Comments on: Guardian 25,659 / Rufus

By: rompad

rompad — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:24:06 +0000

Eileen,
your analysis missed an error in this Rufus.
15 – the tense is incorrect and the clue should have read “…was avoidable”.

There are also instances of extraneous words eg.
5A – “in the”
12 – “of”
8 – “of”
These words are not used in the parsing of the clues, and are included just to make the whole clue read better. This is sloppy setting and needs to be indicated as so in your post.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:07:22 +0000

Rather late to comment but I thought both this and the Dante (prize) crossword in the FT were very good examples of Rufus – wonderful smooth surfaces elegantly linked to the wordplay, with the additional lateral challenge/entertainment of the CDs – which this time didn’t flummox me for too long…

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 08:15:45 +0000

Quite right, dinsdale – and this is cryptic crosswordland.

By: dinsdale

dinsdale — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:23:02 +0000

The utensil which whisks is a whisk (not a whisker)

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:08:13 +0000

Thanks all (especially the excellent sub.)
Surfaces so smooth the whole thing slid of the table almost before I could write in the solutions.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:59:37 +0000

EGG BEATERS was the obvious answer to 12a but puzzled me till I saw the blog and realised it was a cryptic definition of things that whisk. I was thinking that it was a colloquial name for some elaborate style of facial hair (on the lines of “handlebar moustache”).

And with EGG BEATERS and TIN OPENERS symmetically placed I wondered if a theme of kitchen tools was going to emerge, but obviously that was just coincidence.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:17:58 +0000

Davy – we crossed!

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:17:13 +0000

Nic@60 – I think that in American English the timber that is referred to in Britain as PINE is called DEAL.

Nice crossword today from Rufus. I particularly liked EGG BEATERS.

Thanks Eileen for the blog.

By: nic@60

nic@60 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:16:10 +0000

Thanks, Davy. A new one for me which I will try to remember for future reference.

By: Davy

Davy — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:14:23 +0000

Re nic@60

Deal = “pine wood” and is frequently used in crosswords.