Guardian 26,018 by Rufus

by

Taking over a new blogging slot is always a little daunting but tempered by the fact it was almost certain to be Rufus today, with any luck I’ve not given too much info in the preamble.

Well it’s the usual Rufus mixture of double definition and cryptic definition clues as we’ve come to expect, looks like Rufus has been speaking french recently. Definitions underlined where appropriate.

Across
7 SPOT CHECK Detect and impede a random inspection (4,5)
  SPOT (detect) & CHECK (IMPEDE)
8 ABOUT Not exactly up and doing (5)
  Cryptic definition
9 LANDSCAPE It involves places and composition (9)
  [PLACES AND]* Anag Ind composition pretty much &lit
10 QUILT Which French officer has cover for retirement? (5)
  QUI (Which in french) & LT (officer)
12 IGLOOS Endless darkness is found around northern blockhouses (6)
  GLOO(m) in IS
13 ROULETTE Risky game in which players keep their eyes on the ball (8)
  CD
14 DOG STAR Follows sailor, followed by a sailor (3,4)
  DOGS (follows) & TAR
17 OBSCENE Filthy bones scattered around church (7)
  CE in [BONES]*
20 RESOURCE Military informant shows initiative (8)
  DD
22 PRAISE Quietly uplift with encouragement (6)
  P & RAISE
24 ACRID Bill free of bitterness? (5)
  AC (bill) & RID
25 MARES TAIL New materials could appear sky-high (5,4)
  [MATERIALS]* A type of cloud and also a type of firework for flashling to enjoy.
26 AMEND Correct definition of noon (5)
  The end of AM is noon
27 HAVERSACK Packhorse used around States (9)
  AVERS in HACK (horse) a lift and seperate clue. Ta Eileen
Down
1 SPRANG Telephoned after the odds leapt up (6)
  SP (betting odds) & RANG
2 STUDIOUS Rooms outside university for academic (8)
  U(niversity) in STUDIOS
3 WHACKS Points out menial worker for punishment (6)
  W & S (points) around HACK (again?!)
4 SCEPTRE May come to respect a sign of authority (7)
  RESPECT*
5 OBTUSE More than right, but stupid! (6)
  Obtuse angles are greater than right angles
6 BULLETIN A loaded statement? (8)
  it’s a BULLET IN so loaded
11 NUMB Insensitive one, for example, displays no hesitation (4)
  NUMB(er)
15 OVERCOME Win, although exhausted (8)
  DD
16 AIRS Looks composed (4)
  DD
18 CHASTISE It’s wrong in race to use a whip (8)
  ITS* in CHASE
19 GETAWAY Criminal’s escape? Come off it! (7)
  DD
21 ORIENT Eastern books contain nothing foreign (6)
  RIEN (nothing in french ) in OT
22 PEEKED Looked quickly and reached the highest level, say (6)
  Sounds like PEAKED
23 SWITCH It may be thrown for a change (6)
  DD

37 comments on “Guardian 26,018 by Rufus”

  1. Welcome, flashling! – and thanks for the blog.

    I had 8ac as a double definition.

    In 27ac, the definition is ‘pack’. I didn’t see anything wrong with ‘hack;’ being in the clue for 3dn, too, as they are two completely different meanings.

    Thanks for the firework definition of ‘mare’s tail’ – I only knew it as a cloud.

    Many thanks for the puzzle, Rufus – I liked CHASTISE and GETAWAY!

  2. Thanks, flashling.

    In 27a, I took “Pack”, rather than “Packhorse”, to be the definition for HAVERSACK. This was my last one in.

  3. Thanks, and welcome, flashling. I saw 8ac as a double def (“Not exactly” ; “up and doing”).

    Nice cluing from Rufus today, especially DOG STAR and AMEND.

  4. Re 8ac I saw it as a double def on the train and then when writing up was momentarily confused.

    Thanks all

  5. Thanks flashling and welcome, nice clean blog.

    Not sure about QUILT? Surely ‘which’ has to be quel or quelle? Qui is ‘who’ isn’t it?

    Nasty grid for a Rufus with the endless possibilities of -?-?-

  6. This was very enjoyable. I particularly liked 11d, 10a, 12a, 2d, 14a and my favourites were 26a AMEND, 20a RESOURCE, 5d OBTUSE & 21d ORIENT.

    New phrase for me was MARE’S TAIL cloud formation.

    Thanks for the blog, flashling.

    I also had 8a as a dd.
    Re 20a I parsed it as RE (Royal Engineers, military) + SOURCE (informant), def = initiative.
    Re 25a I also thought the sky-high” referred to the cloud formation known as “mare’s tail”. Is there also a firework that is a “mare’s tail”?

  7. Thanks to flashling for the blog. I found this quite a bit harder than usual for Rufus, not helped by the awful grid.

    William – “qui” can refer to inanimate objects, so I think it’s reasonable to define it is “which”. For example, New York is La ville qui ne dort jamais – the town which never sleeps (though “that” is more idiomatic there).

    Like Eileen I took the Mare’s tail to be a cloud, having never heard of it as a firework.

  8. Well they’re also called horse’s tails as fireworks, I suppose it’s much more likely rufus was referring to the clounds and I’m just blindsided by my other hobby 🙂

  10. Thanks flashling and Rufus

    Harder than usual for Rufus, I thought, but enjoyable and full of cleverly misleading clues. I ticked 14a, 4d, 6d, and 11d.

    I tried at first to make sense of ’rounders’ for 13a, but to no avail of course.

  11. Thanks to flashling for the blog and welcome.

    I liked 26 though it took me a while to parse it.

