Comments on: Guardian 24392 – Rufus

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:08:59 +0000

Apropos the Royal Navy, a recently quoted TV quiz question from Private Eye (from their Dumb Britain column) goes something like this…
Anne Robinson: “Which branch of the British armed forces is known as the Senior Service?”
Contestant: “Is it the SS?”

By: Rufus

Rufus — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:21:52 +0000

One more bit of naval jargon for Andrew: did he know the naval slang for the Royal Navy is “the Andrew”? This came from the name of a zealous press-gang officer, Andrew Miller, who impressed so many men into the King’s Naval Service in the Napoleonic Wars that he was said to own the Royal Navy.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:51:24 +0000

Apologies for making this Monday puzzle too difficult. I shall have to concentrate more. I did think BITTS acceptable – for Teesween, bitts are twin bollards. When big ships anchor the weight of the anchor cable holds the ship steady more than the actual anchor; the anchor cable was secured inboard in earlier times around the bitts allowing more cable to be let out in rough weather, high winds and tides. When the crew have let out all possible cable and the cable end is around the bitts, it “has come to the bitter end” as Andrew points out.

By: struggler

struggler — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:14:35 +0000

I agree with the last two comments — 16ac was too obscure for me (never come across the word before) and 28ac was too subtle for me (I was unaware of the racing connection).

By: PaulW

PaulW — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:15:51 +0000

Same here Rightback. Could not even guess the answers to these clues.

I usually look forward to Rufus on Monday’s after struggling with numerous other crosswords over the weekend, but these clues were just too difficult for a Monday!

By: rightback

rightback — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:26:40 +0000

WELSHED and BITTS both had me stumped. Quite a bit harder than usual for Rufus, I thought.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:26:33 +0000

5a I thought was poor. Surely leg in the definition and the wordplay is the same, the cricket term.

I didn’t get BITTS and agree it was too obscure for the checking.

ECONOMIST was excellent.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:31:02 +0000

According to Chambers, BITT may be the source of the expression “the bitter end”, “bitter” being “the turn of the cable around round the bitts”. I definitely didn’t know that!

By: teesween

teesween — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:13:41 +0000

I always thought bitts were bollards.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:17:34 +0000

I found this the most difficult Guardian crossword for ages and had to give up on it with about half a dozen spaces. Rufus always produces extremely well-crafted and very terse clues, often relying on misleading homophony, many of which are cryptic def or double def. This type of clue can sometimes be relatively easy to solve – but if you don’t see the trick there is no other handle to use to get at the solution. And lots of connecting letters which only score 1 in Scrabble don’t give much of a hint! Araucaria and Paul are a breeze in comparison…