Comments on: Guardian 25,024 – Rufus

By: D&G

D&G — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:43:28 +0000

Having just been reading the book, we couldn’t move away from the idea that 6D should be Candide. Ho hum.

By: morpheus

morpheus — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:39:41 +0000

those who don’t know or who didn’t look it up might like to know that leu is Romanian for lion, from Latin leo “(from the image of a lion on a coin used in the late Ottoman Empire)” to quote one source.

By: tupu

tupu — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:54:59 +0000

Hi Bill. Many thanks for that – your comment seems to agree with my own late attempt at a gloss – and it is even possible to make some sense of the ‘of’ as I suggest. ‘Plants’ could be thought of as minimally cryptic in as much as it is given by the dictionaries as slang in this sense. But it is, I agree, a bit too simple for comfort.

By: Bill Taylor

Bill Taylor — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:12:05 +0000

tupu @15: I think “plant” as the solution to 12a would not be cryptic at all. My reading of the clue, for what it’s worth — I lay claim to no wisdom as a solver — was that blinding is the putting out, or extinguishing, of sight. Hence, “puts out of sight” = BLINDS. It could be argued that the “of” is superfluous but omitting it would ruin the reading of the clue. I’m prepared to give Rufus the benefit of that particular doubt.

NeilW @14: You could be right but I’d been hoping for something special today (even though Canada’s May holiday was last Monday). I didn’t mind Saturday’s cryptic — I’m not discussing it, Gaufrid, honestly! — though it wasn’t as good as the previous three weekends. Certainly nothing extra-special about it.

By: tupu

tupu — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:00:55 +0000

Andrew or some other wise solver. Re 12a. Puts out of sight. In a slightly less self-critical mood than @5, I note that both COD and Chambers give slang meanings of ‘plant’ as ‘conceal’ and ‘hide’ respectively with the sorts of connotations I mention. So it plants ‘answers the question set’ at least, even if relatively simply and directly.

I would be interested to see an analysis of the relation of the clue’s exact wording to ‘blinds’ – I can only think that ‘puts out’ would be in the sense of ‘extinguish’ and the ‘of’ would then equal ‘in the case of’ or ‘with ref. to’ sight. But I may well be missing something else.

By: NeilW

NeilW — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:11:05 +0000

Bill Taylor,

rightback’s comment referred, I guess, to this Saturday’s “special” – a curate’s egg if ever there was one.

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:18:15 +0000

Derek @ 10
Thought mathematicians would have stuck to sudoku!

By: Bill Taylor

Bill Taylor — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:00:09 +0000

I was thrown by leu/lei for a while, too. Apparently lei is the plural of leu (which I’ve also seen spelled “lev”).

By: Alex M

Alex M — Mon, 31 May 2010 12:59:36 +0000

Enjoyable workout today after a couple of weeks away from the crossword. Not totally easy, but not too challenging. Didn’t like 22d and 23d very much. Defeated by ‘misere’, even after recognising it probably related to a card game.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Mon, 31 May 2010 12:56:33 +0000

It might have been easy, but it makes you smile, which is better than a hard earned scowl.

Minor quibbles, first the usual one, a ratio is an operation not a relationship. It may be used in a relationship, hence the confusion. Dictionaries are not compiled by mathematicians so don’t quote them, they don’t understand. But hey ho, it’s such a common mistake that it won’t stop the solving effort.

Secondly, I thought it was Leu not Lei. Wikipedia agrees, not that that says a great deal.

It seems several of us card players were slow to twig misere. My excuse is that it is a long time since I last played one of those games. Perhaps it was the same for others.