Rufus hits 1,000!
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On Bank Holiday Monday Roger “Rufus” Squires has his 1000th puzzle published in the Daily Telegraph. To mark the occasion there is an article about him on page 29 of today’s paper. If you can’t get the paper, you can read the article here, just click the picture of Roger:
Congratulations Rufus – and a thousand thank yous for mentioning Big Dave’s Crossword Blog in the article!
If you were wondering, the quotation in paragraph four of the article is from Rishi’s review of DT 26176 on 1st March 2010.
Congratulations on yet another milepost, Rufus!
There’s a mischievous glint in your eye and you may have something hidden under that paper hat!
But, unravel we will!
Best wishes.
Rishi
Congrats to Roger on the achievement – and to the blog for getting a plug in the paper – stand by for lots of new visitors, Dave!
Thanks Mick.
Are you going to the White Horse next week?
[For those who aren’t aware, Mick H is better known to us as Micawber]
And hearty congratulations from your No1 fan! A fantastic achievement Roger – just to put it in perspective, I think I may be close to reaching my 1000th clue – and thank you for getting me started on the road to professional setting.
A wonderful achievement, Roger, and many thanks for all your puzzles.
I have 6 books featuring your puzzles:
–both the Glasgow Herald books where you are ‘RFS’ and ‘EAP’
–the DT ‘Display of Lights; book
–The Guardian Setters Series book of 80 Rufus puzzles
–The Financial Times book where you are ‘Dante’
–The Guardian Cryptic Crossword book 3
Any chance of your bringing out your own book?
Fantastic acheivement and hearty congratulations to Rufus. Long may he continue to entertain and bemuse us.
Congratulations Rufus, thanks for all the pleasure you have given !
Fantastic achievement Rufus. Thank you for all your excellent puzzles and well done for the plug for the blog BD – a very worthy addition.
Congratulations and thanks very much Rufus! Off to read the article!
mark
A gobsmacking achievement, particularly given you have achieved the same in the Guardian!
Many congrats and looking forward to writing nothing in on Monday!
Good!
I was thinking about the answer to the clue! I had already accepted the other!
Many thanks for these – much appreciated!
I should just like to take the opportunity to thank Libellule for his excellent April blogs of the Monday puzzles.
Since my wife retired – she is much younger than I – she has wanted to visit her brother and family in New Zealand. Her health problems caused the trip to be delayed until Christmas, then I had complications until I had a pacemaker fitted in late January. We finally set off on April 2nd, and returned on the 28th. We had a superb time,
En route we stayed in Singapore for 2 days and Melbourne for 2 days before joining her brother in Palmerston North. With their 4 boys off for Easter holidays we toured the South Island – Christchurch, Oamaru, Dunedin and Alexandra. When they flew back home we continued to Te Anau and stayed there where we flew in a helicopter round the lakes, landed on top of a mountain, went for a cruise on Doubtful Sound etc before driving to the southernmost point of South Island, Bluff, before flying back to Palmerston from Invercargill. Finally we visited our ex-neighbours from Ironbridge in Auckland for two days before leaving NZ, flying to Sydney to stay with friends for Anzac weekend. At this stage we expected our return to be delayed due to the Icelandic ash eruption – we were snowmobiling on that glacier a few years ago – but the large double-decker 380 aircraft was used to get us to Dubai and then a 777 took us to Birmingham. With 23 hours in the aircraft we had our first jetlag but today I’m back in the “shed” setting puzzles.
It does help to know the goodwill that is around!
I just wanted to explain why I have not posted any blogs for the last month.
Rufus,
Hope you had a great holiday. Will discuss things further on Monday….
I wondered what had happened to you
Roger, BZ good sir. From the article in today’s DT do I detect that you flew the legendary NA39 aka the Blackburn Buccaneer? I was fortunate to “Observe” it for 3 tours, and never had to use the infamous “Underwater Escape Mechanism”. Thank goodness for the SAR chopper. Anyway – here’s to #2000 !!
Sincere congratulations from me as well!
Thanks for some wonderfully witty and interesting clues over the years.
Hi Rufus, looking forward to the puzzle tomorrow. Was fascinated to read that you live in Ironbridge as that’s where my Dad grew up. Then I looked you up in Crowther’s A-Z and realised that you live on Hodge Bower! Amazing – that’s the street that my grandfather’s house was on. It is now called “Holly Lodge”. (My parents sold it in the 1980s).
All the best,
mark
Rufus
I saw the Telegraph article, but this is the first time since then that I’ve visited Big Dave’s site, hence my tardiness in congratulating you.
Many thanks for your help in keeping my brain functioning; I love the crosswords, and look forward to my husband bringing the paper in when he comes home from work so that I can get my “fix”.
Hi LameWolf – welcome to the blog.
Thank you all very much for all of you taking the time to post such kind comments. I feel a bit overwhelmed!
To Digby: I was finishing my time in the Fleet Air Arm in the early 60s and had managed to get a trip in the safety helicopter during sea trials of the Buccaneer on HMS Albion. Sadly I saw the plane take a bad catapult and end up in the sea. We hovered over the crash site for some time but there was no sign of the aircrew. The next day a diver – a chap I’d joined up with 13 years before as a boy seaman and from my home town of Wolverhampton – found the bodies trapped in the aircraft. The Buccaneer didn’t really make it as a ship-borne aircraft.. My first Squadron was 703X, test flying the new Gannet anti-submarine aircraft, then 849 Air Early Warning in American Skyraiders. A brief change flying Avengers in a Radio Warfare Squadron before returning to 849 Squadron as it changed aircraft to Gannet AEW, during which I also crashed in the sea.
To Mark. I came to Hodge Bower in 1971 and Holly Lodge belonged to the Tranters. They were very near neighbours, pillars of the church and always very friendly and helpful. Was this your family? If so, please send them my regards!
Hi Rufus – yes Tom and Doris Tranter were my grandparents and Graham was my Dad. Sadly he passed away in 2005. I have many happy memories of holidays spent in Ironbridge I don’t go back very often now, but I took my kids down there a couple of weeks ago to look at the grave in St. Luke’s. As a child I remember going into the back with my grand-dad to help count the collection!
All the best and thanks for your kind words about them!
mark