Guardian 27,311 – Rufus

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Typical Rufus fare for a Monday morning. Not much more to say, really… Thanks to Rufus.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. STEP ON IT Hurry, if you want to use the weighing machine (4,2,2)
Double definition (sort of)
5. MASSIF High-rise central block (6)
Cryptic-ish definition, referring to the Massif Central in France
9. SCAFFOLD It’s put up for work on the outside (8)
Cryptic definition
10. DOCTOR Who’s this first on TV? No, in Bond film (6)
Double definition, referring to Doctor Who (the programme, not the character, for those who care deeply about the distinction) and Dr No
12. ELSIE Girl‘s back to oriental island (5)
Reverse of E ISLE
13. ROUNDELAY It’s only a rude version of song and dance (9)
(ONLY A RUDE)*
14. ESCAPE CLAUSE The key part of a Houdini contract? (6,6)
Cryptic definition
18. ABSENT‑MINDED Far away — and not appearing to be distressed (6-6)
ABSENT (not appearing) + MINDED (distressed – as in minding=objecting to? Not sure about this)
21. SAFETY NET A device for catching people in the act? (6,3)
Cryptic definition, the “people in the act” being trapeze artists etc
23. NASAL Alan’s wrong to be nosy (5)
ALANS* – nosy as in “pertaining to the nose”
24. TARMAC Sailor, a Scotsman, is seen on the roads (6)
TAR (sailor) + MAC (Scotsman)
25. BREACHES Breaks in knee-length trousers, we hear (8)
Homophone of “breeches” (breaks)
26. ONE-WAY A method for dealing with traffic? (3-3)
ONE (a) + WAY (method); the whole clue is also the definition, but it doesn’t qualify as &lit because the wordplay is only part of the clue
27. FLATMATE Stout friend, about 50, who shares digs (8)
L in FAT MATE
Down
1. SISTER Relationship between matron and nurse (6)
Double definition – sister is (or was) intermediate in seniority between nurse and matron
2. ELAPSE Pass in English, overlooking slight error (6)
E + LAPSE
3. OFF-SEASON Not on time, when trade is slack (3-6)
OFF (not on) + SEASON (time)
4. ILL‑TREATMENT I shall receive therapy for abuse (3-9)
I’LL + TREATMENT
6. AVOID Stay clear when hungry prima donna turns up (5)
This is a reversal of DIVA with O, or 0 or nothing, inserted. And if there’s nothing in you, you might be hungry. Not hard to solve, but rather too much indirection for my taste.
7. SETTLE UP Pay to take residence at university? (6,2)
SETTLE (take residence) + UP (at university, particularly Oxford or Cambridge)
8. FERRYMEN They go from bank to bank to stay business (8)
Cryptic definition – presumably the clue should read “.. stay in business”
11. SUPERNATURAL Turns up a real oddity — it’s uncanny (12)
(TURNS UP A REAL)*
15. LIE IN WAIT Plan to surprise carol singer, after extra rest (3,2,4)
LIE IN (an extra rest) + WAIT (carol-singer). Apparently carol-singers were called ‘Waits’ because they only sang on Christmas Eve, which was known as Waitnight or Watchnight, perhaps in reference to the shepherds who watched their flock by night
16. FALSETTO It sounds highly unnatural (8)
Cryptic definition
17. USE FORCE Refuse CO agitating to send in troops (3,5)
(REFUSE CO)
19. ASTHMA A way the head master initially receives a complaint (6)
A + ST + HM + A
20. ELYSEE Place for a president to see twice (6)
ELY (ecclesiastical See) + SEE. The Elysée Palace is the official residence of the President of France
22. TIARA Crown jewels? (5)
Cryptic definition – a tiara is worn on the head, or crown

36 comments on “Guardian 27,311 – Rufus”

  1. Thanks Rufus and Andrew

    I actually rather liked ABSENT MINDED. ELYSEE was also very nice.

    SISTER is a relation, not a relationship (which would be “sisterhood”, perhaps?).

