Comments on: Guardian 23949/Araucaria

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fgbp — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:42:46 +0000

I actually thought this was one of Araucaria’s easier puzzles, but you certainly have to be aware of the setter’s quirky style to make any sort of headway.
MIMULUS was an outrageous guess on my part, and an intriguing choice of answer by the setter, as not only is it obscure, but it doesn’t seem as promising clue fodder as ,say, MUMBLES.

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linxit — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:24:50 +0000

You got me pegged Dennis – I am mainly a Times solver. However, it was a puzzle by Araucaria a few months ago that convinced me to broaden my horizons.

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BenIngton — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:05:52 +0000

Linx – I accept your point about grandads not being all elderly. But in terms of the crossword, I had no problem deducing ‘grandad’ once I had ‘elderly’ and I suppose that from that viewpoint, the clue is acceptable.

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Dennis MacKinnon — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:31:27 +0000

…although you probably won’t find the Guardian editor clamping down too tightly on World Number One Araucaria’s liberty-taking – however outrageous it might seem to, say, big Times fans.

Besides, as well as non-stop invention in crypticity (!) there’s always large measure of bobbing and weaving from the big man in definitions, and it’s something to which his considerable audience has become well-accustomed.

I guess I mean, applying the slide-rule to this joyous type of work is futile, and smacks of desperation.

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linxit — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:56:07 +0000

My argument is that “elderly” isn’t a definition for “grandad” though. I have a friend who has only just turned 40 and doesn’t consider himself elderly, but his daughter has a couple of kids. Nor are all elderly people grandads! That’s apart from the fact that an adjective is being used to define a noun…I know Araucaria likes to take a few liberties, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

22 and 23 however are very closely linked, as VERDI wrote AIDA, and it’s clued as “work of…composer”.

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BenIngton — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:20:09 +0000

Linx – I think the definition for 17d is to found in 18d (ELDERLY) in the same way as 22a and 23a are closely interlinked.

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linxit — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 16:10:00 +0000

OK it’s all there now. I think the blog software may have interpreted the “less-than” symbol I used to indicate reversal in the comment for 6d, as that’s where the first attempt gave up.

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linxit — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 15:43:48 +0000

Half of my review disappeared when I published it! And now I’ve got to type it all out again because it seems to have vanished into the ether. Rats! Watch this space…