Guardian 24,358/Araucaria – Roma and Firenza
Posted by beermagnet on April 10th, 2008
I saw Eileen’s plea in puzzle G24359 comments and agree with her – this puzzle needs a blog – and made some notes. Then Real Life got in the way. Then I saw Muck’s comment over on the G Talk site which I have shamelessly raided.
So I have slapped this blog in without a by-your-leave (and by now after too much to drink). So let’s see if it is still there in the morning.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BIRDSONG (DR)< SON inside BIG Ref: The modern classic by Sebastian Faulks both a “great war novel” and a “Great War novel” though “great” is required to lead to BIG. Nevertheless one of the great clues in the puzzle |
| 5 | SHIFTY 1 FT inside SHY 12 isn’t 12 ac. When I got this on first glance … (cont. at 13D) |
| 9 | BEAUMARIS B(ritish) EAU MAR IS Err. Oh dear I thought I had this decoded yesterday – I guess I was pleased when I finally got it and saw the EAU for water in there – can anyone help? Full clue: British sea water variously rendered at Welsh castle (9) Muck says: Eau Maris, for sea water – Is that right? |
| 11 | GROWL GROW-L L for “plate” again – I didn’t get this due to 8D trouble (qv) |
| 12 | MICHELANGELO Our renaissance hero M “number” then (CHALLENGE)* inside IO (“10″) |
| 15 | SIX-SHOOTER Sixer is a brownie or cub scout leader of six. S[econd]-HOOT “Owl’s comment” inside SIXER |
| 18 | SPERMACETI The spice is MACE inside (PRIEST)*. The monster is a whale. Spermaceti is something stupidly put in cosmetics – can’t be still, can it? |
| 21 | BRUNELLESCHI BRUNEL-(CHISEL)* You really had to get the reference in 7D to understand which architect it was going to be – but somehow I spotted the “chisel used” as an anagram, and then the …ESCHI ending sprung to mind – and then this, 7D and 22D crystallised – a proper PDM – this is what made the puzzle great for me |
| 24 | AROMA Where was 12′s dome? A Roma (in Rome) |
| 25 | RAINSTORM [b]RAINSTORM |
| 26 | DUSTER First letters of During Unofficially etc. i.e. “openings” (least clever clue in the grid IMO) |
| 27 | ODYSSEUS (YO[u] SUSSED)* Beautiful clue – ‘specially when sussed on the first pass – Oh! I felt I was on a winner here |
| Down | |
| 1 | BABE I liked this clue – the definition “being in arms” is cute The answer given is BABY. The reason is explained in the comments |
| 3 | SUMMIT SU(MM)IT |
| 4,2 | NORF CIRCULAR ROAD (Lunatic car horror)* + d(ied). A London route not as far from the centre as the M25 (but only the Northern half) |
| 6 | HIGH NOON A film. Rank=high. 12 isn’t 12 ac (again) |
| 7 | FLORENTINE I didn’t know this was also a biscuit – more familiar with the pizza with the egg on top that my SO usually orders. Where is 21′s 22? In a lovely city in Italy |
| 8 | YELL-OW-ROOT O woe is me I put in YARROW-ROOT thinking “Yarroo!” as the fat-owl of the remove might have howled. I have never heard of Yellow-root. I had heard of Yarrow which is why I didn’t question my mistake, but it is not the root that is the medicinal part (I just checked) |
| 10 | SELF-SATISFIED (fifties AD less)* |
| 13 | CHESS BOARD HESS-BOAR in CD (cont from 5A) … and this, giving oodles of first letters, I thought this was going to be an easy A. How wrong I was. I thought this a classic clue too. |
| 14 | OBSEQUIOUS Obsequies= funeral rites. Replace E= drug by OU= dark blues, for obsequious |
| 17 | AMPERAGE AM-PER-AGE |
| 20 | THESIS THE-SIS |
| 22 | DOME DO-ME Maybe. I am only sure of this because of the integration with other clues – help! |
| 22 | AMOS DD Lady Amos is in the Lords |
April 10th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I agree that this puzzle was worth blogging. And thanks for acknowledging my contribution.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Even though I couldn’t complete this one (AMOS and OBSEQUIOUS all passed me by – should have spotted “dark blue” = OU though, and SAFE for DOME didn’t help either), I thought the 12 refs were nice, especially when you’d almost expect the links to be great works of art from 12ac.