  3. Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

    Nice start to the week. I couldn’t think of an island E???E for 12 at the beginning, especially as I had a lapse for ELAPSE.

    I liked ELYSEE and FLATMATE, although I was thinking of archaeologists for a long time.

  5. Not bad at all. One of Rufus’s gentler puzzles but none the worse for that. I particularly liked ELYSEE (LOI) and LIE IN WAIT.
    Thanks Rufus.

  6. For me, this was a quick and easy solve for the most part, as is typical for a Rufus puzzle, except I was held up for a long while on ELYSEE, my LOI – primarily because I did not know (or perhaps I forgot in the 40 or so years since I studied French in high school) that the residence of the President of France is the Elysée Palace. There were several clues, particularly in the NE quadrant, that I thought stood out for their clever surfaces and wordplay: AVOID, SUPERNATURAL, ESCAPE CLAUSE, and my favorite, DOCTOR. Thanks to Rufus and Andrew for helping get the week off to a good start.

  8. Typical enough – but not as easy as Rufus sometimes is – maybe my head wasn’t in the right place this morning. ELYSEE was last in

    Thanks to Rufus and Andrew

  9. ABSENT MINDED at first jarred, but on reflection I accept the word MIND (as in Do you mind? Yes I DO mind) can well mean being concerned – or distressed.
    Never heard of WAIT as a word for carol singer, so every day is a learning day – even in a Rufus puzzle!

    Thanks Rufus and Andrew

  10. Thanks to Rufus and Andrew. Enjoyable. I knew ELYSEE and WAIT but needed help parsing MASSIF and SISTER and was puzzled by the O in AVOID.

  11. Thanks both,

    I liked ‘Elysee’, but at the end I failed on 2d and 12a, largely because I couldn’t be bothered to spend time on puzzling them out.

  13. ACD @10
    Regarding the “O” in 6d, I see that Andrew interpreted it as “0” or nothing, inserted (“And if there’s nothing in you, you might be hungry”). I interpreted the O not as a numeral (zero), but rather, as a shape, an empty circle in the middle of the prima donna, signifying that she has an empty stomach and is hungry, before the whole assemblage (DIOVA) “turns up”.
    I thought it was a clever clue … although I feel sure that I have seen this device used by Rufus or other setters (Paul jumps to mind) in the not-too-distant past.

  14. Unlike beery hiker (@8), I found this easier than Rufus usually is – in fact this is my third write-in cryptic of 2017, the other two being Rufuses as well. Twice recently I have struggled to finish a Rufus puzzle.

    I admit to hesitating slightly on DOCTOR (my last in), because I couldn’t see why ‘first’ was in the clue, but I suppose it’s because DOCTOR is the first word of DOCTOR WHO (the programme and the character).

    I was disappointed with ILL-TREATMENT and OFF-SEASON each being simply the sum of its parts, just like RE-CONSIDERATION was in the Rufus last Monday. I liked FALSETTO, though, and I was pleased to learn that ‘wait’ can mean a carol singer. (I had no problem writing it in, but I had to check it here afterwards).

    Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

  17. I’m finding Rufus harder these days – maybe because I’m getting more used to untangling the more complicated clues from other setters and don’t think of the more obvious synonyms. As has been mentioned there was lots to like with some nice surfaces. Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

  18. Muffin @1

    Re SISTER. Have you considered the following.

    May I introduce Matilda?
    What’s your relationship?
    She’s my sister

    Certainly good enough for Rufus.

  20. Thanks as usual to setter and blogger.

    I didn’t enjoy this much – in particular the NE was spoiled by the misprint in FERRYMEN. Weak clues were OFF-SEASON, MASSIF, DOCTOR, ABSENT-MINDED and perhaps others; the general impression was that of a rushed job: am I being fair? Perhaps not – after all I couldn’t do it, in a rush or an eternity. For all that it was a Doctor Fell situation.

  23. I appreciate that Rufus uses cryptic defs more than most setters. I prefer wordplay clues but no matter. Fairly easy for a Rufus – to me at any rate, took less than 1/2 hour.

