Comments on: Guardian 24,633 – Araucaria

By: Barnaby Page

Barnaby Page — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:16:28 +0000

I wonder how many of our non-British solvers got CITY EDITOR – it’s a purely British term (in the sense of “financial editor”, referring of course to the capped City of London; in North America it’s used to mean “editor in charge of local news”).

By: Garry

Garry — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:09:52 +0000

AM for American has been used several times in recent months.

By: steven

steven — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:48:59 +0000

Ian,Dave,

It is bizzare what goes thro your mind .One early flash thro mine was Brisbane Girl!!! The beacon dims.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:14:39 +0000

Ciaran #26. Yes, I thought Board Games, just a quick flash really! I just couldn’t think of anything else for B at that stage, and I had this vision of a pool table having a board in it! But this was only for a second or two until I got polo.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:36:48 +0000

I was doing ok, then my mind went dead with just 5 to go. And having seen the blog 4 of them were easier than one’s I’d already got. My excuse is I’d spent too much time fighting a Text Adventure engine only to find it wasn’t my fault, the damn thing had bugs! So my poor brain hurt.

But it was all less of a painful experience tha Araucaria used to be for me not that long ago, so something is clicking at last.

My only query is 1ac. It’s not just that clue, but other setters as well, there seems to a trend to put the word play indicators in what looks like the wrong place. It didn’t stop me solving it, so its not that bad. But even when I now know how to parse it, my mind still wants to associate “back” with “garment” rather than “film”. The correct parse is with “of film” of course, but my mind still doesn’t want to read it like that.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:14:17 +0000

I thought this was a great puzzle with BG a nice indicator rather than having the theme as a subtitle. I liked ONSET a much clued word but i havent seen this incarnation of it before, and I liked the Spoonerism.
I also liked the inclusion of SPAM again disproving the recent scurrilous article in the Guardian accusing us all of being stuck in a 1950s middle England rural idyll.
My granny ( b. Belfast 1895 ) was called Nesta known as Nessie but I agree it is very uncommon and would not have been fair in any other type of clue than a hidden word.
Stiofain

By: Geoff Anderson

Geoff Anderson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:14:03 +0000

Ball Games definitely.

Bagatelle, Real Tennis, Billiards and so Pool, are French in origin, while Polo is thought to be Persian. Golf is Scottish and therefore truly British. Rugby and Football are sufficiently violent to be genuinely British. But I’m afraid the word ‘cricket’ derives from the Old French ‘criquet’ meaning ‘stick’, so it’s likely that our most English game is also secretly French.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:50:45 +0000

Although I was the one to point it out, I quite agree, Eileen – the use of this device fits the surface reading like a glove, which is not always the case with the great man!.

By: Ian Payn

Ian Payn — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:44:05 +0000

“Ian – for a while I had a nasty idea it was going to be the names of Brigadier Generals, and then I’d be truly stuffed!” – Ciaran McNulty

++++Yes, it’s amazing what bizarre things go through your mind. Is Brigadier Generals more or less ludicrous that Barry Gray? It has to be close…Brothers Grimm (as suggested by Steven) is a beacon of sanity by comparison.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:33:46 +0000

Both Collins and Chambers give COY as a *military* abbreviation for ‘company’, as suggested by JamesG in Comment 6 – and it was clued as “soldiers’ company”, after all, so no unfairness there.

Despite the fact that we’ve had ARIES three times, I think, in the last couple of weeks, I thought 9ac was, in fact, a very good clue. Perhaps we should give extra credit for a clever use of a well-worn device!