Guardian 26,024 – Rufus

26 comments on “Guardian 26,024 – Rufus”

1. Thanks, Andrew.

   This is exactly the same grid as last week, where several people commented on how discouraging it was for solvers. I suggested there that it should be given a decent burial, but we’re evidently not even at the Extreme Unction stage yet.

   Some clever clueing from Rufus, but this grid just – for me anyway – makes it a bit of a four-crosswords-in-one slog.

2. Thanks Andrew and Rufus
   I came here to have “existent” explained, so I am relieved that Andrew had some difficulty with parsing it as well. I too thought that “spirt” looked odd, but the answer is obvious from the clue.

3. Managed to complete fairly quickly, but I also took some time over ‘existent’. Can’t say I’m keen on the clue for ‘dish’, but that’s being picky.

4. Thanks, Andrew.

   I thought I had some recollection of SPIRT: Rufus Oct 11 2011 had: “Return journey on board jets”.

   Though I completed most of it in 15′ or so, I didn’t really enjoy this much: the grid, as others have remarked; and the mess of the three across clues in the top right (8, as Andrew already noted, 10 a week CD and 13).

   I took me ages to find the anagram of SERGEANT – don’t know why this was so hard to spot.

5. Thanks Andrew and Rufus, Do I get the impression 13ac was too cryptic for some? Poor old Rufus can never please everybody.

6. Dave Ellison @ 4: “weak” not “week”

7. Thank you, Andrew.

   Stymied at the finish by the (now standard) Rufus thing of double defs which are basically of the same thing. TEASE & DISH are examples.

   I don’t share others’ difficulties with EXISTING; the problem is only that this level of crypticism is not normal for this setter.

   Have a nice week, everyone.

8. Quite entertaining crossword, despite the grid.

   Thanks Andrew; I did like STAMPEDE. I thought EXISTENT was fine, but, as Andrew noted, the two definitions of TEASE were too close for my liking [maybe a ‘strip’ was needed ;)]

9. P.S. My ODE gives SPIRT as an ‘old fashioned spelling of spurt.’

10. In crossword years two years ago seems like a lifetime, so I didn’t remember that spelling of SPIRT, but it was obvious enough and much more likely than there being types of excursions called “trups”. I got EXISTENT from the wordplay so thanks for the explanation of the the required meaning of “obtaining”. TEASE and FERRY were my last two in.

11. Thanks Andrew and Rufus

    Slightly harder than the usual Rufus offering, demanding even more lateral thinking than usual. The NE caused me most trouble. I too found the ‘sergeant’ anagram hard, partly perhaps because of the ambiguity of ‘part friends’. I liked 10a, and 13a once I saw it.

    Not the nicest grid as K’sD and others have noted.

12. Thanks to Andrew for the blog.

    I am one who found sergeant/ESTRANGE fairly quickly: one man’s meat is another’s poison 🙂

    I hate clues like 24: (part 1) return (part 2) where you do not know which one to write in until you have a letter from a crossing clue. As it happens I chose the correct one first but it could easily have gone the other way.

13. Enjoyed this one, but am with Lathryn’s Dad about the grid. They had horrible grids a long time ago, as I can see in my two VERY old Guardian books, but I thought they had cleared the bad ones out. It seems NOT!

    Fave today is ‘not the in-crowd’, though It feels very familiar.

    Rowls.

14. Another Monday and another Rufus and I can’t say I enjoyed this much at all. The grid is a pain, and I don’t understand why Rufus is allowed to use it (and similar) most of the time. It’s not just that it seems unfair to solvers – it’s also easier for setters in construction terms and I do feel they get churned out a bit by Rufus.

    But my main gripe is over some of the clues. I’ve always felt that with a cryptic crossword you should be able to tell that each answer is right, once the penny has dropped, without cross-checking. In this case, answers like TEASE and BECKONED could just as well have been WORRY or CHAFF or SUMMONED except for the checking letters. DISH and FERRY just seemed feeble. Whereas with all the other Guardian setters there are almost always some clues that make you smile if not laugh, and certainly admire the construction, it’s not often the case on a Monday.

    On the other hand I can’t see a problem with EXISTENT, though it was certainly one the hardest answers to find.

