It’s monday, it’s Rufus, you know what you’re getting.
Usual mix of mostly double and cryptic definitions with the odd googly thrown in, this took me longer than eXternal in the Indy.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BLACKMAIL | Exact money (9) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 6 | PLAN | Unfinished aircraft design (4) |
| PLAN(e) | ||
| 8 | PLAY FAIR | Don’t cheat in two forms of leisure activity (4,4) |
| PLAY & FAIR | ||
| 9 | FATHOM | Think in depth (6) |
| Double def | ||
| 10 | ASPIRE | Aim ambitiously for praise, being wretched (6) |
| PRAISE* | ||
| 11 | HOGSHEAD | Gets more than one’s share of froth with this measure of alcohol (8) |
| HOGS (takes more than one’s fair share of) HEAD (froth on a pint). It’s a large sized beer barrel. | ||
| 12 | CAPERS | Saucy antics? (6) |
| Cryptic double def | ||
| 15 | PLANTAIN | Worker in the prairie producing fruit (8) |
| ANT in PLAIN | ||
| 16 | CRITICAL | Censorious to a dangerous degree? (8) |
| Double def | ||
| 19 | DRAINS | Runaway affairs? (6) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 21 | PENTACLE | Star of the Magic Circle? (8) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 22 | CASINO | One takes no end of cash in, finishing with nothing (6) |
| CAS(h) & IN & O &lit I guess | ||
| 24 | LEAN-TO | Show preference for old penthouse (4-2) |
| Double def | ||
| 25 | OBSERVED | Said to be celebrated (8) |
| Double def | ||
| 26 | OTIC | Ring starts nervous reaction in the ear (4) |
| O (ring) & TIC | ||
| 27 | HANDSHAKE | Workers given fish — a gesture of goodwill (9) |
| HANDS & HAKE | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BALES | Bottle opener and drinks in packs (5) |
| B(ottle) & ALES | ||
| 2 | ANYTIME | Amenity switched to an unspecified date (7) |
| AMENITY* | ||
| 3 | KNAVE | A card cheat may be so described (5) |
| Double def | ||
| 4 | AIRSHIP | It goes up with inflation (7) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 5 | LIFEGUARD | Soldier’s an expert swimmer (9) |
| Double def | ||
| 6 | POTSHOT | Saucepan’s ready for cooking what this has killed (7) |
| POT’S HOT | ||
| 7 | ADORATION | Commercial address brings high esteem (9) |
| AD & ORATION | ||
| 13 | AGREEMENT | Enter game play, making contract (9) |
| [ENTER GAME]* | ||
| 14 | SACKCLOTH | Dismiss ministers, a sign of contrition (9) |
| SACK & CLOTH | ||
| 17 | TITANIC | Enormous disaster struck it (7) |
| Double def | ||
| 18 | LIE DOWN | It makes one wild what people do when they retire (3,4) |
| [ONE WILD]* | ||
| 20 | AUSTRIA | American detained by courts in European country (7) |
| US in ATRIA | ||
| 22 | COSTS | Expenses legally incurred (5) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 23 | NIECE | Relative found somewhere in the south of France, we hear (5) |
| Sounds like French city NICE | ||
Thanks Rufus and flashling
I enjoyed this one, though I did raise my eyebrows at some. (In what ways are capers a sauce? They might be IN a sauce, perhaps, but “saucy” is surely not a definition for them.)
I’m not sure if I was more irritated or amused by DRAINS – a bit of both, probably.
Thanks flashling and Rufus
As flashling says, you know what’s coming. This looked harder than usual at first but it all unravelled nicely in the end. I was left a little unconvinced by 19a, but there is a ? and ‘affairs’ is vague enough, I suppose, and there is also the sense of ‘matters to be concerned about’. Plus it seems impossible to think of anything else at all relevant :).
I ticked 27a and 6d among many smooth and clever clues.
Enjoyable enough, characteristic Rufus.
Thanks flashling; DRAINS was my last in giving a similar emotion to muffin’s @1.
I thought of balloon for 4 at first. I liked LIE DOWN.
I particularly liked 18d, 14d, 27a, 22a and my favourites were 9a FATHOM, 6d POTSHOT & 11a HOGSHEAD.
New word for me was OTIC.
Thanks Rufus and flashling [eXternal in the Indy took me 10 minutes longer than this puzzle.]
