Comments on: Guardian 24,547 (Sat 15 Nov)/Araucaria – Playing Cat and Mouse

By: rightback

rightback — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:25:54 +0000

How does ‘director’ come to mean ‘re-arranged’ or ‘re-directed’?

Good question. I don’t mind the odd nounal anagram indicator in the Guardian, like ‘disaster’ or ‘confusion’, but ‘director’ is ridiculous. Perhaps we’ve just mis-interpreted the clue, but I can’t find a better reading.

By: Ralph G

Ralph G — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:25:30 +0000

9a. ‘Broaching’ certainly indicates piercing with a sharp object (derived, I see, from the French for ‘a spit’) but the Chambers’ definition goes on “to open up or begin”, a usage common, I think, in ‘broach a topic of conversation’.
18d. re indication of thus > COSI. I agree that the wording on its own does not steer the solver towards translating ‘so’ into Italian, and perhaps that would not be fair anyway, but I suppose that the setter would count on solvers getting the first two letters NI, looking for a capital city and guessing NI COSI A. Then the connection with ‘Cosi _fan_ tutte’, confirming the guess, is fair enough; rather good, I thought.
In 1d (an easy ‘opener’ that helped with six across clues) I took ‘director’ to be an anagram indicator at first reading but on reflection I can’t see how it works. Anagram indicators are more often adjectives or verbs. How does ‘director’ come to mean ‘re-arranged’ or ‘re-directed’?

By: Ian Hinds

Ian Hinds — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:13:29 +0000

One of the easiest Saturday puzzles for some time. Great stuff as ever.

By: smutchin

smutchin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:45:14 +0000

5dn – I initially put UNVEILS until I realised it couldn’t be that from the across clues. Personally, I think my answer fits the clue better – both for the definition and the wordplay. Hmph!

By: rightback

rightback — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:34:35 +0000

Geoff, thanks very much for the clarification of 18dn: I didn’t realise the phrase was in Chambers, or that ‘cosi’ was the Italian for ‘thus’.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:23:51 +0000

9a I eventually parsed this in the same way as you, having been unable to determine anything better. However, ‘Sol’ is not a recognised abbreviation for ‘Solent’ and ‘broaching’ would indicate an insertion rather than a truncation.

18d ‘cosi fan tutte’ is defined in Chambers as ‘that is what all women do’ or ‘all women are like that’ so it was not strictly necessary to know that it is also the title of an opera (but it helped). ‘Cosi’ is the Italian for ‘thus’ but the ‘(as with fan)’ was not exactly a clear indicator for the need to translate ‘thus’.

27a Jack Straw has been Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and the Secretary of State for Justice since June 2007.