Comments on: Guardian 23987/Araucaria

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eimi — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:12:39 +0000

2006 doesn’t appear to be a major revision. I recently picked up a 2003 Chambers (as a spare) in a bookshop for £6.99, so keep your eyes peeled.

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Chris — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:01:30 +0000

Off topic – but can anyone more experience advise me whether I should get the 2006 edition of Chambers, or go hunting for the old 2003 version?

Thanks in advance.

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linxit — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:49:31 +0000

Thanks for the explanation michod. I’d be surprised if anyone picked that up from the clue as it was presented online. Maybe they’ve never heard of the tag? Actually it’s probably a limitation of the crappy software they use – the special instructions of most Azed puzzles usually contain something like last Sunday’s: 23 down – “The word ‘proper’ should be in italics. It’s just plain old HTML – it’d only take a minute for someone to edit it manually.

Thanks also to loonapick for explaining 9 and 22 – didn’t like SAT=much of day. “Some of day” or “Part of day”would have been better without affecting the surface. I should have seen DIAMonds though, no excuses there.

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michod — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:22:22 +0000

13 etc was quite clever actually, but sounds like it may have been unclear online. In the paper clue, 13, 16, 18 and 24 are in bold, forming the lights clued, while 26 6 10 and 8 are normal, forming part of the clue, which then gives: 26 (inferno) =DIS; 6 (swindle) =CON; 10 = TEN (!); 8 (Edward the Fourth) =TED (the weakest link, really).

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ilancaron — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:57:07 +0000

Hmm… “lot of rocks” would have been more recognizable for DIAMonds in my case.

Incidentally we saw two relatively unusual words for homosexual in the last week: BARDASH (last week’s Gordius) and TRIBADE (today).

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ilancaron — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:49:56 +0000

13A confuse me as well — I assumed there was some long anagram going on but i think you’re right that it’s a mistake.

9A: SAT,IS,FIE[l]D — where “field” as in the runners in a horse face (L[eft] leaving is a nice touch).

I don’t get IDI AM,IN either — is there a weight involved?

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loonapick — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:46:27 +0000

9ac – SAT (most of day)-IS-FIE(L)D – “Field” being remaining horses as in “to bet against the field”.

22dn – a lot of DIAMonds – typical Araucaria, I’m afraid.

I don’t get the 13ac thing either, although I wonder if it has something to do with first letters, I,S,I,E,T,F, maybe TED or A (EdwArd the Fourth?), all of these being bits of the word SATISFIED, but I just can’t work it out??