Guardian 24,484 – Araucaria
Posted by Ciaran McNulty on September 3rd, 2008
As is often with Araucaria, something of a challenge but satisfying to solve. I guessed the long linked clue starting at 7D fairly early from the pattern of ‘inherit’ which gave a lot of handy checking letters to power through the rest.
14A was especially challenging but luckily I recently spent a weekend in Honiton so was aware of Beer from the map!
* = anagram
“” = homophone
(lowercase) = removed
(UPPERCASE) = inserted
Across
1. INDOMITABLE. IN + DOMI(cile) + TABLE.
9. LE HAVRE. L(EH)AV + RE.
10. ESCAPER. E,S+CAPER. Caper for ‘skip’ was one I didn’t spot easily.
11. STRESSFUL. STRESS + FLU*.
12. PARSI. PARSIMONY – most of MONEY.
13. EATS. Initials of Eggs And Toasted Sandwiches.
14. BRANSCOMBE. BRANS + CO + MBE. Town in Devon near a town called Beer. When a horse refuses to take a jump it ‘brans’.
16. ABHORRENCE. CARBONHERE*.
19. INCH. Double meaning, scots word for a small coastal island.
20. EMEND. Double meaning, ‘edit’ and also ‘without errors’.
23. HORMONE. “Whore moan”, a bit rude!
24. POITIER. Film star, Poitiers was the battle.
25. HOLD THE FORT. H + OLD + THEF(OR)T.
Down
2. DIVES. Latin for ‘rich man’, also in the parable of Dives and Lazarus.
4. THE GLEN. In the online edition this is marked as (7) but must be (3,4). Monarch of the Glen is a Landseer painting + partial alagram of LENGTHENED?
5. BACKPACK. BACK + PACK.
6. EXPERIMENTALIST. EX(PERI + MENTAL)IST. A Peri is an Arabic fairy.
7,3,21,1. BLESSED ARE THE MEEK FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH. I haven’t completely explained it: B(LESS)ED + A + RE(THEME)EK + [FORTHEYSHALLIN?] + HER + IT + THEE ART + H. Explanations of the middle section would be welcome.
8. PRAISE THE LORD caPRA IS ETHEL OR Dora.
15. CRUDE OIL. CLOUDIER*
17. ENTREAT. (h)EN + TREAT.
18. CREEPIE. CREE + PIE.
19. SLIGO. S + L + I GO. County in Ireland.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 am
FORTHEYSHALLIN is FORTH (out) YE (you must back) SH (call for silence) ALL IN (exhausted).
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Lots of fun today, I thought, and not too difficult – 7,3,21,1 was quite guessable just from A_E in the second word and the start of the clue.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
4d “+ partial anagram of LENGTHENED?”
THE GLEN and ‘end’ (part of clue) ‘could be’ (is an anagram of) ‘lengthened’
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
I had a couple of different interpretations here. I knew Branscombe and so didn’t need to look anything up and so took bran[s] as being the refuse[s] from cereal. [Thought it was stretching it a bit - even for Araucaria!]
And I didn’t know [and can't find] the second meaning of ‘emend’ and read it as being hidden in trEMENDous.
I thought the oblique reference to Elsie and Doris Waters in 8dn was brilliant! I remember them from my childhood as a comedy duo, Gert and Daisy, on the radio. They were the sisters of Jack Warner [Dixon of Dock Green].
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Andrew – Aha, thank you for the explanation!
Eileen – I hadn’t even spotted Emend hiding there in Tremendous! I think your reasoning is far more likely.
So does the print edition give 4D as 4,3?
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
No wonder I couldn’t get 4 down! I got the reference about ‘monach of the Glen’, but couldn’t figure it because the answer was (7) – Good old ‘Gruaniad’ typo gremlin at work again obviously!
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Liked Poitier and Le Havre, wasn’t so keen on the rather coarse hormone. The enumeration typo meant we couldn’t finish it. Still, as we’re nowhere near a newsagent selling UK papers, we were very grateful for the chance to print this off for free!
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
What’s a CREEPIE (18dn)?
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
A creepie is a traditional Orkney milking stool [with thanks to Google].
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
4D The version in the paper also indicated the solution should have seven letters, rather than (3,4).
‘Takes plunges’ for ‘dives’ was guessably obvious, ond pam mae pawb yn defnyddio Lladin – ‘vir’, ‘versus’, ‘dives’? I took biology
instead :-
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Apart from the number of letters issue, surely 4 dn is faulty in that the “s” after “monarchy” implies that “the glen’s” plus “end” could be “lengthened”?
“Landseer’s monarchy ( i.e.the glen) end could be lengthened” would be more accurate.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
P.S. Who else knew “bran” meant to refuse. I can’t find it anywhere.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
John
I don’t know where Ciaran got his ‘horse’ reference from, but one of Chambers’ definitions for ‘bran’ is – ‘the coarser part or refuse of anything’.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
So I could have been right after all!
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
re nothing at all – to continue the Scottish sub-theme (4, 18) – the fairy character, Fairy Nuff, in the Bud Neill’s magnificent Lobey Dosser strip was always referred to as a “tackety-booted peri”.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
So I’ve been eating All Refuse all this time thinking it was good for me…
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Harry – I’d always thought a peri was a Scottish fairy – but I see from Collind and OED that it is, indeed, Persian. . Our friends had a sheltie called Peri: they maintained that in Scotland shelties are called ‘peri dogs’.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Of course, I meant ‘Collins’.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Bit peed off with 4D as we had got the rest but did not think, silly me, that a clue given as (7) is actually (3,4). It is complicated enough as is without this addition!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:31 am
This crossword was completely spoiled for me, the answer “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” was blogged in yesterdays responses to Gordius.Please desist.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Couple of queries; I’d be grateful for clarification.
9A In LE HAVRE where does the EH come from?
17D How does “to party” = TREAT?
4D This is the kind of clue (and Grauniad typo) that makes me think I should take up happy slapping or some less cerebral pursuit.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Eh? What did you say?
September 4th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Ah yes, thanks Shed.
But treat = party??
I’m thinking of politics negotiations and nice things but none fit both unless party is a verb as well as a noun meaning to negotiate?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Chambers gives treat = “[noun] a free entertainment, pleasure excursion or feast”. I vaguely remember seeing expressions such as “Christmas treat” used to mean a children’s party.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Agree comments re 4D. Crossword was printed in today’s(Oct. 11th) Brisbane’s Courier-Mail and we were asked for a (7) word. Only the anagram of “the glen” + “end” = lengthened gave the solve.
Roy.