Guardian 24,678 (Rufus)
Posted by diagacht on April 20th, 2009
A very large number of double definitions and &Lits. It’s Monday; it’s Rufus.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SHOW UP: double definition |
| 5 | LONDONER: DON (fellow) in LONER, with fellow being used also in the definition |
| 9 | THANK YOU: anagram of HANKY OUT |
| 10 | WAIVED: homophone of WAVED |
| 11 | ELEPHANT SEAL: ELEPHANT (mammoth) + SEAL (close up) |
| 14 | ELECTRIC: &Lit |
| 17 | CONFETTI: with the union being a wedding |
| 18 | PUNT: double definition |
| 20 | BOW AND SCRAPE: depends on BOW being what a fiddler does, and what a deferential person does |
| 23 | ODESSA: anagram of SEAS DO |
| 24 | UNDER AGE: &Lit |
| 25 | TRANSMIT: anagram of TRISTAN around M (motorway) |
| 26 | POTASH: double definition (of a sort) |
| Down | |
| 2 | WANDER OFF: anagram of AFFORD NEW |
| 4 | PAYEES: another &Lit |
| 5 | LAUGHTER IN COURT: and again |
| 6 | NO WONDER: double definition |
| 7 | OMITS: ITS (it is, shortly) after OM (order of merit) |
| 8 | ELEVATIONS: double definition |
| 12 | OUT OF ORDER: double definition |
| 15 | TOP SECRET: anagram of TO RESPECT |
| 16 | STUD FARM: &Lit |
| 19 | HARD UP: double definition |
| 21 | ARSON: RA (artist, reversed) + SON (issue) |
| 22 | EGGS: &Lit |
April 20th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I solved it breezily early morning even before my first cup of coffee.
22d: layers are hens, OK, but “produced by layers” or “in layers”? Isn’t there a difference?
The clue number for the first Down sol. above is 3 actually.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Hello,
The clues marked &lit look like cryptic definitions to me. Is there a mix-up in classifying or am I missing something?
- Shuchi
April 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Thanks for the post, diagacht. I made a bit of a mess of this because of trying to go too fast, but not in any particularly interesting way.
I’d agree with Shuchi that those are all cryptic definitions rather than &lits, since there isn’t a subsidiary part in them.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:29 am
A bit on the humdrum side.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am
For what it’s worth, I agree they’re cryptic definitions rather than &lits. By my reckoning, there are five Rufus-esque cryptic-definition-only clues [17a, 4a, 4d, 5d, 16d].
Clues such as 26a and 22d do have a “straight” definition (“chemical” & “food” respectively) as well as a cryptic definition.
And OK, so this wasn’t exactly taxing but it included a couple of real gems – 17a is great.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am
14a not 4a
April 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
An easy one today.
I thought “in layers” was fine for 22d as eggs are indeed produced inside hens.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Thanks for the blog. I found this easy too. It certainly went by fast!
April 20th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Thanks for the blog. All very easy except that I put LAUGHING IN COURT for 5d, which fits equally well with the clue and then got completely stuck on 14ac.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
JamieC, is a phrase that was (is?) common in newspaper reports of court proceedings.
I liked 20a, but I’m easily amused.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Have you missed out 13ac?
“number taking turn at party game” = LUDO L(number)+U(turn)+DO
Nearly didn’t get that one…
April 20th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Sidey: LAUGHTER IN COURT may be a phrase (albeit not a very common one), but the clue does not point unequivocally to either. That’s part of the problem with cd clues, of which a little goes a long way…
April 20th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Jamie, perhaps I should have said that it’s a journalistic cliche, see http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en-GBGB291&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=LAUGHTER+IN+COURT
April 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Nothing too tricky here – but very good fun nonetheless.
Not much by way of Rufus’ trademark nauticality here though – unless one counts ELEPHANT SEAL, of course. (I’m presuming that including PUNT as a nautical answer would be stretching things a wee bit too far?!?)
April 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
JamieC – but “laughing in court” isn’t idiomatic…
April 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Good fun – and the witty cds make it like a short comedy turn. Pun heaven!
