Guardian 26,622 – Rufus

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A very characteristic Rufus puzzle, with lots of double and cryptic definitions. These can sometimes cause a bit of a hold-up, but I found this a very quick solve, with lots of write-ins. Thanks to Rufus.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. GLEBE Land of the living (5)
Cryptic definition – a glebe is a piece of land attached to a church, for the benefit of the parish priest, and a living is the parish itself, and associated income (in the Jeeves and Wooster stories, Bertie’s curate friends are often on the lookout for a living, usually from their girlfriends’ tight-fisted uncles)
10. LUCRATIVE Manufacture of vital cure brings in profits (9)
(VITAL CURE)* – the defnition is the wrong part of speech here: perhaps “in profits” would work?
11. SITUATION Thrown into a suit case (9)
(INTO A SUIT)*
12. DYKES Dams found between Kirkcaldy to Keswick (5)
Hidden in kirkalDY [joined to] KESwick
13. THROW IN Move to continue playing football, or concede defeat (5-2)
Double definition
15. CHOWDER Thick soup — food to the German (7)
CHOW + DER – contrary to my suspicions, I found that “chow” and “chowder” are unrelated: “chow” is from Chinese pidgin English “chow chow”, from Chinese “cha”=”mixed”; “chowder” from old French “chaudière”, meaning a pot (and related to “cauldron”)
17. RISEN Ascended a small hill to the north (5)
RISE (small hill) + N
18. ELM Wood used in model-making (3)
Hidden in modEL-Making
20. REPEL Check the advance of a sick man’s comeback (5)
Reverse of LEPER
22. DITCHED Abandoned, many felt irritated (7)
D (500) + ITCHED
25. NEMESIS Retribution seems in order (7)
(SEEMS IN)*
26. HIVES They store honey, rash though it may be (5)
Double definition
27. MOTH-EATEN Looking shabby, he meant to reform (4-5)
(HE MEANT TO)*
30. THREESOME Article about doctor and prophet backing a small group (9)
Reverse of MO + SEER in THE
31. SEVER Cut and serve out (5)
SERVE*
Down
1. AGES Agrees about being dropped as one grows older (4)
AGREES less RE (about)
2. FEATURES Achievement sure to be written about in newspapers (8)
FEAT + SURE* – again the definition uses the wrong part of speech
3. MEGA Big game shot (4)
GAME*
4. ALLIANCE Union gets a nice settlement after all (8)
ALL + NICE*
5. SCENIC Such a railway may make a fair profit (6)
Cryptic definition – a Scenic Railway was a fairground attraction, precursor of the rollercoaster
6. CARDIOGRAM Beat record (10)
Cryptic definition – it records the beats of your heart
7. LICKED Gave tongue, though subdued (6)
Double definition
8. LENS City in northern France producing optical equipment (4)
Double definition – the place is in Pas-de-Calais
13. TIRED Sorely tried and weary (5)
TRIED* – like 31a, “only just” an anagram
14. WINCHESTER Gunnery school? (10)
A definition (school) and a hint (from the Winchester rifle)
16. RULES Decides officially and draws the line (5)
Double definition
19. MINSTREL Plucky airman of a bygone age? (8)
Cryptic definition – a minstrel might haved plucked his lute while singing an air
21. POSITIVE Definite sign of an increase (8)
Double definition
23. TAVERN A number tucked into bird in the inn (6)
A V (5) in TERN
24. DAMSON Mother and child in a jam? (6)
DAM + SON
26. HATE Loathe articles in disorder (4)
An indirect anagram of THE + A
28. EASE Yet it is difficult for busy people to take it (4)
Cryptic definition – “yet” because it should be easy to take your ease..
29. NORM The average Pole or Frenchman? (4)
N (pole) + OR + M[onsieur]

48 comments on “Guardian 26,622 – Rufus”

  1. Thanks Rufus and Andrew

    I think the part of speech (the verb, presumably) in 10 is OK: something lucrative, or its manufacture, brings in profits, doesn’t it?

  4. In 26, I took ‘loathe articles’ to be ‘a’ and ‘the.’ So, isn’t this just an anagram of those? Maybe that’s what is meant by an indirect anagram although it seems OK to me.

  5. I progressed rapidly here but was stalled on GLEBE (a term new to me) and got SCENIC without knowing “scenic railway” as a fairground attraction. An enjoyable Monday puzzle. Thanks to Rufus and Andrew,

  6. Robi @3 – oops, I toyed with EASY for 28 and forgot to check, so thanks for that. I think EASE works almost as well: such are the perils of the cryptic definition.

    Robi @4 – yes, the articles are THE and A, but these do not occur in the clue, so it’s an indirect anagram, though perhaps a mild case, as the answer is clear and there isn’t much choice of anagram fodder. (Edit: Ah, I see what you mean about A and THE appearing in loATHE – I think I agree with Jason that the clue wouldn’t really work if it was using those.)

