Sorry I’m so late, but I always read the paper a day behind, sometimes two days, so can’t really join in your blogfest, but thanks for the entertainment. I never look until I’m done.

I think Brian Harris hits the nail on the head. The problem with this one was the sheer number of incomplete clues (nearly 50%) combined with the fact that they weren’t identified.

This made me unwilling to invest much time in any given clue because of the high chance that I was reading it incorrectly (looking for a literal definition where none existed, or assuming it was absent when it was actually there).

For the same reason, I was wary of putting much confidence in those I did solve, as there was always the chance that I’d put the clue in the wrong category, and come up with an incorrect solution that worked purely by coincidence.

If there had been fewer incompletes, or they’d been asterisked, I’d have been much happier. I see that today’s (Saturday’s) is along similar lines but I guess that’s rather more acceptable on a prize crossword.

17d Lisbon! That’s a really terrible clue – bon isn’t even Portuguese for ‘good’ (it’s bom/boa).

I do sometimes enjoy Araucaria, but often find the clues overstretch my vocabulary – and my idea of a good puzzle is one I can solve without using any reference books or resorting to Google.

Still, moving on, I’m just about to start today’s…

# Eileen Says:
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm

“Does the fact that you haven’t heard of the expression ‘the great wen’ mean thatit’s unfair? We usually all agree that it’s a poor day when we don’t learn something.”

Quite often I learn two or three new words when solving a cryptic, but they are usually in the answer rather than the clue And a good clue would usually allow me to hazard a guess even if I have never heard of the word (Wednesday’s “aitchbone” being a fine example) .

“My children were encouraged not to describe a new food as ‘horrible’, simply because they didn’t like it.”

Good. My point was not that Araucaria is “horrible”, rather that relative to the other Guardian setters his puzzles are out of place. Typically I can get 90-100% of most Guardian setters, with Araucaria I can barely get started. Admittedly, I’ve only been trying the cryptics for a year or so, but seeing Araucaria at the bottom of the grid makes my heart sink.

“As a regularly self-confessed Araucaria ‘girl’[!] [a devotee of over thirty years] I hope I’ve usually expressed reservations about clues when I’ve had them. It’s certainly not blind ‘hero worship’.”

Absolutely fair enough. I’ve just noticed that he seems to have an elevated status amongst the setters and the solvers, and I personally don’t see why. Perhaps one day it’ll click

“Can we just agree to differ?”

Of course! I suspect that Araucaria is the Marmite of setters