Guardian Cryptic 26,885 by Rufus

50 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,885 by Rufus”

1. All a bit straightforward, mundane and routine, but we can forgive Rufus that.

   Thanks to Rufus and manehi

2. Thanks Rufus and manehi

   Easy but very enjoyable, with particular favourites PARASITES, NYASA (very clever) and MARTINI.

   Thanks for explaining the puzzling “actually” in 9a, and MORSE = WALRUS, manehi.

   26d would have worked as just “Wrath, possibly?”

   Only quibble – 24d “reflection” doesn’t work as a reversal in a down clue, as reflection only laterally reverses, not top/bottom (there used to be a standing prize at Cambridge for an essay that explained why this was the case).

3. BH
   Previous occurrences of OUIJA?

4. muffin @3 – it must be one of the oldest of chestnuts:

   Bunthorne 21931: The other sideboard (5)
   Rufus 22012: Board has positive answers from two European states (5)
   Shed 22247: Sounding bored with remote access? (5)
   Rufus 22804: Board has no alternative to the French and the Germans (5)
   Araucaria 23249: European agreements on board (5)
   Paul 23620: Board involved in European agreements? (5)
   Taupi 24080: Once used in jest about tips for spirited communicator (5)
   Paul 26051: Board’s Franco-German affirmations? (5)
   Otterden 26217: Board agreement expressed in two languages (5)
   Rufus 26736: Board in which French and German concur (5)

5. Thanks BH – the majority using OUI and JA, as I expected. The Bunthorne one is a gem, though!

6. My favourites were PARASITES, OUIJA, WALKING ON AIR, ONCE.

   I was unable to parse 26D CAPE. New word for me was morse = walrus.

   I parsed 29d as suggested by manehi -> take it easy when away from work.

   Thanks manehi and Rufus.

7. Thanks to Rufus and manehi.

   Yes some fun here.

   Favourites were 37d LIQUORICE, 6d SOUNDPROOF and 16d TIARA.

   Unfamiliar with Cape Wrath, so 26d was a guess.

   I liked it, but even as a dilettante, I thought I had solved 20a OUIJA (clever as it is) in a previous puzzle.

   Thanks, All.

8. A most enjoyable puzzle. As always with Rufus, there is some deft and admirably concise clueing. Thank you, Rufus and manehi.

9. Thanks manehi, particularly for the link that explained actually.

   Small nitpick, what is in doing in the WALK ON AIR clue? The answer jumps out but I stared at the parsing for some time trying to justiy it.

   I think EASY works fine the way you parsed it.

   Didn’t know CAPE Wrath or MORSE so bifd them both.

   Many thanks, Rufus.

   Nice week, all.

10. muffin @5 Help me out with the Bunthorne ouija please.

11. I’ve just noticed that I got one wrong – I put EASE for 29d. I think it makes perfect sense – one “takes one’s ease” away from work.

12. Sorry William – just seen your request. Split “sideboard” to give “The other side board” – i.e. a board for communicating with the “other side”.

13. muffin @11 – me too but since it works who cares…

14. muffin @11- Big Lebowski- I hate the xxxxxxx Eagles! First single!

15. copmus @14
    Take it easy – “easy” works as well. A true “double”.

16. 29d ‘Easy’ is attractive but does not seem to work quite properly since strictly speaking it ought to be a substitute for ‘it’ but is not. From this point of view ‘ease’ is better, though not quite perfect since it is usually prefaced by a possessive.

17. Thanks for the blog. Needed help on parsing area and evolved. Thought “ease” was better than “easy”, and put in “the links” for 21d, although the given answer is much better. Overall not a good performance from me…

18. muffin @2, “reflection” is given as an across or down clue reversal indicator in the lists. It works fine for me in a down clue, a reflection of a billboard turns the words running down it the other way up if you are looking at the board from the other side of a wet road.

19. Thanks Rufus and manehi.

    I found this crossword fun. I knew Hove was regarded as separate from Brighton by its more snobbish residents, but not the significance of the “actually”! I did not know MORSE was anther name for a walrus.

