Comments on: Guardian 24,201 (Sat 6 Oct)/Araucaria – Blind man’s pluff http://www.fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/ Never knowingly undersolved. Sat, 25 May 2013 19:19:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Jim http://www.fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5855 Jim Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:12:04 +0000 http://fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5855 Xanthus is the river (“flower”) of Troy.

]]> By: rightback http://www.fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5846 rightback Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:25:01 +0000 http://fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5846 Needing to know the Greek for ‘flower’ is pretty tough! I assumed from the clue lettering system that these were the initial letters of the answers (especially given the double clues at D and J) but it wouldn’t hurt to state this explicitly in the preamble.

Shirley – I agree the puzzle doesn’t require any knowledge of Mendelssohn’s work beyond the title; I was just inviting anyone more familiar with it to pick a better ‘Music of the day’ (see previous Saturday posts), as I chose fairly arbitrarily from what appeared to be the more famous bits.

]]> By: Shirley http://www.fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5845 Shirley Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:34:22 +0000 http://fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5845 26 (W) “Quality of “Songs of Silence”. Rightback – I think you are looking for something that doesn’t exist here. Surely the quality of Mendelsohnn’s work is that it is silent i.e. Wordless. I don’t think you need to know the name of any specific song.

]]> By: stilt http://www.fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5837 stilt Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:01:57 +0000 http://fifteensquared.net/2007/10/15/guardian-24201-sat-6-octaraucaria-blind-mans-pluff/#comment-5837 I don’t know about Collins, but the OED doesn’t give “coly” as a spelling for the fish (I admit that I didn’t realise anything was amiss when solving it). I’m sure you must be right about HORATIO: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” and all that. I think the idea at X is that “anthus” is the Greek for flower (I entered XANTHOS myself, thinking “anthos” would be a more normal transliteration, but I see there’s a U in the published solution).

This is only the second of these jigsaws that I’ve done, and like the first I found it considerably easier than I expected and entirely enjoyable. I avoided tackling them for a long time because I didn’t realise that the letter by each clue indicated the initial of the answer, so assumed they’d be impossibly difficult. I don’t know why the Guardian doesn’t provide this bit of info by the grid; I’m sure other people must be scared off these puzzles for the same reason.

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