Comments on: Independent 6277/Virgilius – That’s logic

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Don Manley — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:23:24 +0000

You’d better know your Sherlock Holmes too!

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petebiddlecombe — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:08:19 +0000

Back in the good old days of double grids on Bank holidays, one of the few I had the wit to cut out and keep was an Araucaria puzzle on the Alice stories. It's used as a bookmark in my copy of MartinGardner's Annotated Alice.

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tilsit — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:58:56 +0000

Araucaria frequently uses Lewis Carroll as a source of his themed (and Bank Holiday) puzzles.

Nice puzzle by Virgilius and with the Times and Araucaria,good puzzles all round (will go and check the FT in the hotel to see if we get a full set!)

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nmsindy — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:49:19 +0000

I vaguely knew this reference, but am not very familiar with it, so I did wonder if for once Virgilius was not giving us a thematic one. Really struggling in the bottom half – CABBAGES, as you have remarked, was a lovely “stinker”. Realisation dawned with WALRUS and I saw there was another route to CABBAGES – that part of the quote I did know. I finished the puzzle quickly then. Looking up the quote, I found several other words that I’d solved independently. Solving time: 46 mins.

I think Peter B advised on his Times site some time ago that it was worth reading up on that theme. Azed’s third prize winner this month used it (the reference meant nothing to me). Also, I’ve failed with a few Listeners where it was used thematically.