Guardian 24,828 – Rufus

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As usual, some clever clues, plenty of cryptic definitions and nothing too difficult from Rufus.

Across
1 PLATEAU =”highrise flat”. TEA in (Paul)*
5 BEARING double def
10 EGGS cryptic def with “clutch” in the sense of all the eggs laid by a bird at one time.
11 DRAWBRIDGE cryptic def
12 SUPERB =”choice”. Pubs re/built i.e. (Pubs re)*.
13 DESISTED rev(IS) + ST all inside DEED
14 BLUE PETER Flag indicating that a ship is ready to sail. BLUE + PETER
16 EARTH =”hide”. (heart)*
17 ETUDE French for “study”, and a type of musical composition.
19 STRIKE PAY cryptic def
23 CASANOVA another cryptic def
24 IMPUGN I=”one” + MP=”military policeman” + (gun)*
26 INCOHERENT CO[mpany] inside INHERENT
27 ELBE a German (and Czech) river. L[arge] inside BEE with the last “E” circling to the front.
28 HEARING double def
29 SCANDAL C=”caught” e.g. in cricket, inside SANDAL
Down
2 LEG-PULL LEG + PULL
3 TASTE (state)*
4 AUDIBLE =”in HEARING”. (bail due)*
6 EMBOSS rev(ME) + BOSS
7 REINSTATE REIN + STATE
8 NEGLECT cryptic def
9 PADDLE STEAMER (Master pleaded)*
15 ENDEAVOUR sounds like “END EVER”
18 TRAINEE RAIN in TEE
20 IDIOTIC (I it cod I)*
21 ALGEBRA A + L[earner] + rev[E.G.] + BRA
22 ROPE IN (Pinero)*
25 PREEN cryptic def – preen in the sense of a bird putting its feathers i.e. “down” in order.

13 comments on “Guardian 24,828 – Rufus”

  1. Many thanks, Manehi

    This was as easy as they come and, although 17a was obviously ETUDE, I cannot understand the ‘involves notes’ part of the clue.

  2. After further thought, I can now see that ‘involves notes’ refers to a musical etude.

    But do etudes necessarily have to be musical?

  3. Thanks Manehi. A typically easy Rufus with a generous helping of his trademark nautical references (which we seem to have been a bit light on recently).

    Bryan, I think the best one can say about 17ac is that the word “étude” is only used in English when it refers to a musical study.

  4. Thanks, manehi. Nice surfaces from Rufus as always and for once I got all the nautical references. I thought the weakest clue was 17ac but the rest made up for it.

  7. Mostly this was enjoyable but I thought 25d was a bit of a stretch, and the use of BUMBLEBEE to indicate “bee” in 27a rather weak.

  8. Completed this one on the beach at Sidmouth. A warm, sunny day!

    The bumblebee clue had me thinking for a minute or two!!

  9. I was hoping “bumble” (Chambers= “to bungle”) would act as a new anagram indicator, so “bumble bee” would provide EBE. “Large” can be represented as “l” and with EBE “flitting round” L then gives the German flower, ELBE.

  10. In fact, 27ac was the first one I got, and I explained it exactly the way Rufus did in #28. I think, a very nice anagrind for this particular situation.
    (and I had a pleasant deja vu (again)).

    It doesn’t really make much difference, but the more I look at the clue of 20ac, the more I think it should be I+(IT COD I)*.

  12. Well, Stiofain, this “cryptic” deja vu has to do with Paul’s Cryptica site.
    In Paul’s most recent crossword he used punctuation marks as a definition, a thing I recently did with hyphen in a clue on his site.
    In that blog I mentioned me “having a pleasant deja vu”.
    This “bumblebee” thing was my second pleasant deja vu.
    You can probably imagine why now (although Paul unfortunately didn’t do anything with thát clue, but then Rufus’ clue reads brilliantly and was surely written months ago)
    I know this is off-topic, but since you asked ….

    And talking about Paul, PLATEAU was indeed nice.
    And as a Maths teacher, I have to like 21dn’s ALGEBRA as well …
    While solving, we were not very enthusiastic about this crossword, but looking back at it I must admit that there were some rather good clues (nice surface in 15dn, for example, and in 24ac (though I am a very peaceful man)).
    I am not so keen on all these cryptic definitions, but I have to say that Rufus is very good at it (and I’m not).

    And by the way, if you want to solve a Mr Squires crossword that has some really really clever clues, take last week’s Dante prize puzzle in the FT (Mon 5 Oct).

  13. Good, typical Rufus puzzle.
    I spent some time convincing myself that 16ac EARTH=hide worked
    I spent longer on 25dn. I had P-E-N, and there are many words, some rather obscure, which would fit. PREEN was the most obvious answer, but it took me some time to see the obvious, and beautiful, Rufus in the clue.

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