  7. Since “Loathe” is the definition, I think it’s unlikely that “Loathe articles” refers to the “a” and “the” found in the word “Loathe”. (The clue doesn’t work as an “& lit” because the whole clue would then need to be the definition.) So it’s calling for an anagram of words that are only indirectly referred to in the clue.I feel that’s pushing it for a Monday morning!

  8. Thanks Andrew – re 28, the relevant phrase that Rufus was thinking of is I think “taking it easy”.

  9. …but a four-letter synonym for ‘loathe’ is not too hard to find!

    A strange mixture this of the sublime and the banal, I thought.

    ‘Land of the living’ being very much in the former category!

  13. Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this, especially CARDIOGRAM and MINSTREL.

    The fairground SCENIC railway is new to me. The original one was built in Margate in 1920. It is of wood and is due to be reopened this year. Apparently there are only eight in the world.

  14. HATE is only given then by the definition, the clue part is unsolvable until you have the answer. GLEBE also is a bad one, as it is so obscure. The compiler says, ‘oh yes, that reads nicely, so I’ll use it even though no-one will have a clue’. 🙁

  16. hh @14

    The only articles on offer are “A”, “AN” and “THE”. If people can’t make a four letter anagram meaning LOATHE from that, then….

    GLEBE is hardly an obscure word (indeed, Ian SW3 found it a write-in). You clearly have never listened to The Archers (lucky you), nor noticed the thousands of other ‘Glebe Cottages’ up and down the land.

  17. Thanks, Andrew.

    I read 26d more or less as Robi at 4d, except I thought it was “articles in” referring to those in LOATHE; and also as “articles in disorder” Belts and braces.

  18. New word for me was DAMSON. I have come across GLEBE in crosswords before, so after I had the 3 crossers it was not difficult to solve.

    I liked the simplicity of SEVER, AGES, DYKES, MEGA, HATE and my favourites were CARDIOGRAM & SITUATION.

    Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

  20. Thanks both. For once I agree with hh@14, both about GLEBE and HATE. Though maybe because I took so long looking at “loathe” and trying to lose the “lo”!

  22. Thanks Andy@8 – ‘taking one’s EASE’ was so obvious to me that I couldn’t see how Rufus made the solution to 28dn EASY.

  23. Glad there’s been some discussion about 26D – I wrote it in, thinking it was just THE and A, but then started to second guess myself, wondering if there was somehow an indicator to get rid of ‘lo’ which I just couldn’t see!! Had EASY in at 28D but I think EASE works better actually.

    Oh, and at 4D: isn’t it ALL plus an anagram of ‘A’ NICE??

    Thanks Rufus and Andrew – nice start to the week, and a bit of discussion to get us all going!!

    My favourites were THREESOME and CARDIOGRAM.

  24. Thanks to Rufus and Andrew

    Apart from the complete absence of US presidents, this was an agreeable way to take one’s ease of a Monday lunchtime, or possibly take it easy. I wrote in EASE, but I can now see that EASY works better. The grammar of the clue points to a noun (ease) as the solution but “take it” definitely points to the phrase, hence EASY, so quite a nice disguise there.

    A couple of just barely anagrams in TIRED and SEVER were a bit too easy, regardless of the day of the week. I was a little dubious about the unconnected DYKES, though the solution was pretty clear.

    GLEBE I had to check; with three crossers, there weren’t many other possibilities, and let’s face it “living” often means something churchy in crosswordworld. But as I have posted before, as a devout atheist I make it my business not to know anything about all that stuff! In hindsight though, it was an elegant surface.

    On the plus side, I liked the construction of HATE, and the elegant disguises of CARDIOGRAM and MINSTREL.

  25. I had EASE and didn’t think twice about it. I think EASY is better though. I had to check the meaning of GLEBE but I don’t think it’s especially obscure or banal. Didn’t think much about HATE either. It was a write in.
    Easyish solve but quite enjoyable.
    Thanks Rufus.

  26. @23 LilSho

    Funny, regarding EASE and EASY, you came to the opposite conclusions to mine, both initially and subsequently. I think you were right first time!

    And you are right about ALLIANCE: Andrew hasn’t accounted for the second A, in the blog.

    @7 Jason and others

    I read “loathe articles” immediately as “a” and “the”. The fact that the definition doubled up as part of the wordplay really didn’t trouble me, and this is just the sort of rule-bending that makes for an imaginative setter in my view. The solution was perfectly fair, and the surface worked well.

  27. Thank you, Andrew, fine blog.

    Enjoyed GLEBE. Perhaps a non-English speaker would consider this an obscure word but no one else, surely?

    Chuckled at the description of a MINSTREL as “a plucky airman”.

    Struggled to shoehorn Moses or Amos into THREESOME before spotting SEER.

    Rapid fire solve from this excellent setter to kick off the week.

    Nice week, all.

  28. 1961Blanchflower @26 …sorry, meant to add that that’s exactly how I read the HATE clue. For me, it’s an &lit and a rather elegant one at that.

