I totally agree with you and am heartily sick of this never ending critique of Rufus. If anyone went to a concert and didn’t like the music then they
wouldn’t come back to a concert by the same artist so why do these people come back week after week and say the same tired old things. They know what
to expect of Rufus and his puzzles are never going to change significantly, so give it a rest and move on.

Strikes me you guys need to make it clearer, starting next week, that your ire about the strength of puzzles is NOT directed at Rufus, but at the editor.

But at the end of the day, you are still all being totally selfish in demanding tougher puzzles all round. Experts in any walk of life are a small minority. It would be utterly wrong of the newspaper to pander to just the experts to the detriment of the vast majority of solvers. You have paid your money? But you don’t give a fig about the thousands who can also rightly say they have paid their money too but who find even Rufus tough going.

By all means bitch about the policy if you want to continue in your selfishness, but for heavens sake leave Rufus, and any other Monday setter, out of it, they are just doing what they are paid for.

I don’t care about what rhotician says because I have several times pointed out that my eldest son is dyslexic and that he gets that from me, though I’m only boderline. And yet he is callous enough to use words like “inarticulately”, despite the fact that he was quite able to understand my meaning, which he wouldn’t be able to do if his claim were true. Rather he is being deliberately nasty to one less fortunate than himself. Now who’s losing the virtuous position? Would we all like to mock my other disabilities whilst we are on a roll?

Cheers
Rowly.

To answer your first two questions:
*I* care what Rhotician thinks. (Just as I care what you and many others think – it’s why I come here)
*I* care what Chambers says. (Although I do not think it is infallible, I could not do without as a reference work in my job)

Why shouldn’t you be rude? Because you immediately lose any moral high ground.

I may be wrong, but I believe that those* who disapprove of Rufus’ fare are taking issue with the very editorial policy you mention. Just as you advise the protesters to turn a blind eye to Monday puzzles, I advise you to turn a blind eye to the predictable howls of complaint from them.

I agree entirely with everything that Sil says.

*Not me.

Who cares what Chambers says? Only ivory tower dwellers refer to Chambers as being as infallible as the Pope.

Brendan @ 30, and others elsewhere. If you ever bothered to read these blogs properly or even the Crossword Editors blog, you would see that one doesn’t need to be “well in” to know what has been freely published. Rufus himself has told us, here, what his job spec for Mondays is. So why don’t you try getting your facts right before you start making a complete fool of yourself by showing your ignorance of public knowledge.

Why shouldn’t I be rude? You people never pause before being rude about Rufus. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t dish it.

Furthermore, Chambers does not recognize ‘Swag Bag’, nor even ‘swag bag’ or ‘swagbag’. The Urban Dictionary does, but I can’t believe that even you would recommend it over Chambers as a reference source. Google ‘swag’ to see why.