoyable puzzle (for me, at least). The one which stumped me for a long time was WRONGDOING, though it seems a clear enough clue now. I had to check that the MADIERA is a river, but with those crossers there wasn’t a good alternative.
Thanks, Rufus and Andrew.
Drat! I posted my first comment and went out for a while without checking that it had appeared. When I came back and refreshed the page (twice), mine wasn’t there so I wrote it again, but when that one appeared, the first one did too.
Thanks to Rufus and Andrew. I’m late to the blog because Hurricane Matthew knocked out my internet connection for two days. I enjoyed both the puzzle and the comments above. My major problem was that I can never decide the correct spelling for LISZT. I also sympathize with the comments on mistyping and proofreading, for I find these days I can spend as much time correcting errors as writing.
When I heard that the hurricane was near to Raleigh (“Rawley”) I was worried for you, ACD – I hope that the problem wasn’t any worse than an interrupted internet?
Loved the “UP” and “uppishness” discussion which gave me lots of smiles.
(Also, autocorrect just tried to make “uppishness” into “poshness” which is pretty spot on – it does sound kind of pretentious to us out in the colonies.)
One thing I really like about Rufus is his discovery of ‘related’ anagrams, such as OIL HEATER and RESISTANCE.
A pretty straightforward solve, although I made it tricky for myself by inexplicably writing in TRUMP UP at 11a having solved the clue correctly in my mind as STUMP UP. My eye must have alighted on some-one with funny hair.
I should have known ‘list’ meaning ‘hear’, with its literary pedigree, but I didn’t, so although LISZT was obvious it was strictly a guess.
Julie @9
I loved your comment about doing crosswords to stave off “losing the plot”. You have me worried now – I do crosswords hoping the same thing!
Thanks Rufus and Andrew.
I missed one – I made up the word “GRENADEING” to fit the crossings in 5D.
My parsing of 14A was as a funny cryptic double definition: accomodation, but the rest, “those not wishing to move when they retire” defines someone who sits on their bed.
Or am I going crazy?
Thanks!
Also:
List to me while I tell you of the Spaniard who blighted my life.
List to me while I tell you of the man who stole my future wife.
‘Twas at the bullfight that we met him, admiring his daring display
But while I stepped outside for some nuts and a programme
The dirty dog stole her away
Etc etc until
I’ll raise a bunion on his Spanish onion if I catch him bending tonight. Ole.
Thanks to Rufus and Andrew. Not sure about TEMPER – perhaps because my inclination was to parse it as a double definition – in which the two parts were too closely related – rather than as a rather obvious cryptic.
11A: I also took exception to stump as a synonym of trunk – surely the stump is what’s left when the trunk has been sawn off…? But it did give a nice misdirection into college baggage stuff…
19A: If I had setters’ skills, I think I would have tried to use ‘shanty’ in the clue. Hardly any anagramming at all there!
2D: Wouldn’t it have been sufficient to put ‘to thrash about’?
4D isn’t ‘gives you’ enough?Why include ‘should’?i
14A: I know that most people would say ‘bedsit’ these days (if such things still exist), but Katharine Whitehorn’s book is entitled “Cooking in a Bedsitter”. I just plucked my yellow, badly sellotaped 1961 Penguin paperback (priced 3/6) off my kitchen bookshelf to check…
The address is 29 Cul-de-Sac Place:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064074/