    I was held up for a while on 2d because I persisted in thinking of academic as a noun 🙁

  12. Thanks and welcome flashing

    I originally had LAPDANCES (almost %lit!) for 9 which held me up for a while until I remembered this was not a Paul puzzle but an enjoyably trying Rufus one.

  13. Thanks flashling and Rufus
    A mixed bag, which I too found a lot more difficult than a typical Rufus. I loved LANDSCAPE, DOG STAR and AMEND, but I have some quibbles as well. For instance, ACRID is an adjective, but its definition is given as a noun – “bitterness”. Similarly “eastern” is an adjective while its solution, ORIENT is a noun (at least, in the sense of “the East”). CHASTISE = “use a whip” is a bit loose.
    I had DUVET instead of QUILT for quite a while!

  14. Hi muffin

    I share your reservation re ORIENT.

    As for ACRID, I justified that by including ‘of’ in the definition and taking account of the question mark.

    Re CHASTISE, which I mentioned as one of my favourites, I immediately thought of the biblical quotation that I learned at school: “My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”, which is why I liked it. I think we do think of it as a kind of mild rebuke these days – I do, anyway – but all my dictionaries give its original meaning as especially physical punishment.

    [Thanks for the smile with the LAPDANCES, Kriscros. ;-)]

  15. Thanks Rufus, and welcome flashling, and thanks for your gently witty blog. More of the same, please.

    I agree with muffin re ORIENT, but ‘of bitterness’ served me as a definition of ACRID. YMM of course V.

  17. I enjoyed rUfus today, very nice. My only real hitch is LANDSCAPE, which seems to have two def bits, one being ‘it’ and the other one being ‘composition’, and two anagrinds, ‘invloves’ or ‘composition’. Not an &lit clue perhaps? I’m not sure which way around it is supposed to be!!

    Cheers
    Rowls.

  18. One of my favourite Rufuses for some time, despite the grid for which I share the objection of William @5, plus my bête noire of just two links (2d and 18d) between top and bottom ‘halves’.

    Parsed RESOURCE in the same way as Michelle @6. Favourites included LANDSCAPE, DOG STAR, AMEND, SPRANG and BULLETIN.

    And nice to have you on board, flashling.

  19. Thanks flashling and Rufus.

    I thought this was one of the most enjoyable Rufus puzzles for a while – just elegant and unfussy. Particularly liked AMEND.

  22. Thanks flashling. Inevitably, I suppose, Chambers gives as its first def: ORIENT adj eastern (usu, poetic).

  23. cholecyst @ 22
    Indeed you are correct! (I just looked). I don’t think I have ever come across it as an adjective – for me, the adjective is “oriental”.

  24. Thanks flashling.

    Re 21D:

    “The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting.”

  25. As others have said, horrible grid – once the top half was solved it was not much help for the bottom half.

    Thanks flashling for a good blog. Some really nice clues here. I particularly liked BULLETIN, ROULETTE, AMEND and HAVERSACK.

    Muffin @23; what about ‘Eastern philosophy/mysticism?’

  27. The “Orient Express” is a train to THE Orient (noun), and Leyton Orient are known as “The Orient” (noun again?)
    I’m not being entirely serious here!
    jvh – what is the source of your quotation?

  28. I was going to comment about the grid, less than 50% checking etc but thought k’s d would be here. Still not convinced about airs if anyone has a better explanation.
    No malt whisky was harmed in the production of this blog. 🙂

  29. Here I am, flashling. I was indeed going to have another bitch about the grid but several people have already done that for me. This Grauniad grid really does need to be given a decent burial.

    I did like Rufus’ offering today. Not so many cds and dds as we have seen, and some wit thrown in for good measure. HAVERSACK my favourite in this one.

    Fine blog, flashling, but remember that this is the dark side … And no malt whisky was harmed? You cannot be 14ac.

  30. Thanks for the debut blog, Flashling.

    It was my last in, but I had no problem with your DD of ‘airs’ – of the physical appearances and tunes variety respectively. Maybe a question mark was needed? Also solved ‘resource’ as Michele did.

  33. Thanks for the welcomes, I’ll be here for a while, but this was actually my 99th fifteen squared blog, mostly over on the Indy side, will get used to the Guardian setters style eventually.

  34. One of Rufus’s better puzzles. Not easy and entertaining.

    My only slight quibble was with CHASTISE which I thought was a bit weak.

    ORIENT is definitely an adjective.

    Of bitterness is OK for me for ACRID.

    Well done RUFUS and thanks to Flashling. (Don’t worry. Everybody, almost without exception, on here is really nasty. In fact last week we almost had two riots. Luckily for the bloggers we normally attack each other so the blogger gets off scot free 🙂 )

  35. Some pondering needed here I found, with the customary Rufus generalities contained in short clues e.g. 16d.

    Nice to see a reference to Sirius, the Dog Star though, prominent at this time of year, and from which we get the expression “dog days” of Summer.

    Thanks one and all.

  36. Busy weekend so coming late to this one.

    Rufus has shown us a few times recently what he can do within his own unique style and this is no exception. Faves 27a and 9a – always like both those constructions.

    Re 9a (LANDSCAPE), I think “pretty much &lit” is a good description – some say “partial &lit” – but in a way both terms disguise the fact that you’re not getting short measure – you’re getting a bonus.

    For the “plain” reading I saw it as:

    It: def
    involves: link
    places and: fodder
    composition: anagrind

    but then, even though it relates back to the same thing, we have (as per the blog) the whole surface also as a def.

    I think I actually like these even better than a regular &lit.

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