Comments on: Guardian 25,653 / Rufus

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:17:56 +0000

Thanks Rufus and Eileen

I did find this one a little tougher going than the normal Rufus with GREEN BELT being last in. Thought that there must have been a misprint with 5A and that it was supposed to be Brunei (a sovereign state in SE Asia) – had not heard of the engineer Brunel and was too lazy to look .

Thought that 4d, 7d and 15a were all clever.

By: Innocent Abroad

Innocent Abroad — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 10:35:31 +0000

Didn’t get 14A (definition rather weak IMHO), 17A (I think of an Aegis as a wing or a protection – actually it’s a wonderfully misleading clue) and 18D (because I thought the points ought to be first and last – even though the clue is perfectly clear that they come first! I do that sort of thing all the time). Kept looking for a “continuous letters” to no avail…

By: Rufus

Rufus — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 10:13:57 +0000

Corresponding with other setters, the first use of the anagram of Britney Spears came up.
In 1999 Don Manley suggested I set some puzzles for the Church Times and my first appeared on February 2000.
I used the solution PRESBYTERIANS in a puzzle that appeared in January 2001 incorporating the anagram “BEST IN PRAYERS”.
Working on another later Church Times puzzle, the same solution fitted, and I tried to find a different clue. Using the CC Antony Lewis program, BRITNEY SPARES came up, and I immediately realised the possibilies. The puzzle with this clue was published in the Church Times on January 25th 2002. Later in the same year I used it in the Telegraph, when the reader’s letter page ran several comments.
A year or two ago, I saw several different setters’ names on-line quoted as being the first to use it. I corresponded with them, and asked when they first used it. Paul, for instance, said the anagram came up in conversation in his office and he used it in the Guardian. He freely admitted it was after January 2002.
I am sure someone would find this anagram sooner or later but, unless it was used before this date, I should like to think I was still the first!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 22:10:34 +0000

Rufus himself made it all clear, so NO complaints from this poster.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 21:59:08 +0000

Surely another nice cryptic from Rufus.
Some real pluses (12ac, 15d), one or two eyebrows raised like, for example, in 6d (ISOLDE).

The first time I saw WEST HAM UNITED/THE NEW STADIUM was in that moving crossword by Paul & Enigmatist. So, when it turned up in an Everyman recently, I thought ‘what is this?’. And today it was an easy write-in.
Rufus himself made it all clear, so complaints from this poster.

I just had to think of a clue that I wrote some four years ago in my first ever British crossword, dedicated to my beloved PinC. It contained the Britney Spears/Presbyterians anagram. And yes, boys and girls, I really discovered it myself. Only to find out (on TV, ‘How to solve a cryptic crossword’ ) that it was already a classic. The same with Eric Clapton/narcoleptic. These things happen. But it still can give you a kick, even if you are not the first to come up with it.

A similar thing happened a couple of years ago. Next to my computer lies a little note pad in which I write any ideas coming up spontaneously. One of them was ‘nothing like’~'the lion king’ [that's how I do it, using ~ when I see an anagram]. But there you are, Paul used it in one of his puzzles and we all were gushing about it, at the time. Rightly so.
That’s just how it goes.

And remember, some anagrams are less spectacular than others. We all know that ‘desserts’ can be ‘stressed’ (even just in reverse) and some anagrams are used day after day, but while WEST HAM UNITED is spectacular one must also realise that football clubs are targeted for being an anagram, just like famous people like Britney and Clapton. I myself have tried quite a few of them, and possibly I am not the only one.

Coming up with an anagram that no one has ever done before is something of an achievement, but I think especially Anax and Arachne are very good at that.

And I will never forget IO’s (ie the Guardian’s Enigmatist) anagram for ‘Annie get you gun’: a combination of the antipodes ‘genuine’ and ‘nugatory’.
Just brilliant.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:23:52 +0000

Captain Haddock @32: Shanghai is not only the name of a city in China but is also a verb meaning to get a man drunk and insensible so as to get him on board a ship in need of crew. Apparently, according to Brewer, from the phrase “ship him to Shanghai” (or anywhere far away). Thus shanghai-ing someone was a form of impressment or forced service.

By: Captain Haddock

Captain Haddock — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:57:02 +0000

Sorry – probably being thick, but I don’t get 23ac. Can someone explain why this is a double definition?

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:42:09 +0000

After three days tedium, selling tickets on one our smaller preserved railways, this level was about all my brain was fit for. So ta for that.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:39:18 +0000

Hi Rufus – lovely to hear from you! X

I’m so glad to get this cleared up – and thanks for another lovely puzzle. ]

By: NeilW

NeilW — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:28:24 +0000

were, even, since the subjunctive seems particularly apposite.