Comments on: Guardian 24899 – Araucaria

By: gm4hqf

gm4hqf — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:35:20 +0000

The one that beat me was 12 Down, Carter Ruck. Never heard of them. I assumed that Dirt was MUCK & it put me completely on the wrong track.

By: Frances

Frances — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:53:39 +0000

@Tom Hutton comment 29 – I’m 22 and I had no problems with the Muffin the Mule reference.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:58:32 +0000

I’m coming to this very late – so late, in fact, that I wonder if anyone will even see this. However, I wonder if everyone thus far has got the homophone parsing of 6ac slightly wrong.

I read it as “catcall” = “mews”, and “not well received” = “ick”, in the sense of the colloquial expression of distaste. That way, the homophone works perfectly, as you get the “z” sound required.

By: Tom_I

Tom_I — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:53:11 +0000

I had to abandon this overnight and come back to it, but still failed on CARTER-RUCK.

Nothing much to add, but I don’t think anyone replied to Tom Hutton’s comment @29 about 7d (Hard stuff is cheerful [7]). Chambers gives SPIRIT as a verb meaning (among other things) to cheer. Therefore SPIRITS (3rd person singular) could be equated with “is cheerful”. Well, just about. I wonder if Gordius could have got away with that without comment. Clearly The Master can.

By: Shed

Shed — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:01:20 +0000

Eileen #13: music is pronounced ‘mew sick’ in Abba’s Thankyou for the Music – but they came from Sweden, of course.

By: stiofain

stiofain — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:54:25 +0000

cool uncle yap we love your specifics

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:47:05 +0000

>Also, “wild tree without oxygen” in 5d suggests an anagram of a type of tree without the o, surely? Not ‘tree’ _with_ an o?

I think I have mentioned this before : treat “without” as the opposite of “within”

>mentioning of Cressida in the preamble

Sorry about that … I will henceforth remember to be general above and specific below

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:47:36 +0000

BTW, agree with you, Eileen, about the mentioning of Cressida in the preamble. These things still happen every now and then.
So please, dear bloggers …

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:42:57 +0000

Yes, Andrew, I thought so, and I just found out that there are publications by (a.o.) the Oxford University Press in which the horse is called Rosinante with an S.
[I wouldn't want to challenge Araucaria's knowledge in these kind of things anyway]
But still, why anglicise a name?
[Well, if I were from Novosibirsk, I probably would call you Andrej ]

By: Jerb

Jerb — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:41:32 +0000

Sil and Andrew – I think it’s the case when a work of literature’s been around so long that spellings change and develop (the Spaniards of today would spell the title character Don Quijote, for example).

By the way, I’d heard of Muffin the Mule for some reason and although I’m not exactly under 25, I’m not far off. He’s one of those characters whose names in the air, I guess.