Guardian 26,646 by Rufus

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Great start to the week from Rufus, and slightly more difficult than usual. Favourites included 18ac, 3dn, 5dn and 6n.

Across
1 CLAPPER
Appreciative watcher gives tongue (7)

double def – the second half refers to the “tongue” of a bell
5 MATISSE
Miss tea when involved in painting (7)

(Miss tea)*
9 ALIBI
Excuse for party in capital (5)

LIB[erals]=”party”, in AI=A1=first rate=”capital”
10 FRUITLESS
If results go astray, efforts may well be (9)

(If results)*
11 MAISONETTE
Make use of one’s time at home (10)

(one’s time at)*
12 CLEW
What you have here, say, is for hanging a hammock (4)

A cord for a hammock. Sounds like ‘clue’=”What you have here, say”
14 GATECRASHER
Charge rates, otherwise someone will attend uninvited (11)

(Charge rates)*
18 QUARTERDECK
Suit for naval officers (11)

Part of the deck of a ship used by superior officers. Each “Suit’ (spades, diamonds etc) is a QUARTER of a DECK of cards
21 AUKS
Bird rears others (4)

Reversal (rears) of SKUA, a large predatory gull-like bird.
22 DISCHARGED
Daughter is accused, but let off (10)

D[aughter] IS CHARGED
25 TEMPTRESS
Femme fatale — one working for a time on her hair (9)

TEMP=”one workign for a time”, plus TRESS=”hair”
26 TRIPE
Junk food? (5)

double def
27 RANGERS
They scout about one side of Glasgow (7)

double def – the second half referring to Glasgow Rangers the football team.
28 EARNEST
Listener heads home in determined mood (7)

EAR=”Listener” plus NEST=”home”
Down
1 CHASMS
Charles writing for openings (6)

CHAS=”Charles”, plus M[anu]S[cript]=”writing”
2 ACIDIC
Sharp detectives in rising American intelligence organisation (6)

C[riminal] I[nvestigation] D[epartment]=”detectives” in a reversal (“rising”) of C[entral] I[ntelligence] A[gency]=”American intelligence organisation”
3 PRISON GATE
Can-opener? (6,4)

cryptic def, with “Can” meaning PRISON
4 RIFLE
General carries sovereign’s weapon (5)

RIFE=”General”=widespread, around L[ibra]=a pound “sovereign”
5 MOUSTACHE
Growing row over a speaker (9)

cryptic def, with “speaker” meaning a mouth
6 TOTE
System for better transport (4)

double def – for the first def, TOTE is short for ‘totaliser’, a system of betting i.e. for a bettor/better.
7 STEALTHY
Being sly they last out (8)

(they last)*
8 EASTWARD
The way the world goes round (8)

cryptic def
13 TASKMASTER
Teacher after a job for a demanding employer (10)

MASTER=”Teacher”, after TASK=”job”
15 TARDINESS
Takes a meal among sailors, though it causes delay (9)

DINES=”Takes a meal” among TARS=”sailors”
16 SQUATTER
He settles without recourse to law (8)

cryptic def – settle as in to stay somewhere
17 MARKSMAN
He’s unlikely to be found missing (8)

cryptic def – as they will hit rather than miss
19 IGNITE
Fire when an explosive’s not set to start? (6)

[gel]IGNITE=”explosive”, without gel=”set” at the start
20 ADVENT
Arrival of a head of department at opening (6)

A, plus D[epartment], plus VENT=”opening”
23 CASTE
Status of a holy man in church (5)

A, plus S[ain]T=”holy man”, in C[hurch of] E[ngland]
24 STYE
Pen note making a personal complaint (4)

an eyelid infection. STY=”Pen” plus E=musical “note”

47 comments on “Guardian 26,646 by Rufus”

  1. Thanks Rufus and manehi
    Usual Rufus mix of delights and irritations. I liked the unexpected anagram for GATECRASHER, QUARTERDECK, RANGERS and SQUATTER, I didn’t parse RIFLE.
    Irritations; how does “in painting” define MATISSE? I wondered if the def. was “involved in painting”, with the “involved” doing double duty.
    A TASKMASTER isn’t necessarily demanding – Rufus is thinking of the expression “hard taskmaster”, I think.
    I won’t bother to mention “alibi” = “excuse”. Oh, I just did.

  2. One of Rufus’s best I thought.
    Smiles at PRISON GATE, TOTES, QUARTERDECK AND IGNITE.
    I also loved RANGERS, after wasting a lot of time trying to justify Woggles (WOG being one side of Glasgow)
    Thanks Rufus, and Manehi for the blog.

  3. Thanks, manehi.

    Some very nice clues – my favourites were 10ac [very apt, as A Level results come out this week] 15, 21, 27ac and 2 and 19dn.

    muffin @1 – I took the definition in 5ac to be simply ‘painting’.

    Many thanks to Rufus for a vwery pleasant start to the week.

