Guardian 26,269 by Rufus

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It’s Bank Holiday monday, it’s Rufus, it’s raining, what did you expect?

Well a rather nicer grid than Rufus tends to provide certainly today, but a very typical mix of easy clues with very little complex wordplay, double and cryptic defs the latter of which I tend to struggle with until the grid fills up a bit. Definitions underlined where appropriate

Thanks Rufus, I’m off to do the Indy to see what Raich has for us.

completed grid

Across

1 That quick prowl around to find cover (9,5)
PATCHWORK QUILT
[THAT QUICK PROWL]* reasonably nice surface too.

9 Ideal stage for Pinafore? (5)
APRON
Double cum cryptic def, referring to the G&S operetta HMS Pinafore.

10 Dash of sugar? (9)
SWEETENER
Double def, a dash as a bribe is in my Chambers but I’d not come across it before

11 We yearn for change in 2015 (3,4)
NEW YEAR
[WE YEARN]*

12 Pilot reported to be abroad (7)
OVERSEA
Well a ship’s pilot would be over the sea and he oversees we hear the guiding of a ship

13 White wines that go with joints? (5)
HOCKS
Another double defintion

15 Found habit less disturbing (9)
ESTABLISH
[HABIT LESS]*

17 Problem is to learn a French instrument (9)
CONUNDRUM
CON learn, UN a french, DRUM instrument

20 Rise late, about one will be right (3,2)
LIE IN
1 in LIEN right

21 Enthusiasts may wax it (7)
LYRICAL
Cryptic def

23 Apes sobbing, maltreated (7)
GIBBONS
SOBBING*

25 Being chatty makes Kate vital (9)
TALKATIVE
[KATE VITAL]*

26 Northern region about to hold sporting events (5)
ARENA
N(orthern) in AREA region, the definition seems a bit iffy as this is implying a verb “to arena”

27 Agreement in writing (14)
CORRESPONDENCE
Double def

Down

1 It can be dark in bars (5,9)
PLAIN CHOCOLATE
Cryptic def

2 Half of them brawl and hurl things! (5)
THROW
TH(em) & ROW

3 Dependants — those that are persistent (7-2)
HANGERS-ON
Double def

4 Comment on what you see? (7)
OBSERVE
Double def

5 Peek, perhaps, but don’t go in (4,3)
KEEP OUT

Cryptically PEEK* or OUT would be KEEP

6 Loose relative seen topless (5)
UNTIE
(a)UNTIE

7 The water chute’s dry counterpart? (9)
LANDSLIDE
Cryptic def a landslide rather than a waterslide

8 Pause for inspiration? (9,5)
BREATHING SPACE
Cryptic def

14 She’s used to getting low scores (9)
CONTRALTO
Cryptic def referring to the lowest female voice

16 Advertising account presentation to directors (9)
BILLBOARD
BILL account BOARD directors

18 King gains supporters and fights back (7)
RALLIES
R(ex) & ALLIES

19 An attractive item that has nothing of interest to a motorist (7)
MAGNETO
MAGNET & 0, a magneto is part of the ignition system of some cars

22 Seat of learning (5)
CHAIR
Cryptic def, ref a professorship

24 Could be Indian form of canoe (5)
OCEAN
CANOE*

*anagram

29 comments on “Guardian 26,269 by Rufus”

  2. I thought this was very easy today _ 13 minutes.

    Last in was LYRICAL. It took me a while to see this and I must admit I was less than impressed.

    Thanks flashling

  3. Haha…my first ever sub-ten-minute solve.

    Although I can’t think why it took that long! 🙂

  4. Can anyone explain to me why the Monday cryptic is so often a good deal easier than the Quiptic, which is supposed to be for less experienced solvers? Today’s Quiptic isn’t particularly demanding, but the grid is far less helpful than the one for the Rufus puzzle.
    The only issue in the Quiptic is what I take to be a pretty awful spelling error.

  5. Bank holidays should be an opportunity to indulge in a nice leisurely solve over as many cups of coffee or tea as it takes. This disappointing offering was over before the water boiled, however, and what a lot of non-cryptic definitions.

    Anticipating the usual outcry from learner solvers, let me stress that my beef with Rufus is not that his puzzles are too easy, it’s that he doesn’t bother to conform to the usual requirements of a cryptic. By all means, learners should be given well-constructed but approachable crosswords, but they won’t learn much from the usual Rufus fare. (I should say that I have seen Rufus puzzles that have been wholly unobjectionable, so he knows the rules and is able to follow them. How disappointing that he just can’t be bothered, even for a bank holiday.)

  6. It is not that this is easy, no issue with that, it just feels a bit lacklustre. There are some good clues in here and if Rufus gave it a second pass I’m sure this could have been much more interesting.