    OUIJA had me fooled for a while, not for the first time either.

    25a, “Obtaining material“, would something like “material being fetched” have been possible, rather confusing to have the definition within the clue.

    AREA, TIARA and CAPE were my favourites.

20. Typical Rufus fare, enjoyable enough. Rufus is pretty much the only setter whom I find rough going until I realize, “Oh–it’s Rufus,” after which it’s easy. This is because of all the cryptic definitions.

    I really liked the clue for NYASA, and really hated the clue for EASY (the first thing I tried was “earn,” making the clue barely cryptic, but with an unexplained “it” in the clue).

    This clue for OUIJA, even though it’s common, bugs me, because the trademark holder in the name said its etymology was oui + ja. (But there appears to be some doubt about it; read the Wikipedia article on it, which I lack the ability to link to just now, as I’m writing this on my phone.) Anyway, it bothers me for the same reason as, say, cluing “phonebooth” with a straightforward definition of phone and another one of booth. Not really wordplay.

    Today in British English class, I learned that y’all spell “licorice” with a Q.

21. ‘A positive sign’ is a cryptic definition? I’d say it was a definition . . .

22. Many thanks manehi for the explanations of actually, wrath, temple, Malawi, morse and cakes – a surprise to miss so much parsing in a Rufus puzzle.

    I too thought reflection was fine, just stand on a mirror. Reflecting light doesn’t know up or down or left or right.

    Great fun as always, thanks Rufus

23. An enjoyable canter for a sunny Monday morning. Thanks to Rufous and manehi. Hosts for parasites aren’t always indulgent though – but a lovely clue nevertheless.

24. Adams@21

    It is cryptic, albeit subtly so like many of the Rufus cds – there is a mathematical and a non-mathematical interpretation.

25. Sorry, Rufus. Blame predictor text.

26. Quite a good Rufus, I thought and I also learned something. How I’ll use MORSE in the sense of “walrus” I’m not sure but it’s nice to know!
    Thanks Rufus.

27. A very decent Rufus, again – this is getting to be a habit. AREA my favourite, OUIJA an undoubted chestnut, but oh the struggles I had when I first met it! Maybe PLUS let the side down with its literalism.

    WRATH brought back happy memories of a glorious day walking to it a few years ago. It’s the end of a tough trail in the north of Scotland. The next day I met a whole host of walkers who finished on a grim day of pouring rain – they could barely see the lighthouse on the headland. But the Wrath comes not from the English word but the Norse for turning point.

28. CAPE should be in caps above, not WRATH. Silly me, carried away.

29. Thanks to Rufus and manehi. I had the same reaction as others to EASY-ease and had to check MORSE = walrus and the existence of Cape Wrath, but I much enjoyed this puzzle – and thanks for the explanation of “Hove actually.”

30. Thanks, Rufus and manehi.

    As one who almost daily hears the litany of the shipping forecast and has just finished Bill Bryson’s ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’, I had no problems at all with CAPE Wrath – but I rather envy Trailman @27. 😉

31. Dutch @22 et al.
    Write a word normally and look at it in a mirror. The letters are individaully reversed, as is the letter order. Now write the word vertically and look at it in a mirror. The letters are again individually reversed, but the letter order remains unchanged, top to bottom.

    [Trailman @27
    I’ve done that walk a couple of times too. Ferry across the Kyle of Durness; minibus to the lighthouse, then walk to Kinlochbervie (where we were staying). A tough one indeed! Sandwood Bay the highlight.]

32. Thanks, Rufus and manehi. I was held up for a while by putting SEALED instead of CLOSED for 5 – ‘sealed (clinched) the deal’.

33. Thanks Rufus and manehi

    muffin @ 31: write a word on a piece of paper, whether west to east or north to south. Stand a mirror on the paper (at the end of the word) and both the letters and the sequence will be reversed.

34. Simon @33
    The W-E word will have the letter order unchanged in that case, and the letters will be upside down rather than reversed. (“Stand a mirror on the paper at the end of the word” implies a vertical word, though.)