  4. Thanks Manehi and Rufus. An enjoyable puzzle once again with the usual nautical references. I think 5ac just about works – “Do you recognise this PAINTING?” “Yes. It’s a Matisse”

  5. Eileen and cholecyst
    I agree – “painting” works better as a definition than “in painting” (sorry, manehi!)

  6. I found bits of this tough, too, although overall I did – as usual – enjoy a Rufus puzzle. He’s a bit Marmitey; but then again I like Marmite.

    I liked AUKS and – when I finally got it and said a bad word – PRISON GATE. I think TASKMASTER works well enough: people use ‘hard’ just as an intensifier.

    I’m a careful user of English, but I’ve given up on protesting against ALIBI as a synonym for ‘excuse’. There are other fish to fry. My current campaign is against ‘a bacteria’ when it should be ‘a bacterium’. Even the Grauniad and the Indy are guilty.

    I digress. Thank you to S&B.

  7. Hardest Rufus that I can remember. AUKS was the only sensible word that fitted at 21a but I thought there was an error in the clue – until the act of writing it in, when it made sense, just about. RIFLE I didn’t get till I came here.

    MOUSTACHE my favourite of the typical Rufus clues; MARKSMAN the least, my penultimate in, and hence leading to the revelation of AUKS. MATISSE was first in, and I assumed that ‘involved’ was indeed doing double duty.

  8. Thanks Manehi.

    Enjoyed this on the whole but found there were rather too many “hmmm,’spose so” answers.

    I was OK with MATISSE but not sure why ‘stye’ is a personal complaint and not just a complaint…because it’s relatively localised, perhaps?

    Defining a moustache as a ‘row’ doesn’t blow my skirt up, either.

    Only minor quibbles, really, I remain in awe of this excellent setter’s prodigious output.

    Nice week, all.

  9. PRISON GATE is why I always enjoys a corny Rufus DD, I would have been happy with that, but then you get MOUSTACHE, hats off for that.

    Thanks to Manehi for explaining AUKS and RIFLE.

  10. Yes, as usual the occasional dodgy clue but Rufus is a master of his style of clueing. Lots to like including QUARTERDECK, CLAPPER, CHASMS and RANGERS. Many thanks to Rufus and manehi.

  11. Thanks Rufus and manehi.

    Quite hard for a Rufus, but very enjoyable. It took me a while to get RIFLE and AUKS. CLEW was a new word, OCED gives ‘a set of small cords suspending a hammock’.

    I did like QUARTERDECK, PRISON GATE, TARDINESS, CLAPPER and IGNITE.

  12. I failed to solve AUKS/skua (never heard of either of those 2 birds) and MARKSMAN.

    My favourites were QUARTERDECK, IGNITE, PRISON GATE AND TOTE.

    New for me were CLAPPER = tongue/striker of bell, and RANGERS F.C.

    Thanks Rufus and manehi.

  13. Count me as another who thought this was a little harder than the average Rufus puzzle, and I spent a while at the end on the AUKS/MARKSMAN crossers.

  14. Thank you manehi and Rufus. Simple fun in the main, with a couple I needed menehi’s help with. Pedantic, perhaps, but I have a problem with the tenses used in 21a. An Auk (singular) is a bird, but Auks (plural) are a group of birds (Alcidae). Likewise, a Skua is a bird (several types), but ‘Skuas’ is commonly used to describe a family (Stercorariidae). Thus ‘bird’ and ‘others’ doesn’t quite work for me, even though it is just a tiny gripe. A clever clue all the same.

  15. MikeP @14

    I can’t see your problem re 21ac – certainly not with tenses!

    SKUA [a bird], reversed, gives AUKS [other birds] – and the surface makes perfect sense, too. It made me think of cuckoos, as I expect it was intended to.

  19. I read it as ‘bird’, which is where I made my mistake. I should have looked at maheni’s blog more carefully. Silly me…

  21. As others have already commented/admitted: found this puzzle (agreeably) more challenging than some of Rufus’ offerings, didn’t know CLEW (though it was an easy guess), wasn’t too keen on the def of MOUSTACHE, finished with AUKS/MARKSMAN. I’d add, though, that I thought 11a was a nifty anagram.

  24. Thanks to Rufus and manehi. I needed help with the parsing of [gel]IGNITE but otherwise finished quickly. Much fun.

  25. This was a shade harder than usual. I’d never heard of CLEW and I simply couldn’t parse QUARTERDECK so I was grateful for the blog- so easy once you know! Quite a lot of nice cluing here so an enjoyable start to the week.
    Thanks Rufus.

  26. Not the easiest Rufus, but still pretty straightforward apart from one or two bits of arcane trivia such as CLEW, which was new to me but easily guessable. Liked QUARTERDECK.

    Thanks to Rufus and manehi

  27. Thanks to manehi for the blog.

    21 is one of those horrible clues: (part 1) reversal indicator (part 2) where you do not know which one to write in until you get a crosser. I hate them!

  29. If the answer is ‘a bird’ and SKUA it could, I think, hence my original error. But it isn’t, and life goes on…

  30. I failed for once on a Rufus by putting 17d as handyman (handy as in close at hand) instead of marksman. Of course I should have realised when 21a was unsolvable.

