Guardian 26,179 – Rufus

30 comments on “Guardian 26,179 – Rufus”

1. I think the question mark just about lets Rufus off the hook, especially since the Ascension is linked to the events of Easter – indeed, is held in “common perception” to be the third part of the Easter events.

2. Thanks Rufus and Andrew.

   Re. 18d – not sure I agree with the criticism in the sense that, especially with the straighter clues that characterise Monday puzzles, one can be misdirected, upping the challenge a bit. Both ‘hostilities’ and ‘struggle’ could be anagrinds while ‘following’ could be taken in different ways.

   Similarly with 23a where ‘surprise’ and ‘melee’ could be doing one of two or three jobs in the clue.

   I have to say that without such misdirections I would have had this done very quickly indeed. They are what mark such puzzles out from my local paper’s offering, which I regard as ‘for emergency use only’!

3. Probably as easy and as quick as it gets for me. I’m go for the Quiptic now which will probably be harder once again.

4. Whoops, should have said I’ll go for the Quiptic now. Trouble is, it’s not there at present.

5. Thanks Rufus and Andrew
   I had pen in hand to enter “resurrection” in 19ac – fortunately I noticed in time that it was rather too long to fit.
   Several clues were quite amusing – I particularly liked STAGE DOOR.

6. I didn’t get 10ac – I dislike clues like this because if you haven’t heard of the word (and impi is surely the most obscure word here) there’s no wordplay to let you guess. I quite liked 1ac though.

7. Thanks Andrew and Rufus

   I found this a bit unyielding at first glance but it all fell into place quite quickly in the end.

   I liked 10a once the penny dropped about ‘jet’, and I ticked 12a, 14a and 21d.

   Gargoyles was clearly the right answer to 15d but why only became clear when I looked it up.

8. Probably v slow of me, but how does 21dn work as a double definition?

9. togo @ 8
   It’s also a piece of furniture
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_(furniture)

10. Thanks Andrew. Some characteristically neat surfaces here. I particularly liked 28ac. But I did find 3dn and 24ac barely cryptic.

11. Thanks Rufus and Andrew

    I’m far from a brainiac, but this was all over in 11 mins.

    It is interesting … I’d recently come across and completed an old FT Dante crossword (9672) from 1998 – to compare that puzzle with this one or other recent Rufus offerings – it’s like chalk and cheese!

12. Re 10.
    The Impi were also trained to run long distances very quickly.

13. Thanks Rufus and Andrew. I am reminded of the well-known story used to emphasise a semantic difference; you know the one.

    A wife catches her husband doing unspeakable things to the au pair. ‘George, I am surprised!’

    ‘No, madam. You are astonished. I am surprised.’

    I wonder how many teachers got a laugh out of that one over the years.

14. For some reason it took me a little longer than usual to get on Rufus’s wavelength today, possibly because I was looking for complications in clues that just weren’t there.

    I agree that if you have never heard of IMPI the clue would have been hard to solve without aids despite the useful checkers. However, it is a word that has appeared in many different crosswords over the years so isn’t a complete obscurity. I’ve known the word for years and first came across it in the Juluka song, Impi, in the early 80’s.

15. Very quickly through the top half but slowed considerably lower down, partly because I was sure that 24 would be PODIUM and that 28 would either start or end with T. The latter is a neat piece of misdirection but the former shows the limitations of a cd in my book (that, and my failure to understand what a podium actually is).

16. I agree with Andy B @14 – I thought this wasn’t as easy as Rufus can be, but with the dds and cds you have to be on the right wavelength (and know the words). I failed on IMPI but I’ve never been very interested in military history. Liked GARGOYLES.

17. … and last time I failed to finish a Rufus it was IMPOT – those imps (if not the gargoyles) must be out to get me…

18. The Easter season is the fifty days after Easter Sunday, six Sundays up to Pentecost and including Ascension. But it could too be covered by the “on the third day he rose again”, after “he descended into hell” in the creed.

19. Thanks to Andrew for the blog.

    I also marked 24a and 3d as not cryptic at all.

    I first met IMPI many years ago in the novels of Rider Haggard so I knew they were fighters. Sadly I had forgotten that they were Zulus – hence black – hence jet 🙁

20. For 17a, can I suggest “audition to be held” signifies APART sounds like A PART – pretty feeble but no more so than most of them.

21. The word ‘cheapskate’ appeared as an answer in both the Guardian and the Times today. Coincidence?

22. 24ac ‘ Plinth’ is barely cryptic, nor is 26. Otherwise quite fun.

23. Many thanks Muffin for the help on Ottoman…..I was, as I suspected, being very slow – lacking arms, lacks backing didn’t press the furniture button (and should have!!)

24. 17a – i thought ‘audition’ was ‘see’ which if ‘held’ from ‘separate’ leaves an anagram of ‘apart’.

25. how i look forward to Monday’s Guardian. Don’t ever stop Rufus!

26. I was counting on this to occupy at least part of an 8 hr flight. Alas, it was Rufus, who for all his merits is not the man for this. I had completed before take-off. Moral – don’t take long flights on a Monday!

27. Am learning to understand the mysteries of cryptic crosswords so it was great to discover you Beelzebub.
    j.brand

28. I am at a loss to understand the 2nd half of 22d, I get the List, hover not the ER, can anyone help please or am I too late?

29. Martin: the ER is the reverse (“getting a rise”, as it’s a down clue) of RE, which is commonly used in crosswords for “about”, as in “re your message” – short for Latin “in re”=”in the matter of”.

30. Many thanks Andrew, this is like calling the Apple help desk, I come away thinking “it’s so easy, why didn’t I think of that”!
    Much appreciated.

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