15. I’ve changed sides on the grid issue! When I was investigating crossword design some years ago I acquired a set of Guardian grids. The id numbering was odd in that it went from #01 to #54B with some numbers omitted. I have no idea why there were omissions, maybe the set was incomplete, maybe some grids were withdrawn. Nor is it clear why the last two were numbered 54A and 54B when the others were not given number and letter codes. (I know they are reflections, but that is no reason to change the method of numbering). Whatever, there were only 44 grids in the set. So if you start removing grids from the set because they are “not friendly” you are rapidly going to get down to just a few grids which will appear so frequently it will rapidly get boring.

    There also seem to be not many grids that fit the basic rules for grids, no sequences of uncrosschecked lights, no sequences of crosschecked lights. So if anybody can design any more maybe you should let the editor know.

    If anyone wants to see the full(??) set, plus another set of 9, it would be easy for me to snip the images into a few graphic files which I could e-mail to you. Click on my name to get to my website. Click on the Feedback link to send me an e-mail.

16. I don’t have a problem with the grid per se but it is not good fit for Rufus puzzles. Rufus cryptic definitions often can’t be confidently entered until the checking letters are known (see bob@8) so a grid short on checking letters just doesn’t work well.

    Thanks for the blog Andrew.

17. I didn’t dig it too much. Guardian grids could do with a shake-up really, so many now are hard to solve with.

    Thanks for input guys and gals.

18. Found this quite easy.

    Didn’t like 8A for the reason already mentioned by others.

    Just the usual dull Monday fare.

    I don’t understand the complaints about the grids. Some are more helpful than others. Surely it’s only a justifiable cause for complaint if a grid allows more than one feasible solution to the puzzle.

    Thanks to Andrew and Rufus

19. Not sure how a grid can offer more than one solution to a puzzle – it’s only a grid – whilst I can imagine how a clue might lead to more than one possible answer.

    What people are moaning about here is what they always moan about, and with justification, namely that grids which tend to isolate the four quadrants can be a pain in the ears* to solve in. Additionally, Bob makes a compelling point vis-à-vis relative ease of compilation.

20. Of course a grid can offer multiple solutions to a puzzle.

    If there are only a few crossing squares or checkers then it is easily possible to have several answers for one clue. Especially if it’s a DD or CD

21. Those four-quadrant-poorly-linked G grids can be frustrating from the solver’s point of view – they take away that nice feeling that the more you achieve the more you are rewarded with an easy life. They work better when eg themes and multi-word answers link the separate parts together.

    I can imagine that the more the answers in a grid intersect the harder it is to fill without resorting to obscurities. For many years the G took pride in having trickier clues but less obscurity than other papers – well The Times at least – certainly less allusions to the classics. Well – that was their line – Bunthorne’s idea of GK might have been other folk’s idea of obscurity. Maybe that’s part of the reason – just guessing.

    When the G had an anniversary celebration of some sort (not a crossie one) they showed the first ever G puzzle to be printed. Interestingly the grid looked as if it had started life as a regular symmetrical one and that the setter had then blacked out a couple of lights in order to finish off without having to either change something or resort to obscurity.

22. I particularly liked 7a, 1d, 22d, 15d, 5d and my favourites were 20a FANDANGO, 19d FORAGED & 10a FERRY (last in).

    Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

23. Please don’t retire any of the Guardian grids! This is a good grid, for example it would be excellent for a hidden message puzzle. Just don’t use it for a plain Rufus which depends heavily on crossing letters.

    Use the existing grids more selectively.

24. I parsed 11d as being IS in DH (= Dept Health = NHService).

25. I like PeeDee’s point, but would still retire this one anyway!! There are lots of ‘hidden message’ ones to use that habve good inter-linking.

    Cheers
    Rowly.

26. Just a babe in the cryptic realm, but I’m getting there. Still getting used to the abbreviations (EC, CH). Rufus got me with 27A when I lunged for RELEGATED with “great deal” and figured that was the answer. I wonder if he set me up on purpose.

    Got everything on the left side including the new word SPIRT, but had trouble on the right including EXISTENT which I couldn’t figure out. Was NOT going to get Chelsea, but I’ll try to file that in my cryptic brain.

    Read an article that it takes 9 years! to become proficient at this, but I hope my acclimation isn’t too long down the line since I’m a vet of regular crosswords.

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