35. muffin @ 34

    If you stand the mirror by the last letter of a word in either direction then that letter will appear first in the mirror. That the letters of the vertical word are also inverted is incidental.

36. I see what you mean, Simon.

37. I did it the other way round muffin. Sandwood Bay and Kearvaig Bay (where I stayed in the bothy) were the two best sunsets of my life.

38. Thanks Rufus for a quick but pleasing solve, and manehi for the blog. Morse as walrus – who knew?

    I for one, “take it easy” after work, more of a sentence completion clue than ‘it’ being a pronoun for the solution.

    If one was to “show the work,” as teachers request – largely in vain, then you would write the solution parts on a piece of paper horizontally, so you would reflect SAD as DAS without thinking that it was a down clue.

    A lesser known cousin of Hove Actually is Croydon Oh: “I’m from Croydon.” reply: “Oh.” A regular conversation stopper.

39. Could “Love, Actually” have been a subtle in-joke echoing of “Hove, actually” for those in the know? Or just the response to “Wrath, possibly?”

    Quibble — “Wrath possibly” and “head” refer to the same meaning of the word.

40. Valentine @39
    I suggested @2 that “Wrath, possibly?” was an adequate clue for CAPE.

41. So you did and so it is. I suggested that it’s an adequate cue for “Love, actually.”

42. Thanks Rufus and manehi

    I think one of my quickest ever Rufus puzzles – but still enjoyable. It is surprising just how much that he can hide behind what looks like a relatively simple clue – viz. HOVE (actually), CAPE (Wrath), WALK-ON (part) and RE (touching). Balanced out somewhat by the old chestnuts – OUIJA and MARTINI.

    My favourite was probably ONCE – again simple but it held me up for longer than it should have. Finished with it and the other ‘littlies’ down the bottom in CAPE and (take it) EASY.

43. P.S. I really would like your suggestion of the origin of the title of “Love, actually” to be true!

44. I still find it bizarre that the framework for judging a puzzle totally changes on every “Rufus Monday”.

    The fact that this ragbag of a puzzle received such plaudits beggars belief.

45. Brendan @44, exactly, that is why it is such fun, nothing more interesting than a ragbag, the patchwork quilts you can make from it are without end…

46. brendan not that one should bog off. it appears he only contributes negative comments in response to many a rufus puzzle so why bother in the first place? keep your snide unwarranted criticisms to yourself and let the rest of us relish in this setters genius. rufus you rock as always x

47. shaar @46

    I believe you are violating the site rules with your personal comments. However please don’t mistake me for someone who gives a damn what you think.

    I usually refrain nowadays from commenting on most crosswords on here, especially Rufus’s. But although this one was slightly more considered than others it was still pretty awful with loose cluing and double answer possibilities. I couldn’t help but comment on the string of praise it laughingly received.

    I will take your advice however and cease from commenting completely. It has become more apparent lately that people not singing from the S&B hymnsheet are effectively ignored on here anyway.

    Comments of the type “aren’t you/I wonderful/erudite/etc” are becoming increasingly dull anyway. Not quite as dull as the “new words for me were/couldn’t parse…./ LOI” variants however from people who are obviously using the “reveal” button anyway 😉

48. Brendan @47 – sorry you find us all so tedious! I don’t think anybody sets out to write boring comments, but if you worry too much about being original or entertaining you’d never post anything, and for me at least that would make this place a lot duller!

49. Let’s not gang up on someone whose comments we don’t like. We’ve seen where that can lead, and it’s always sad.

50. Thanks manehi and Rufus.

    This was Rufus at his (nearly) best for me. Good concise clueing and smooth surfaces.

    Thanks for explaining the “actually” in 9ac. Makes even better sense now.

    I had to look up MORSE for the old name for a Walrus.

    Before the penny finally dropped, I looked up Tiara Temple on Google – and found a Calafornian model with quite a large social media presence.

    I think that 29 could have been equally EASE or EASY – with EASY the marginally better.

    As usual, I got caught by one curved ball. In this case I put AGENT in at 26ac as a simple CD before I saw the error of my ways.

    Good fun if not too taxing.

Comments are closed.