An annoying return to form from Rufus. I thought for some time that with 19 he was introducing a new clue type, the “double non-definition” (perhaps to complement his other favourite type, the straight definition). I still don’t quite see how one gets DRAINS but am past caring.
Thanks, flashling, for the blog.
At least it was a decent grid.
Drains is, indeed, a rubbish clue. I like the idea @5 of the “double non-definition”!
I found this puzzle quite hard until I got going (which wasn’t until I read 23 down). It might have had something to do with the fact that I was attempting to solve whilst still half-asleep at about 6.00am.
Like Robi @4 I floated the idea of BALLOON. With Robi and Muffin @1 on DRAINS, but did admire the clue for 22ac CASINO.
Thanks for the blog Flashling and since I am retired I might now go and LIE DOWN.
Ooh, you boys. I liked 1 & 17 down quite a lot.
11a Hogshead.
I know it’s a measure, but what has it got to do with ‘one’s share of froth’?
don @10: ‘hog’s’ ( = takes more than one’s share of) ‘head’ (froth on beer).
Off-centre definitions made this a bit tricky for me but, as sidey said @6, the grid didn’t have unchecked letters all round the periphery for once. I did like 22a.
PS Sorry for the greengrocer’s (greengrocers’?) apostrophe in ‘hogs’.
In CASINO the answer is the place, not the person whi uses it, so the clue cannoy be ‘&lit’ I think? It seems off some how.
I dsid like this one, but some of the ‘CDs’ were close to not being cryptic. like 22, and DRAINS I did not understand.
As most of you have already noted, a typical Rufus. I liked the clue for LIE DOWN, thought that PENTACLE was barely cryptic, and wasn’t as annoyed by CAPERS and DRAINS (my next to last in) as some of you. OBSERVED was my LOI.
Re. 25a, how do the last three words of the clue turn it into a double definition?
John @15
You ‘observe’ (for instance) a religious holiday = a form of celebration [ longer-winded than I intended, but *I* know what I mean 🙂 ]
Simon
Thanks to Rufus and flashling. I also started with BALLOON at 4d. I liked LIE DOWN and FATHOM.
Last in was DRAINS; couldn’t find anything else that would fit.
Cheers…
Sidey @6 hit the nail. A decent grid, but some pretty unsatisfactory clues (1ac – hardly cryptic, pentacle, drains – need I go on). Pretty disappointing overall
Held up for a while by putting ‘poacher’ for ‘potshot’ at 6 down but then twigged ‘fathom’ and that sorted things out.
Typical Rufus, but fine for my (usually) Monday-addled brain
Thanks Rufus and flashling. As always I am perplexed as to why people look down on Rufus. If you don’t like his style, why bother to complete the puzzle? And what’s wrong with 19ac DRAINS? Some people sound a bit cross because they couldn’t immediately solve the clue (it’s Rufus, so it’s easy, right?). I thought it a brilliantly succinct cryptic clue – you have to understand affairs = things (see Chambers).
I put in PLAY BALL which I had to change to PLAY FAIR
Then I put BALLOON which I had to change to AIRSHIP
I put POACHER (a type of pan), which turned out to be POTSHOT
I put SHARP (cryptic definition) which turned out to be KNAVE (double definition)
By this time I could hardly read the grid because of the crossings-out. Sidey got it spot on @6.
cholecycst @20 – I attempt Rufus because I get the Guardian newspaper and on Mondays there is no other cryptic crossword in there. Sometimes Rufus delivers a great puzzle, but then again sometimes not…
Agree with cholecyst – 19a is excellent, the sort of clue I immediately want to read out to whoever will listen.
All you need is an audience, matey. Gosh, how I know that feeling.
Rufus’s are the only ones I end up doing – we start one at work on Monday and it takes us the rest of the week, over lunchtimes, to (hopefully) come close to finishing it.
But he is sometimes unsatisfactory, with clues that seem like plain definitions, or that are more ambiguous than I’d like from a cryptic. We’re very accustomed to not solving many clues, but even some of those we manage are filled in with a resigned, “Well, I *suppose* that works,” rather than a more satisfying, “Ha! Of course!”
This week we had POACHER instead of POTSHOT, PLAY BALL instead of PLAY FAIR, and BALLOON instead of AIRSHIP. In the latter case, BALLOON seems the better answer, given that some airships don’t “inflate” (they’re rigid), whereas all balloons do. Onward!