  29. Thanks Rufus and Andrew

    This was as easy a Rufus as I can remember … for most part. Needed to have a second look to finish off CARDIOGRAM (RS at his best with cd’s), MINSTREL (nice definition) and GLEBE (my last in – hadn’t heard of the church-based definition – only of a suburb up in Sydney!)

    I sort of liked the HATE clue, in the context of the A and the THE living in the definition clue. Didn’t consider anything else other than ‘taking it EASY’ at 28d … and worried when I saw the blogged answer. Struggled a little with the DAM – DYKE synonym. Wasted time trying to make PAR start off 29d for too long.

  30. I quite enjoyed this a pleasant start to the week.Glebe went in quickly as not only did I know its meaning but also there’s a pub called the Glebe at the bottom of my road across from the church. Shamefully more often found in the pub.Favourites were 6d and 19d.Thanks Andrew and Rufus.

  31. A little bit trickier than Rufus can be – I had EASE too but Check wiped it out. No problems with GLEBE, but MINSTREL and CARDIOGRAM took some seeing. 12 just looks wrong – easy enough to solve, but it doesn’t really work and the surface is nonsensical.

    Thanks to Rufus and Andrew.

  32. Re HATE as &lit I have never heard such nonsense. It’s one of the worst clues I have ever seen.

  33. Thanks all
    How about “see a & the” for loathe.
    I wrongly had green at 9ac so mega only came about after I changed to glebe,(‘there can be few English villages without a Glebe Road/Avenue/Close etc.
    Little else to comment on!

  34. Well, I’m a native English speaker with a wide vocabulary including many words deemed obscure but, despite mis-spending my youth in a church choir, I’ve never come across GLEBE. Why couldn’t he clue GREBE instead?

    I don’t think indirect anagrams are legit either but when they’re as straightforward as HATE it hardly matters.

  35. Good fun, bit of smut, loved RUBBER BAND. The “scorer” in 16D is Irving Berlin.

    Thanks to Punk and Andrew.

  37. “It’s one of the worst clues I have ever seen” – really? It’s not great, and as Trailman says it breaks a Ximenean rule, but that doesn’t make it at all difficult to solve…

  38. Cookie @ 19 – well, that just goes to prove what a bad memory I have. As I had no recollection of knowing the word DAMSON, it ended up being a new word (again) for me!

    hedgehoggy@ 21 – I did not say that GLEBE was a bad clue – I actually thought it was a good clue.

  40. So, as a result of 5d, I ended up at the Wikipedia article on Roller Coasters. This has a section entitled “Russian mountain” which start with

    “The oldest roller coasters are believed to have originated from the so-called “Russian Mountains”, which were specially constructed hills of ice, located especially around Saint Petersburg”

    and then ends with

    “The name Russian Mountains to designate a roller coaster is preserved in most Latin languages. However, the Russian term for roller coasters is “???????????? ?????” (“amerikanskiye gorki”), which means “American Mountains”.”

    Which raised a smile!

  42. Thanks Rufus and Andrew –a nice easy start to the week

    Shouldn’t the definition in 24d to be ‘in a jam,’ as Damson is the name of the fruit?

    The (relatively new?) device in 12a has been used before, quite recently, with the replacement of the normal ‘and’ (as in between A and B) with ‘to’ becoming an instruction to join the two words.

    CARDIOGRAM is an abbreviation of ELECTROCARDIOGRAM – I’m surprised that HH didn’t demand an indication of that in the clue.

    As for 26d (HATE), the clue IMO qualifies as a double parser, in which case LOATHE is doing double duty as both the definition and referencing where to find the articles. Clever.

  43. GLEBE’s clue I thought very nice, though in formal writing it would have been Living, capitalised, to indicate the defined term for the church benefice under property law, I suppose. It’s not though, it’s a crossword.

    MINSTREL’s I liked very much too, especially the morphing of the verb “to pluck” into the adjective (works with v/n “stick” and “sticky” especially in jokes too, doesn’t it?), and the noun “air” into the compound “airman”.

    Although there were a lot of easy anagram write-ins I thought it was a satisfying, if short solve.

    Many thanks one and all.

  44. Rufus on top rufusian form.

    Glebe’s been round before with no complaints. “Glebe Cottage” features in The Archers and has been used by various “alternative” businesses to emphasise their tweeness – not least one owned by the irritating cut-and-come-again gardening woman on the telly.

    HATE is fine. For those whose level of thinking hasn’t reached the enlightenment yet a memorisable rule is probably necessary. The nearest to that is the one from The Listener which proscribes “unobvious indirectness” in anagram fodder feed-in. Those for whom “articles” doesn’t immediately suggest THE and A have maybe chosen the wrong pastime.

  45. @44 Swagman re HATE

    Well put.

    Or perhaps these rules should be published alongside the puzzle every day; looking for transgressions would enhance the pleasure no end. I wonder how many Araucarias would have passed the test.

  46. There is an eagle flying high in the left hand corner. I don’t know why. And I probably don’t care.

  48. Oh you New Guardianistas are so dangerous. I really want to be in your new band.

    Of dangerous New Guardianistas.

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