Guardian 26,508 by Rufus

by

Good morning, as expected a Rufus for a bright and cold Monday here in Suffolk after a wet and windy night.

Pretty much the usual fare from Rufus, with what seemed like a bit of more than usually intricate parsing for him, but a heavy reliance on the word USER.

 

completed grid

Across

1 Weak case made for charitable collection (4,3)
POOR BOX

WEAK (poor) & CASE (box)

5 It will result in a free kick for the away team (7)
OFFSIDE

OFF (away) & TEAM (side). Quite a nice surface for a footy clue.

10 Heads turn in shock (4)
STUN

An old chestnut.  NUTS reversed

11 Immodest assertion one isn’t ashamed to make (5,5)
PROUD BOAST

Cryptic – ish definition

12 Proposals for heartless transgressors (6)
OFFERS

OFF(end)ERS are heartless.

13 Position of respect on the staff (4-4)
HALF-MAST

Cryptic def re flags

14 Servant, a sober worker, receives tip (9)
ATTENDANT

A & T.T. (sober) & ANT with END (tip) inserted

16 Accidentally slips a little butter on board (5)
SKIDS

KID (a baby goat, a little “butter”) in S.S. (ship)

17 Confess one’s escaped from Maidstone somehow (5)
ADMIT

[MAIDSTONE - (ones)]* with ONES escaped, somehow

19 Package returned, give address with added detail (9)
ELABORATE

BALE (package) reversed & ORATE (give speech)

23 Poorly made Russian fighter returns with a bang! (8)
GIMCRACK

MIG (Russian plane reversed) & CRACK (bang)

24 Hits the first bumps (6)
THUMPS

T(he) first & HUMPS (bumps)

26 Side plate put out, with tin-opener, for basic food (6,4)
STAPLE DIET

[SIDE PLATE]* put out & T(in)’s opener

27 Dines in style at smart restaurants (4)
EATS

Hidden in stylE AT Smart. What’s restaurants doing? just surface I guess as I can’t find a fit for EATS = RESTAURANTS

28 Girl, being awkward, went ahead and asked questions (7)
GRILLED

GIRL* awkwardly & LED (went ahead)

29 They take advantage of a sailor needing employers (7)
ABUSERS

A(ble) S(eaman) & USERS

Down

2 Love to appear in costume but has no chance (3,2,2)
OUT OF IT

0 (love) in OUTFIT

3 Limits area where cattle may graze (5)
RANGE

Double def.

4 Popped the question after work but not accepted (7)
OPPOSED

POSED after OP(us)

6 Work in a band in fraudulent transaction (6)
FIDDLE

Double def

7 He has found a job at last (9)
SHOEMAKER

A cobblers clue! Cryptic def.

8 Retired from employment? (7)
DISUSED

Just a cryptic def I guess

9 Enthusiastic recommendation, which is unique (7,4,2)
NOTHING LIKE IT

Double def

15 Sort of church Alice pops out to see (9)
EPISCOPAL

[ALICE POPS]* out

18 Fishing boat that will sail with the tide (7)
DRIFTER

Well a drift-er would go with the tide

20 Home fixture for City but needs to be arranged (7)
BATHTUB

BATH (a city) & BUT* arranged. More football?

21 Much of his time is spent behind bars (7)
TAPSTER

Cryptic def for a barman

22 Skin disease going around English riding school (6)
MANEGE

E(nglish) in MANGE

25 Consumers requiring faultless service in US (5)
USERS

VICE removed from SER(vice) and inserted into U.S.

*anagram

31 comments on “Guardian 26,508 by Rufus”

  1. Thanks Rufus and flashling
    Flashling has made exactly the same comments on the “odd” clues that I intended to. Re 8d, see today’s Quiptic (I hope that reference is obscure enough).

  2. I found this a bit more difficult than the average Rufus, but got there in the end apart from MANEGE. Thanks to him and flashling.

  3. Good morning, all, and thanks flashling.

    I know some say this setter is on the easy side, but I find that with his clues there’s so little to go on, one just has to to ‘think it out’, and therefore it becomes quite a work out.

    Spent ages trying to find an anagram of ‘City but’ until I spotted BATHTUB.

    Anyone know the derivation of GIMCRACK, by the way?

    Nice week, all.