    Thanks Rufus and thanks flashling.

  7. Not much to say about this, just another Monday Rufus. Last in was OCEAN but probably only because it was the last clue I read. I did quite like CONTRALTO.

    Thanks to flashling and Rufus

  8. Thanks to Rufus and Flashling.

    For ARENA, I took ‘sporting events’ to be the definition and ‘region about to hold’ being the container.

    I liked the PLAIN CHOCOLATE and the nice anagram for ESTABLISH, although maybe this has been done before.

  9. Probably my fastest ever Rufus, although the solver-friendly grid had a lot to do with it. For me it was a top-to-bottom solve with CONTRALTO my LOI.

  10. Does anyone know what happened to the Chambers Word Wizard website?
    As of yesterday it has become unavailable. Is that permanent, or is there a different web address for it? I’m very disappointed. It was an excellent source for solving anagrams. Barbara.

  13. Wet Bank Holiday so went to the pub at lunch to do the crossword. Disappointingly easy, my pint was only half way down when the last answer went it. No verb from arena AFAIK. Ringwood Fortyniner if you were curious.

  14. Thanks to flashling for the blog.

    I remember magnetos from some agricultural equipment around 50 years ago. Does anybody use them nowadays?

  16. chas @14

    According to Wikipedia, you might still find a magneto in, for example, a lawnmower (no battery) or a prop plane engine (independent of the battery, for safety).

  17. Thanks to PeterO: your mention of lawnmower fits in with my memory from very long ago. I think the machine where I saw one was a rotovator.

  18. You see the problem for relative novices like me about wonderful websites like this is that the joy of finishing a puzzle – a comparatively rare event still – is immediately diminished by the myriad “oh but tis easy!” comments by those wiser solvers who desire challenge and succour from the daily grid….

  19. Well obviously somebody at the Guardian had decided that we had better things to do on a Monday than a crossword.

    Ian SW3 @5 Thank you for perfectly encapsulating what I have been trying for many months to say about Rufus.

    Peter Barlow @13 You must be a very fast drinker! 😉

    This was a truly lazy offering! Barely cryptic and a sub 5 min solve at a canter!!

    Thanks to flashling

  21. Pilchards @18. I sympathise with you. I always find it irritating to have struggled with a crossword only to find here assertions that it was easy. That is why I always preface my comment as “I thought it was easy..” or “I found ..”.

    Saturday’s prize has left me stumped with only about half completed, and as far as I can see with no prospect of advancing

  22. Pilchards @18, well done at completing the puzzle! And I understand your feelings. But isn’t this just a feature of adult life in general? Whenever one starts out at something new everyone else seems better already: learning to play the piano, learning to cook, learning golf, anything really. Everyone starts at the bottom, even those who now find it easy (it took me 30 years practice to find this easy, so I must be pretty dim too).

  23. @18,21,22 et al.

    But Rufus has a great following amongst experienced solvers too! Araucaria admired him (his favourite clue by someone else, we know, was “Amundsen’s forwarding address (4)*”; Anax does too; Sandy Balfour has given 2 of his books titles from Rufus clues; Alan Connor did the same for his book (“Two girls, one on each knee (7)”**). And I have been solving a long time, with a particular enthusiasm for advanced cryptics and Azed clue-writing competitions, and I still find Rufus’s “lateral thinking”, literate and intelligent approach highly instructive. As someone said on the Guardian site under this crossword, “Rufus’ cryptics should be made part of the English language GCSE curriculum” If only!

    * ‘Mush’
    ** ‘Patella’

  26. @24
    I’m not sure what you are asking. I certainly wasn’t assuming anyone had disagreed with me before I’d said anything, nor did I suggest they had. I was joining in a conversation about Rufus being enjoyed by relative newcomers but dismissed as easy by “wiser solvers” as too easy, adding that in fact he does appeal to experienced solvers – not all of them apparently, but a good many. I take it you agree. Not surprising really, I wasn’t exactly being controversial.

  27. I was just wondering why you cited 18,21,22 that’s all.

    The conversation you cite is not about Rufus, it is about successfully solving a puzzle and then being discouraged by others saying it was an easy one. Rufus is not even mentioned.

    I only took it as a disagreement as your comment starts “But…!” That reads as though you are contradicting something.

  28. @ 27
    It’s “but…too”, not a direct contradiction. The “too” is there to indicate that I am accepting what has been assumed, but adding something different.

    Anyway the fact that Rufus is not mentioned does not mean the conversation wasn’t about the puzzle. It surely was to begin with at least. I think there is more in Rufus than “starting at the bottom”, though not in all easy cryptics. Hence when comment 18 says experienced solvers seek “succour” in a puzzle we can I think say, without being accused of going off-topic, “they can find it here!”.

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