    On seeing 27, I couldn’t help thinking of that hoary old joke about the hedgehog: “why did the…..?”

    But perhaps this is not the place….. 😀

  24. Still don’t understand 19d. Can someone explain simply? I’m new to cryptic crosswords.
    I get the HM from Head Master initially. But where do the A ST and A come from?

  25. Muffin @22

    Actually you can get away with merely “Sister”.

    Of course this is a contraction of “She is my sister”. But Rufus might argue that as the question “What’s your relationship?” can be answered by the single word “Sister” his clue is justified. However it’s more likely that he doesn’t give a damn anyway! 😉

  26. 20d I hesitated about entering ELYSEE, which so many liked, because it involved SEE which is part of the clue but I couldn’t think of an alternative. For me, as a Rufus fan, it wasn’t one of his best.
    Alan B@14.I agree with you about ILL-TREATMENT and OFF-SEASON. If a “write-in” means that you solved it without needing any crossers then very well done. I can’t remember when I last did that.
    Thanks to Rufus and Andrew.

  28. Can anyone here explain to me – using every single word in the clue – how 12ac (ELSIE) works?
    Yes, of course, I see that it’s a reversal of E + ISLE but it this what the clue tells me?

  29. Fishminger @24 —

    The first A comes from the first word of the clue, and the last A similarly comes from the word “a” right before “complaint”. The ST comes from “way”, because a way is a street, which is abbreviated St.

    I think that the word “the” before “head” is a flaw in this clue. There’s no way to justify it in the cryptic reading. But that’s a minor quibble. There were a few others I couldn’t parse, but that’s due to a lack of knowledge on my part (“wait”, “sister”) or just being slightly thick.

    I liked the device of “hungry” to mean “0 inside”, particularly because rest of the construction was so straightforward — it’s not hard to get from prima donna to DIVA — as to make it seem fair to me.

    I did have a few trademark Rufus moments, when I thought, “Can that be right? What’s cryptic about it?” (9a in particular).

    Thanks to Rufus and Andrew!

  30. @28 Sil van den Hoek

    I parsed it slightly differently to Andrew with ‘back to oriental’ as an instruction as in… Girl’s (girl is) back to oriental (turn it round and put it leading to) island (isle – the word you are turning round) which gives ‘elsi e’ or ‘Elsie’

  31. @24 Fishminger…The two a’s are lifted directly from the clue and the st is an abbreviation of street (‘way’ in the clue), ‘the’ in the clue is part of ‘the headmaster initially’.

  32. @28 Sil van den Hoek

    Sorry, didn’t proof read properly. Should have typed (turn it round and put it leading to ‘E’ for oriental).

    Probably easier to say I don’t think it’s a reversal of E + ISLE, rather it’s a reversal of ISLE then E.

  33. @Ted 29, sorry, didn’t notice you’d just replied to Fishminger when I posted.

    Just noticed that I’ve fallen into the trap of explaining Paul’s parsing rather than my own, probably easier to correct it in a new post to Fishminger!

  34. Thanks robert, I think you’re right with your >ISLE + E.
    If I understand you well: a reversal (back) of {E added to ISLE}?
    That said, for the same reason it can still be seen as a reversal of E + ISLE, in my opinion.
    It’s the position of ‘to’ that confuses me.
    To be honest, I still find it pretty clumsy.
    Not worth a huge discussion, though.

  35. @24 Fishminger, Sorry, I actually parsed it differently to Paul but tried to explain his parsing above!

    It’s A S THM A

    A (from the clue) S (South – a way) THM (The Head Master initially) A (received from the clue).

  36. Pino @26

    No, I didn’t mean that! By ‘write-in’ I meant writing each answer in the grid and solving each clue with minimal thinking time – with many of the clues it was almost no thinking time. This is a rare event for me, as I indicated.

    I’m actually not much good at solving clues ‘off the page’, i.e. without crossers, and I’m sure I couldn’t have completed the puzzle in this way.

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