  32. ‘Bird rears others’ really does go both ways, especially in Guardian-speak where the usual rules of grammar are ignored, forgotten, subverted or not known by the compiler in the first place 😀 so you could get either SKUA, where the answer ‘rears’ (I know, it is really poor) other birds, or AUKS where the skua ‘rears’ (ugh again) FOR other birds, AUKS.

    I am sorry, but it IS ambiguous and thus faulty.

  33. HH@28 – I’m with Eileen@22. I know that getting into a debate with you is usually a bad idea, but that’s what checkers are for. Your stance is the equivalent of saying that a GK clue of “Shakespeare Play (7)” is rubbish because it can be either Macbeth or Othello. In my opinion the only time a reversal clue of the AUKS/SKUA type is badly written is when the checkers don’t resolve any perceived ambiguity.

  34. Kathryn’s Dad @6 — re. your digression.

    Scientists and classicists are perfectly well aware that ‘bacterium’ is the singular. Most editors of non-specialist content are equally well aware that common usage is moving towards ‘bacteria’ as a popularly accepted singular form in English. Why not redirect your campaigning zeal towards the compound error that is ‘bacteriae’ (a false plural form based on a combination of ignorance and pretentiousness)?

  36. Marienkafer @ 31 – no, but I did put in PRISON DOOR until I got the crossers. That’s the trouble with Rufus . . .

    Nightjar @ 35 – Rufi as in bacteriae?

  37. My first ‘live’ Rufus in a while, and like many others found it harder than I expected.

    Made two mistakes, Charms and Claw, neither of which I was comfortable with.

    Quarterdeck has been praised, but I thought the defs were weak, especially the suit one.

    Agree with William@8, too many went in without being wholly convinced that they were right (a feeling no doubt compounded by the fact that a couple weren’t).

    Auks came after Marksman but I had earlier thought Skua was the better way round. The order of the clue is 1. Bird 2. Rears others. That clues Skua better than Auks imho.

  38. Thanks Rufus and manehi

    Barrie @ 37, I disagree. For it to work your way round, I think it would have to be 1. Bird 2. Others rear.

    It’s all a matter of opinion, of course!

  39. Nothing to say really except that this was a little harder than the usual Rufus fare which was a pleasant surprise.

    Also to say that HH is of course correct in so much that the answer to 21A could be SKUA or AUKS as the def could be “Bird” or “others” The wordplay works equally well for both.

    However HH is of course wrong to say that this makes 21A poor clue. The crossers decide which is correct in this case. (That’s why they’re call “CROSSwords” HH!!!)

    Thanks to manehi and Rufus

  40. Thanks Rufus and manehi

    Enjoyed this and finished it on the quicker side for his puzzles – didn’t find it harder, but certainly more satisfying. Having said that, I did not parse either RIFLE or IGNITE.

    Thought that QUARTERDECK was one of the best clues that I’ve seen from him – simple, very clever and related back to his nautical theme ! Also liked PRISON GATE (although ‘toilet seat’ would also be very good), GELIGNITE (now that I understand it) and my last one in – MARKSMAN.

    Agree with B(NTO)’s comment on AUKS.

  41. Agree with @William, “personal complaint” threw me, perhaps something like “medical complaint” or even just “inflamation” would have been better.

  42. Suit = quarter of a deck is a familiar Rufus standby (cf. 15dn in Rufus 25425 and 8dn in Rufus 25515; also 10ac in Dante 14757).

  43. I also found it tougher than the typical Monday Rufus, but none the worse for that. I didn’t get the A1 in ALIBI. My favourite was QUARTERDECK, followed by FRUITLESS, MOUSTACHE, GATECRASHER and SKUA.

    Thanks to Rufus and manehi.

  44. Crossing letters are indeed there to aid solving: they are not there to justify ambiguous clueing. I agree that each clue should lead unambiguously to an answer, except in Donk crosswords, where they sometimes unambiguously, er, lead to two answers.

  45. Paul @44

    I think you stated the core of the “unambiguous” argument. HH and others seem to believe that clues should lead unambiguosly to one answer.

    Others, like myself, think a clue could lead to a discrete set of answers of which only one will fit the crossers.

    I suppose the size of this set should be decided. I personally would be OK with anything up to 10 as long as the wordplay can provide all of them without too much effort once the clue has been “cracked”. However 2 is the norm.

    What of course is unacceptable would be clues which have a definition such as “Girl’s name” where the wordplay could lead to an almost endless list of possibilities!

    But of course there aren’t actually any rules. Perhaps I should write some:

    “Brendan(not that one) on the Rules of the Crossword”. Immortality beckons 😉

  47. Thanks manehi and Rufus.

    Lovable and infuriating as ever.

    Quarterdeck and Gatecrasher were both top class.

    But I’m with HH on Auks/skua, with Bruce on Toilet Seat/Prison Gate (or even door) and 8dn could have been Easterly or Eastward.

    But the debate is part of the fun – so thanks.

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