5d foxed me for a while simply because it’s not phrase that’s familiar.
5a: Everyman, 12 Apr, 25a, was LONER by removing DON from LONDONER. Hey ho, and round we go.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I enjoyed it si I guess it’s no surprise our tame brainiacs didn’t. Never mind chaps, something more tortuous must be imminent.
The only very minor point for me was 7d. Another of those irritating modern trend clues with the wrong ordering indicatator. It’s been discussed many times before so can someone remind where we’d got to on that? I have a vague feeling the consensus was “irritating but not worth breaking a sweat over”. Was that about it?
April 20th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Very easy, but fun (particularly nice one for a dictionary-less journey on the train). I thought 12dn was amusant. I agree about the classification of the answers though – I don’t think it can really be &lit unless there’s a wordplay definition, and a literal one, so these were just cryptic definitions.
Didn’t a clue a bit like 14ac appear some point last week or the week before? I’m sure I’ve seen it recently…
April 20th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Arthur: if so, I don’t think it was in the Guardian.
I should have made more clear in my comment #3 above that I did enjoy this one
Derek Lazenby: I think it’s just that “on” can either mean “put on the end of” or “put above” in a down clue.
JamieC: that was exactly one of my errors
The other was using one of those free Ikea golf pencils that was so blunt that I kept misreading what I’d written…
April 20th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Seemed rather easier than the normal Monday Rufus. Loved 17a once the penny dropped; even with all crossing letters it took a while to see any sort of paper ending with an I. 5a seemed rather abitrary namewise until the answer came from other means.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
“Another of those irritating modern trend clues with the wrong ordering indicatator”
Good grief Derek, so polite today. What ‘modern trend’ is this you mention? I thought you were new to Guardian crosswords only a few months ago. Not every clue has to indicate whether it is across or down, unless you want to try Azed.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Sidey, you should have gone to Specsavers.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:06 am
Derek
Is anyone supposed to understand that comment (#22), apart from you? Don’t bother to reply, it was a rhetorical question.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:43 am
Boringly, I can reiterate that someone (me) has indeed opined on the matter of on-ness in crossword clues, across and down.
In the across clues, it’s (apparently) universally accepted that ‘on’ means ‘coming after’ something. In the down clues, at least one very repected editor has disagreed with my proclamation that it means the opposite. It can mean either, he reckoned.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:00 am
You missed out 2d, which I’m assuming is HA-HA (as in “hectare”).
I can say, I really liked this one. As a beginner, it’s the closest I’ve got to finishing a whole Guardian crossword yet – I could have kicked myself about EGGS. Like some people on here, I’m looking forward to the day when I can look at Rufus and dismiss him out of hand as a piece of cake!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:00 am
James, FYI a Ha-ha really is the name of a type of boundary fence and, as far as I’m aware, but may be wrong, doesn’t relate to the size of the enclosure. I never knew that until I saw it on Time Team. My dear lady wife, being more of a country girl was amazed I didn’t know. Oh well, now we all do.
Paul B, thanks for the reminder. Dang, I think we just agreed on something.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:36 am
Ref comment 25 -Hi James I’m the same as you on this one! the closest I’ve ever come to completing a cryptic! 20 across was my favourite today.
All the best!
Neil.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Same as Neil and James (well done by the way guys) – got to within a few clues of solving it but was stymied by ‘laughter in court’ which I have never, ever heard of but then I’m not an avid follower of court proceedings.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I’ve been reading this site for a couple of weeks but thought I would reply. I am very new to cryptic crosswords and this was the first ever time that I have completed a cryptic crossword in full. Okay, from many of the other responses, it seems to have been an easier one, but I am happy to have broken my duck nevertheless!
April 21st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Similar story here. I don’t finish a puzzle very often, so it’s good to get one like this from Rufus to give me a sporting chance.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
LAUGHTER IN COURT was one of the earliest clues that I solved in this puzzle. Maybe because I have read Henry Cecil’s novels centred on the British legal system.