Guardian 26,544 by Rufus

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My apologies for the late arrival of this blog. The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26544

There seems to be some problem with the notification software that I use. Fortunately the puzzle was easy even for a Rufus, with a clutch of very obviuos cryptic definitions.

Across
1 BACKS TO THE WALL
Position adopted by idlers in desperate straits (5,2,3,4)

A definition and literal interpretation.
8 REBEL
Brew of beer left to rise (5)

An anagran (‘brew of’) of ‘beer’ plus L (‘left’).
9 GOLD RUSH
Large-scale migration for those seeking earthly riches (4,4)

Cryptic definition.
11 ENTRAIN
Board transport in a violent rainstorm (7)

A hidden answer ‘in’ ‘violENT RAINstorm’.
12 TEE SHOT
He set to, prepared for the first golf stroke (3,4)

An anagram (‘prepared’) of ‘he set to’.
13 SIDLE
Try to walk like a crab and slide about (5)

An anagram (‘about)’ of ‘slide’.
15 CARD SHARP.
He can’t be trusted with a deal (4,5)

Cryptic definition.
17 HAMSTRUNG
Powerless to get substandard player suspended (9)

A charade of HAM (‘substandard player’) plus STRUNG (‘suspended’).
20 NOT ON
Either way, it’s unacceptable (3,2)

A palindrome.
21 POMPEII
It could not cope with a burning issue of AD 79 (7)

A very obvious cryptic definition.
23 PHARAOH
Old Egyptian gambling game, it’s said (7)

A homophone (‘it’s said’) of FARO (‘gambling game’).
25 ANTIDOTE
Changing diet not a remedy (8)

An anagram (‘changing’) of ‘diet not a’.
26 ICING
Finishing off a cake? (5)

Cryptic definition.
27 BEDTIME STORIES
When these retirement accounts are closed, all interest should cease (7,7)

The one cryptic definition in this puzzle which I did not find immediately obvious.
Down
1 BARBERS SHOPS
Clip joints? (7,5)

A cryptic definition. Just.
2 CABOT
He explored Canada initially, with boat all at sea (5)

A charade of C (‘Canada initially’) plus an anagram (‘all at sea’) of ‘boat’, with an extended definition – John Cabot perhaps landed in Newfoundland.
3 SOLE AGENT
A fishmonger, for example? (4,5)

Cryptic definition.
4 ORGANIC
Naturally, such food is grown (7)

Cryptic definition.
5 HOLSTER
An armrest? (7)

Cryptic definition.
6 WORSE
Swore to reform but hasn’t got any better (5)

An anagram (‘to reform’) of ‘swore’. The underlined is the nearest I can come to a definition, and even that is mot very close.
7 LOSE HEART
Fall in love, yet become discouraged (4,5)

Double definition.
10 STEP ON THE GAS
Lose no time to suppress loquacity (4,2,3,3)

Definition and literal interpretation.
14 DEMIMONDE
Mom denied coming from such a disreputable class (9)

An anagram'(‘coming from’ suggesting the anagram in reverse) of ‘mom denied’.
16 SAN MARINO
Romanians reformed this republic (3,6)

An anagram (‘reformed’) of ‘Romanians’.
18 UNIFORM
Livery stable (7)

Double definition.
19 GOPHERS
Trees as old as the ark? (7)

A reference to Genesis 6:14, sometimes rendered as saying that Noah’s Ark was made of gopher wood, using a transliteration of an otherwise unknown Hebrew word. If it indicates the tree from which the wood was taken, it is thought most likely to be the cypress. There is a tree, the yellowwood, sometimes given the same name.
22 EXIST
Be way out about a point (5)

An envelope (‘about’) of S (‘point’ of the compass) in EXIT (‘way out’).
24 ALIBI
Bail set before one delivers defence (5)

An anagram (‘set’) of ‘bail’ plus I (‘one’).
completed grid

27 comments on “Guardian 26,544 by Rufus”

  1. Thanks to PeterO for the blog.

    When I looked at 19d I thought it had to be GOPHERS but the only meaning I could find was ‘animal’ so I was baffled. My knowledge of Genesis is somewhat lacking. ðŸ™

  3. Thanks Rufus and PeterO
    I enjoyed this more than a lot of Rufuses. I thought the clues for ANTIDOTE and CABOT were particularly neat. I guessed BEDTIME STORIES fairly quickly, but, it being a Rufus, I didn’t write the solution in before “checking” it.

  4. Thanks all
    Very easy except I wrote in cypress for 19 d, judged from the above blog it seems I was not far wrong!

  5. Thanks all
    Very easy except I wrote in cypress for 19 d, judged from the above blog it seems I was not far wrong

  8. First time I’ve completed a puzzle before the blog came out. Admittedly it was an especially easy one with only GOPHERS presenting a problem. I,too, had CYPRESS initially which clearly didn’t work and I did remember gopher wood from my childhood when I became obsessed with the story of the Ark having been given a homemade model by my father.
    Thanks for the memory Rufus.

  9. Morning all, and many thanks PeterO.

    Has our habitual Monday setter been Stateside recently, I wonder? Goldrush; step on the gas; clip joint? Not everyday speak in Sevenoaks.

    I wanted to check the homophone at PHARAOH and found that I’d always pronounced the card game incorrectly as F(aa)ro.

    Nice week all.

  10. Like Peter A, I found it very easy and also put in GOPHERS without any idea why it should be correct. Like PeterO, I couldn’t understand the relevance of the second half of the clue for BEDTIME STORIES – and still don’t. It’s clearly meant to build on the first half of the clue, but seems a bit incomprehensible. Enjoyable nonetheless. Thanks to Rufus and PeterO.

