Guardian 24,524/Rufus

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No difficulties here, apart from the ones I made for myself by initially guessing SUBSTITUTE for 3dn. A nice gentle start to the week from Rufus.

Key:
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
* = anagram
< = reverse

Across
1. COLOURS dd – to “colour” a story is to “embroider” it
5. CHICAGO CHIC A GO
9. MOUND (MUD ON)*
10. NOURISHED (HE IS ROUND)*
11. OSCAR WILDE OS (=outsize) + WILD in CARE
12. TSAR (A ST)< + R. Trivia of the day: the word “tsar” (or “czar”) is derived from “Caesar”, as is Kaiser.
14. THISTLEDOWN (LOST THE WIND)*
18. TRENDSETTER TREND, SETTER
21. DODO DO + DO, and the dodo is extinct
22. WORDSWORTH dd
25. OVERTAKEN dd
26. DROOP O in DROP
27. SATIETY (YET IT’S A)*
28. RAW DEAL dd
Down
1. COME ON dd
2. LAUNCH dd
3. UNDERSTUDY cd – an understudy may play the part if there’s some emergency involving the main actor (though I believe the person who stands by just in case of emergencies on the day is called a “cover”). I initially had SUBSTITUTE here (e.g. in sport) – the usual problem of cds not leading to a unique answer.
4. SINAI IS< + (IN A)*
5. COUP D’ETAT cd
6. IRIS dd – very easy to spot for those of use who’ve seen flag=iris a thousand times in crosswords, but nice misdirection with “raised”: it has nothing to do with turning words upside down, but just to raising plants in the garden.
7. ADHESION (HAD NOISE)*
8. ORDERING RODE* + RING
13. MERRY WIDOW dd – I’d call The Merry Widow an operetta rather than a musical.
15. ICE HOCKEY cd
16. STUDIOUS STUD IOUS
17. DEAD HEAT cd
19. GROOVE (GO OVER)*
20. CHAPEL CHAP before EL.
23. DONOR DON OR
24. STYE cd – a nice change from references to pigs and eyesores. “By the lash”=”Next to the (eye)lash”

14 comments on “Guardian 24,524/Rufus”

  1. Thanks for the post, Andrew. I particularly enjoyed DEAD HEAT, NOURISHED and STUDIOUS in this crossword…

    As a very small point about the post, I think STUDIOUS is meant to be IOU on STUDS rather than STUD + IOUS.

  3. Once again, Andrew, my reading was the same as yours. OED has ‘stud: a collection of mares kept for breeding; a number of horses [esp racehorses or hunters] kept by one owner’ so – not ‘loosely’ at all! Also, ‘on’ indicates a charade rather than insertion. surely? But, as you say, mhl, a very small point – it’s just that I couldn’t find anything else to comment on!

  7. Oh, OK – I thought “stud” only meant a single horse rather than a collection of them, but I see now that every dictionary I’ve checked has both meanings apart from the first one I checked (wordnet)…

    On the HTML, colspan=”3″ is unnecessary since everywhere else there’s only one cell per row – that might be causing some squashing up to the left.

  8. You are right (of course) Andrew in saying that the Merry Widow is an operetta but surely the lady herself can be described as musical since she sings a lot! Or she did when I recently saw her in an excellent touring version by Scottish Opera.

  9. Another easy start to the week from Rufus. Other setters might have clued 15dn (ICE HOCKEY) as “A setter gets the push in this”.

  10. Would that be fair though, Puck being a setter in the Indie not the Grauniad? Can the solvers really be expected to know the names of the setters in all the newspapers in the world??

  11. Phaedrus: Puck is a Guardian setter, although not one whose puzzles appear very frequently – 8 last year and 7 so far this year. Are you thinking of Punk, perhaps?

  13. I’ve been looking at this for a few moments here and there today, along with Glow-worm, and Crux also, I rather like the wit of Rufus and feel satisfied when my solutions fall into place.

    This puzzle seems fair, as I’m new, I liked ‘ice hockey’ a classical style from the setter it seems, though every puzzle I’ve attempted from him is rather cool and has some proper nice cluing…

    Very clever.

  14. Will

    If, in cricket, you have ‘bowled’ you have ‘taken an over’ (an ‘over’ being a spell of six balls delivered by the same bowler).

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