Guardian 24630 – Rufus

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sorry if this is a bit terse, internet went down at home so am solving/blogging between lectures. I got through this quickly with a few niggles. Liked 18ac.

Across
1 DESCRIBE (seed)* around CRIB=”bed”
5 SLIP-UP rev(pupils)
9 DOMICILE rev(I’M) in DOCILE
10 AVERSE A VERSE
12 COATI COAT I. Didn’t know the animal, but obvious from the checking letters.
13 NIHILISTS cryptic definition?
14 WINE DECANTER (wide entrance)*
18 ROUND THE BEND nice double def
21 POLAR BEAR P[iano]=quiet, (arboreal)*
23 SUEDE Sounds like “swayed”. Presumably can be made from kid goats.
24 RAVING RANG around VI
25 COALMINE (oneclaim)*
26 YARROW rev(WORRY) around A
27 ASSYRIAN (Iran says)*
Down
1 DEDUCE DE is “of” in French and DUCE is Italian for “leader”
2 SAMPAN SPAN around AM
3 RECTIFIED (certified)*
4 BALANCE SHEET (He sent a cable)*
6 LEVEL not sure if there’s more to this clue than a not-too-cryptic definition.Edit thanks to Sam: There is, the solution is a palindrome.
7 PARASITE (parties a)*
8 PLEASURE PLEA SURE
11 WHEELBARROWS WHEEL=”Spin”, BAR=”local”, ROWS=”disputes”
15 AUNT SALLY referring to this.
16 PROPERTY double def
17 PULLOVER “after rowing” giving PULL OVER
19 GEMINI reverse of EG=”say” + MINI
20 DEMEAN DEAN around ME
22 RONDO RON DO

16 comments on “Guardian 24630 – Rufus”

  2. Yeah, 11d is great, and I also liked 23a, 25a and 15d, but 18a is simply brilliant and made me laugh out loud. More than makes up for some of the dodgier clues today – I spent ages looking at 13a trying to find a genuinely cryptic meaning to the clue…

  4. Sam – I think perhaps manehi’s “not very cryptic” comment refers to the fact that the palindrome is signposted a wee bit too obviously in the clue.

    I don’t want to judge it too harshly though because this was as enjoyable as a Rufus puzzle always is, and you do expect a few “easier” clues on a Monday.

  5. As always with Rufus, some very elegant surfaces for anagrams, eg 14, 21, 25,ac and 3 and 4 dn.

    A rare, for Rufus, paucity of cryptic clues – I’m still trying to decide whether 13ac is a really clever cryptic clue or not very cryptic at all!

    I loved 18ac, too, and, like Dawn, took a minute or two to see the explanation of 11dn!

  6. Eileen – I was looking for ages for one of those pithy two-word double definitions that Rufus is so good at in 13a. Perhaps its misleading appearance means the clue really was very clever after all!

  7. I thought 6dn was a good cryptic definition, and since when I look up nihilist it says ‘extreme sceptic’ or something close, I can’t see any crypticism at all in 13ac. But I liked the puzzle.

  9. Straightforward but elegant as ever. Fewer than usual cd and dd clues, which I liked. 13ac didn’t seem cryptic at all to me, which was a pity, but more than compensated for by the lovely 18ac

  11. Comment on 1dn – DUCE was never one of the usual Italian words for ‘leader’, which would be ‘capo’ or ‘direttore’. It was a historical term for a commander in the (ancient) Roman army, until Mussolini adopted it. Therefore it is different from ‘Fuehrer’ in German – a previously unremarkable word for ‘leader’ which has become so tainted by association that Germans now always use ‘Leiter’ instead.

  12. The only vague cryptic implication I could see in 13a was that it had the polar extremes at its own extremities – I’m sure that’s probably coincidence though. Drerw a blank on 23a even with the crosses in – hope its just one of those blind spots, not the beginning of the end for the brain.

  13. 13a NIHILISTS: Chambers 2008 gives ‘extreme scepticism’ under ‘nihilism’. So this clue isn’t even cyptic: but I liked it because I had thought of NOVELISTS as a possible answer.

  14. Strangely 23 and 19 were my last two. OK, it proves I’m wierd, but y’all knew that! Failing to remember what Suede is made from really didn’t help, sigh.

  16. Richard – at one point I was thinking along similar lines but chief executive (officer) is nearly always CEO rather than just CE…and how would we explain the word “Italian” in the clue?

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