  11. As @9 William, I didn’t put pharaoh in as I pronounced the game differently. This meant I had no chance of getting gopher, which I did think of but rejected.

  12. Thanks Rufus and PeterO

    Found this one to be pretty straightforward also with a bit of a holdup in the SW corner where POMPEII, UNIFORM and of course GOPHERS were the last few in.

    Think that the setters must all speak with an Australian accent as I very rarely have any problems in the pronunciation of the homophones that they make use of !!

    I reckon that with 27, the second half not only has to do with the surface reading of the clue, but also that when the storybook is closed, that the little one should be sleeping and therefore have no interest in listening to anything more.

  13. Like everyone else apparently, I put in GOPHERS without knowing what the woodland critters have to do with wood or the ark. An internet search turned up the Genesis reference, which I hadn’t known.

    Other than that, this took less than ten minutes.

    I thought CABOT, BEDTIME STORIES, and UNIFORM were quite neat. I’d be surprised if this is the first time that clue for UNIFORM has been used, but I haven’t seen it before, so I smiled. On the other hand, BARBERS SHOPS and ORGANIC were so barely cryptic as to really not count as cryptic definitions. (I was under the impression, for some reason, that the demimonde meaning of “clip joint” came from barbershops anyway–customers at a clip joint get sheared (of their money). Could be wrong about that though.)

  14. Thanks to Rufus for an easier than ever start-the-week and to Peter O for the blog.

    I was brought up in a culture where Scripture was much taught and referenced in speech, but obviously not enough was made of the materials of the Ark for me to retain it, and 19d defeated me, although I guessed it from the crossers.

    One very slight amendment to suggest to the blog of 26a is that there is an element of double definition, with ICING also meaning “finishing off” in quite a different sense

  15. At last, Sunday school proves to be of some use, with GOPHERS. Last in SOLE AGENT, having earlier considered SALT something. But this was barely more than a momentary pause – the whole thing was done between Stratford and Bank on the tube, almost certainly a new record and I hope the woman sitting next to me was duly impressed.

  16. Thanks Rufus and PeterO.

    GOPHER caught me out, as did POMPEII since I tried to parse it (POMPE being a fireman’s pump in French).

    typo 17a, HAMSTRUNG, one word (if it were two, might the charade work the other way round?).

  17. Thanks to Rufus and Peter O.

    Also finished in record time and didn’t have a problem with GOPHERS, again Sunday school memories at last serving a purpose.

    1ac also made me smile but only because it reminded me of the John Major quote “when our backs are against the wall, we shall turn and fight”.

  18. Thanks Rufus and Peter 0. Good fun. My authority for the pronunciation of ‘faro’ as a homophone of ‘pharaoh’ comes from no less a linguist than Robert Vaughan in ‘The Magnificent Seven’. One of the (ironic) plusses of the gunslinger’s life is getting to know ‘faro dealers by their first name’. We go on:

    RV: No enemies.
    the rest: No enemies??
    RV: Alive!

    Wonderful movie, and yes – I think the Seven Samurai is wonderful too.

  19. Thanks to Rufus & PeterO

    A great puzzle, I thought, mainly because I finished it! Started with 13A and finished with 23A. Best clues were 18D & 17A. Excellent and a pleasant change from last weeks toughies!

  20. Thanks to PeterO and Rufus. I had the same experience as others with “gophers” and enjoyed “bedtime stories.” For me, “clip joint” is a long-time standard equivalent to “barber shop.”

  22. Thanks Rufus & PeterO.

    I had to look up GOPHERS as I’m not exactly an expert on the bible.

    ‘Coming from’ seemed a bit clumsy as an anagrind after the fodder.

  23. Thanks, PeterO.

    Unlike practically everyone else, I found this marginally more difficult than the average Rufus, perhaps because some of the most obvious clues seemed too obvious!

    I did like the definition ‘retirement accounts’ for BEDTIME STORIES.

    I managed GOPHERS without any trouble, as I knew the Genesis reference, though I did wait for a few crossers before putting it in – you can never be too careful with a Rufus. However, the ark is described as being constructed from ‘gopher wood’, and the trees that the material came from might not themselves have been called GOPHERS. Apparently this is the only reference to gopher wood in the Bible, or indeed anywhere else, and there is some doubt as to what it might mean; it may even denote ‘timber treated with pitch’ and not refer to a species of tree at all.

  24. Or might it even be the case that one should be very wary of taking translations of the Bible “literally”? We are all assuming that the gopher tree existed in Biblical times but the term may have come into existence as a result of a smudge in a translator’s copy.

  25. Left to my own devices, I would probably have pronounced the A in FARO more or less as in far, but Chambers give it as in fate – and Wikipedia gives pharaoh as an alternative name for the card game.

    Mac Ruaraidh Ghais @14

    Thanks for spotting the added twist to 26A ICING. This kind of clue has been referred to as a sesquidef, since ‘a cake’ by itself is not a second definition.

    Cookie @16

    I’m not sure how the space crept in to HAM STRUNG. I will remove it.

    Jovis @24

    “We are all assuming…”? That was not my intention – nor that of Gervase @23 (planed wood is another suggestion). I would assume the more modern gopher wood that I mentioned in the blog derives from the biblical reference.

  26. A nice easy jaunt from Rufus, and thanks to peterO for the blog.

    I got gopher from the crossers but, like many others, failed in the post-parse phase as I struggled in vain for a reference to a ground squirrel or even an errand boy (Noah was surely more than that).

    In some quarters, a clip joint is a rip-off night club where unwitting males buy expensive drinks for a seductive siren who promises eveything but delivers nothing but a large bill.

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