  5. Thanks Rufus and flashling.

    I found this crossword great fun, loved HALF-MAST, ATTENDANT, SHOEMAKER and GIMCRACK.

    William @3, GIMCRACK, showy, but badly made; 1610s, “showy person;” sense of “trifle”; first recorded 1839 of uncertain origin; perhaps alteration of gibecrake a kind of ornament on wooden furniture (mid-14c.), perhaps from Old French “giber” (to rattle, shake) plus Middle English crak (sharp noise, crack).

  7. Thanks Rufus and flashling.

    I thought I had finished until I noticed on the blog that I hadn’t put in MANEGE – I didn’t know the word anyway. I tried HEAD POST for 13, but I thought HALF-MAST was superb. In 27, he could have used snack-bar or some such.

  9. I was a little put off by AB-USERS, USERS and DIS-USED all at once. Unless it was deliberate? Liked ADMIT, GIMCRACK and TAPSTER — and had to reach pretty far back into memory for MANEGE.

  16. Thanks to flashling for the blog.

    When I saw 7d, ‘at last’, I thought of cobbler immediately. Sadly that is too short to be the answer. I had to wait for most of the crossers to get the proper answer.

    On 17a I thought that was brilliant for Rufus – I do not expect such sophisticated clues from him.

  17. I think ‘one’s to escape’ would be better, otherwise we have the past tense in the cryptic reading. It is a nice clue-picture however, what with the prison being there (in Maidstone) and all.

    You might want to escape Maidstone anyway though 😀

  18. BATHTUB gave me trouble, like William @3 I tried CITYBUT* which is pretty silly really.

    Didn’t know this meaning of GIMCRACK. To me, it’s always been a horse race.

    But otherwise, a gentle enough return to solving after a week away.

  19. This was the toughest Rufus for ages. Last in was MANEGE – I’m not sure I’d ever heard of it as a riding school, though I did know that the original French version of the Magic Roundabout was “le manège enchanté”. Had trouble convincing myself SHOEMAKER was right, and the NE corner was blank for a long time before I saw OFFSIDE.

    Thanks to Rufus and flashling

  20. I also had much more trouble with the NE than the other quadrants, and the excellent HALF-MAST was my LOI. I remember that plenty of contributors here used to moan about the horrible grids that Rufus sometimes used to use, he dropped in to say that he had taken notice of the criticism and he promised he was going to stop using the grid that annoyed people the most. So far he’s been as good as his word so thanks for that Mr Squires.

  21. I don’t like this one all that much because some of the ‘lights’ have more unchecked squares than checked. Right to left it is joined quite well, top to bottom not so well.

  23. Perhaps a little harder than usual but a fairly typical Rufus nonetheless. I only knew the current usage of GIMCRACK so I was interested to see the origin of the term. I found the SE corner the most tricky but I loved both TAPSTER and BATHTUB. LOI was EATS- I couldn’t see the hidden word perhaps because of the seemingly redundant term RESTAURANT.
    Thanks Rufus.

  25. Re “a heavy reliance on the word USER”. If it were any other setter wouldn’t we call this a theme and say how clever it was?

    So many unfamiliar with MANEGE? You haven’t lived until you have spent hours being yelled at to “keep your heels down”, “sit up straight”, “give with your hands” etc! A particularly favourite torture of the instructors was bare back jumping. Ouch! But hey, you learnt fast!

  26. There is also OUT OF IT, NOTHING LIKE IT and ADMIT, though the ‘IT’ of the last does not really qualify.

    captcha 4 – ? = zero.

  27. The usual Rufus fare of some nice clues and some dodgy!

    Only really held up briefly by HALF-MAST which is quite good.

    PROUD BOAST went in as soon as I had the P and D crossers. However with any other setter I’d still be thinking what to enter as it’s not really satisfactory!

    Thanks to flashling and Rufus

  29. Thanks Rufus and flashling

    Finished this on Monday and whilst it didn’t feel harder at the time, it did take longer with the last few answers – HALF-MAST, PROUD BOAST, FIDDLE and MANÈGE taking as long as the rest of the puzzle. With three of them being crossed cryptic definitions and the other an uncommon word, it is little wonder I guess.

    Still enjoyed it!

  31. Welcome, amaciejk
    I see your point, but I think that any self-respecting restaurant would be a bit miffed to be described as an “eats”.

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