Comments on: Guardian 24,898 (Rufus)

By: JohnD

JohnD — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:10:38 +0000

I always enjoy Rufus and we have just completed the current puzzle.Almost as much as the puzzle I love reading all the comments and don’t some of us get our knickers in a twist. I also had houseman but as I already had rawboned I knew that it did not fit. As we always seem to get complaints about too many CDs and too many DDs and too many anagrams perhaps some of you can let the rest of us know what the make-up of an ideal crossword is…

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:23:59 +0000

Yes, Andrew (#19), we had HOUSEMAN, the first thing we thought of, still fresh in mind after HOUS[e]MAN in Araucaria’s Christmas crossword. We found that it is just as good a solution as BARNARDO (which could have been clued quite attractively as another doctor BARNARD +O). Anyway, RAW-BONED, ANTE and ARMOUR showed us that we were wrong.
We didn’t get TORPEDO (so Rufus won again) – and I’m not sure if I like that one.
For us too many cd’s anyway, but it is Rufus’ speciality and, I must admit, he is very good at it.
Talking about cd’s, as Lanson pointed out in #8 OPPOSITION is surely not a cd, it’s a very neat charade of OP+POSITION with the first part of the clue as the definition.

Best clues, for us, were 14ac SARABAND (although not every Arab lives in a world of sand …), 17ac KENNETH (nice surface), the aforementioned 13d OPPOSITION, the very well-formulated 22ac ANSWER and, yes, also 11ac PERMISSION – although we instantly knew to have seen this before at Paul’s Cryptica site. Indeed, on May 9th, 2009 Kieron Dineen was awarded Silver with his “Leave a false impression”.
But it’s surely coincidence, these things happen (a lot, I guess).

A good crossword?
We thought, OK, but not 100% satisfactory because of too many cd’s and dd’s.
But that’s probably a matter of taste.

By: Brian Harris

Brian Harris — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:52:36 +0000

Hmm, quite tough today. Normally Rufus is a fun quick blast – but after 15 mins of head-scratching, had only managed a couple. Got there in the end, with some help from a colleague. Some nice clues (15ac, 20ac, 3dn – am a fan of these straightforwardly “cryptic” clues) but also some others that were so vague as to be impossible without crossing letters.

Andrew’s suggestion of HOUSEMAN is a good answer to 1dn, and I’m glad that I didn’t think of it, or I’d have filled it in first without hesitation, assuming it to be right. Also, ADDRESS was a bit weakly clued.

By: liz

liz — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:17:00 +0000

Thanks, diagacht. My experience with this puzzle was very similar to Radchenko’s and I failed to get three in the end, after a long struggle. I’m not a huge fan of Rufus’s cds, but I think it was more the case that I was off form today than any defect in the puzzle!

Still, I did learn something — never knew that the oboe was the tuning lead before.

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:04:49 +0000

Thanks, Andrew.
I heard it from you first…
I’m now looking for a hat-trick (quietly confident).
One day I’ll get the money…

Back on topic, did no-one else dislike 18d.?
Barely cryptic, I thought.
25ac. too?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:38:36 +0000

Did anyone else guess HOUSEMAN (junior hospital doctor) for 1dn?

There’s a nice plug for 15^2 (“an excellent site”) in the latest Guardian crossword newsletter (I’ve just received it by email – it should be on their website soon), and IanN14 is mentioned in dispatches again as the first entry for the Genius puzzle (still no £100 though, Ian!).

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:18:04 +0000

Lopakhin
19d BARGAIN – BAR (lawyers) GAIN (attain)

By: Lopakhin

Lopakhin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:13:38 +0000

So what happened to 19d – the only one I need…

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:25:17 +0000

Well, as you might expect, I did not like this one – far too many cryptic clues, and 11a, whilst a nice surface, was for the second week, a very weak anagram.

I managed the RHS but failed miserably on most of the LHS. I had Radchenko’s experience.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:57:23 +0000

Thanks Diagacht for the blog.

Rufus certainly had me going today on two – Barnado and Bemoan.
All in all a good way to start the week!