Guardian 24,876 – Rufus

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A welcome break from late night measure theory… pretty quick, with quite a few straightforward cryptic defs and anagrams.

Across
1 ACCOLADE as in the conferring of knighthood, which involves “raising the subject at the palace”.
5 ASPECT P[iano]=”quiet” in A SECT
9 REAPPEAR REAP + PEAR
10 BORDER RD inside BOER
12 POLTERGEIST (Let priest go)*
15 YESES = “Votes for” both as a verb and a noun.
17 TAKE A SEAT cryptic def
18 NANNY GOAT just about cryptic
19 DWELT “Live” in the past tense… almost &lit as well?
20 ISSUES FORTH (hot fissures)*
24 ACETIC ACE + TIC
25 OPERATES (poets are)* – “broadcast”=dispersed is the anagrind.
26 DREDGE cryptic def
27 TRADES UP (Part used)*
Down
1 ATROPHYING (Inga)* around TROPHY
2 CRADLE SONG cryptic def
3 LAPSE L + APSE
4 DRAUGHT HORSE for example the Suffolk Punch [wiki] – (reads through)*
6 SHORTHAND SHORT + HAND
7 ENDS double def
8 TORT TO + RT = “right”, e.g. Rt Hon for Right Honourable.
R=”right” in TOT=”short order” – thanks Shirley
11 WICKETKEEPER will try to stump you if you step out of the crease in cricket.
13 CELEBRATES (car beetles)*
14 STITCHES UP double def with one cryptic, alluding to rents or tears in clothing
16 SKYDIVING cryptic, with “opening time” referring to the parachutes
21 FIRED …both good and bad workers can be “fired with enthusiasm”
22 LAUD rev(DUAL)
23 SERE sounds like “seer”

23 comments on “Guardian 24,876 – Rufus”

  3. Thank you, Manehi. Didn’t help that I put HAVE A SEAT at 17ac for my first entry, but got there eventually. Some clever surfaces today; especially liked 2d. Was tempted to put TRADED UP at 27a because of the tense of ‘exchanged’ because I didn’t twig it was an anagram.

    Anyone else noticed that in the printable version of the puzzle on Mondays the red heading offers us a ‘cyptic’ crossword. I expect it’s a deep and meaningful statement about something. Oh no, hang on, it’s the Grauniad …

  4. Many thanks, Manehi, yet another superb puzzle from Rufus. It was a pleasure to complete without any need for Dictionaries or other aids.

    BTW I do like the new format on this site.

    Kathryn’s Dad – The PDF version has been ‘Cyptic’ for some time now but I don’t object to misprints that don’t affect the Puzzle.

  5. Thanks, Manehi.

    I wish I could think of an epithet other than ‘elegant’ for Rufus’ surfaces! It’s been said so many times that his puzzles are an ideal starting point for new solvers – not just because they’re usually easy but because they illustrate what good cluing is: practically every one tells a story and / or raises a smile.

    My favourites today were 12ac and 4 and 22dn.

  6. I thought Rufus was trying to do something more with 19ac – we “dwell on” the past; didn’t quite work though.

  8. #3 – Kathryn’s Dad:

    On 27ac I agree that the tense is wrong, given the surface “exchanged”. The anagram doesn’t make it right!

  9. manehi: I hope you’ve recovered from your ‘late night measure theory’. Rather you than me!

    11dn: the pedant in me points out that both of the batsman’s feet have to be outside the popping crease.

  10. Kathryn’s dad and JohnR

    The definition is ‘is exchanged’, so there’s nothing wrong with the tense. My niggle [which, after ‘reliant’, I wasn’t going to mention!] was with the voice: ‘is exchanged’ is passive and ‘trades up’ is active. Surely it’s the owner, not the car, that trades up?

  13. And having played cricket for longer than I should have, I only found out recently why it’s called the popping crease … no doubt one of you two will let everyone in on the reason?

  14. Eileen, since you mention CAR and RELIANT in the same post, I am reminded of the RELIANT ROBIN, in the naming of which the manufacturer presumably wanted prospective customers to equate RELIANT with TRUSTWORTHY. I agree with you on the confusion of voices.

  16. KD: A good question!

    The OED says’  Probably the crease orig. marked the line which the ball, when bowled or trundled along the ground (see bowl v. 4), must have passed before it might be ‘popped’ or struck.’

    Wikipedia differs: ‘The odd name of the popping crease refers to the early history of the game of cricket, in that batsmen used to have to ‘pop’ their bats into a small hole that was located in the middle of the crease for a run to count. For a player to run a batsman out he had to pop the ball into the hole before the bat was grounded in it.’

    As for me – I’m stumped!

  17. Chunter, the second definition is the one that I had explained to me, but I’m not entirely convinced. I can sense everyone is fascinated by this discussion (I can already hear ‘these two need to get out more’) but they’ll all be thanking us in six months’ time when POPPING CREASE is the answer to 1 across. For now, I think we should both be timed out.

  18. I thought 14d was the best clue, even though it took me a while to realise ‘dwell’ was wrong. 27ac is poor – I can’t replace ‘is exchanged for a better vehicle’ with ‘trades up’ in a sentence. I also thought ‘accolade’ was weak – ‘It means…’? There must have been a better way to start the clue.

    I learned the word ‘sere’. Only minor niggles…

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