I might be pedantic (or wrong), but I had BABY for 1d – the “BY” being in the clue directly.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I have BABY for 1dn too.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Thank you Muck [although I couldn't find your website] and Beermat [you should try Florentine biscuits!]for your contributions. I really did think this one should not go unremarked. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
9ac: EAU [French,''water' + MARIS [Latin. 'of the sea'] – ‘variously rendered’: I thought this was great.
1dn I had ‘baby’ too.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
For anyone who couldn’t find my blog, on talk.guardian.co.uk, here is a copy so that you can see just how much of beermagnet’s blog is a verbatim copy. No problem – he acknowledged that he ‘shamelessly raided’ from it!
++ muck on talk.guardian.co.uk ++
Araucaria 24358 April 9th hasn’t been blogged still on fifteensquared.net.
A good puzzle with an Italian Renaissance theme.
ACROSS
1. Birdsong. A great war novel by Sebastian Faulks. SON=issue & DR< in BIG=great
5. 12 inches is IFT, in SHY
9. Beaumaris is a Welsh castle. Eau Maris, for sea water, isn’t in Chambers
11. GROW+L
12. Our first renaissance hero (Challenge+M+10)*
16. Sixer is a brownie or cub scout leader of six.
18. The spice is mace. The monster is a whale.
21. Brunel is our engineer + (chisel)* for our second renaissance hero.
24. Where was 12′s dome? A Roma (in Rome).
25. b(rainstorm)
26. Initial letters
27. Greek hero – (yo+sussed)*
DOWN
3. SU(MM)IT
4,2. (Lunatic car horror)* + d(ied). A London route not as far from the centre as the M25.
6. A film. Rank=high. 12 isn’t 12 ac.
7. Where is 21′s 22? In a city in Italy.
8. Yell+ow+root
10. (fifties AD less)*
13. Hess+Boar in CD
14. Obsequies= funeral rites. Replace E= drug by OU= dark blues, for obsequious.
17. am+per+age
20. the+sis
22. DOME ???
23. double def ??
April 10th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Agree with BABY for 1d and Eileen’s explanation of EAU MARIS for 9a.
27d: DOME (as in Brunelleschi’s in Florence’s Duomo and Michelangelo’s in St Peter’s in Rome) is the ‘vault’, and “my’…’ will be no problem’, ie ‘will be no problem for me’ = it will DO ME (fine).
Lovely crossword.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The Italian name for Florence is Firenze, not Firenza
April 11th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Wah! 1D is BABY. Obvious now I see it. I didn’t even check it in the published answers. So that’s another I didn’t get.
As for Firenza – It’s the way I tell ‘em ;^)
[ And I've now understood why this appeared only as a link on the home page - but maybe that would be a good thing - so you don't see the answers unless you choose to go down to the detailed page. These days, if I can, I have a go at the Indie after tackling the G at lunchtime, but sometimes inadvertantly see some answers on this blog's homepage when I check it to see if the G's blog has arrived. Is it worth airing this subject? ]
April 11th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
How did you make your post appear as a link? It’s never happened before but as you say it might be a useful feature.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
At the very start of the blog I must of accidentally clicked that “more” button that puts in an html tag that looks like this:
Crikey, I wonder if that’s going to do something odd to this comment.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
OK. You clearly can’t put that html tag in a comment even for it to appear in the clear. To see what it looks like in the code, using square brackets instead of the angle brackets, it looks like [!--more--]
April 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
In Araucaria’s 0f 19th April (24367), I have the answer to 11 across but can anyone explain it to me please?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:15 am
Stuart, we don’t discuss live prize puzzles until after the deadline here.
I’m sure Rightback will be along with a blog for yesterday’s puzzle on Friday of next week. In the meantime YHM