Comments on: Guardian 25,017 (Sat 22 May)/Araucaria – A smile a minute

By: Anne

Anne — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:29:16 +0000

Thank you, Gaufrid. “Oast” is a new word for me. I have just found it in the dictionary: a kiln for drying hops.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:32:39 +0000

Hi Anne
The definition is ‘to cook’, ie ROAST. The wordplay is ‘washer’ minus ‘was he’ = [was he]R + OAST (as in oast house, a place where hops are dried).

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:16:20 +0000

I still don’t understand 22D.

Was he leaving the washer-dryer to cook?

Can someone please enlighten?

By: sheffieldhatter

sheffieldhatter — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:33:42 +0000

This was so straightforward that most of the clues could be solved from the definitions alone. For instance, 27ac has an amusing whimsical definition but the main definition actually renders it redundant. Is Araucaria slipping or has he been instructed to dumb down? I expect the prize crossword to be more of a challenge than this.

By: rightback

rightback — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:58:12 +0000

Thanks for the corrections to 1 and 2 down, now edited above – I had to blog this in a hurry and didn’t look at 1 down carefully enough when blogging (which is strange because I blogged immediately after solving and I’m sure I checked the anagram & noticed the extra ‘ER’ when I solved the clue).

Shirley – you are quite right, I knew I’d seen the word somewhere before and that’s exactly where. Thanks!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 31 May 2010 19:56:25 +0000

8 minutes? hmmmmmmmm, i wonder. Then, at least it was eight minutes with all finished, rather than some of the recent past’s 23 minutes with three wrong.
Glad they take me a bit longer: you get a bit of flavour when you chew.

By: Shirley

Shirley — Sun, 30 May 2010 09:52:00 +0000

14D Rightback – have you never read any Sherlock Holmes stories? He was always telling Watson about his monographs on subjects ranging from the Motets of Lassus to a hundred different types of tobacco ash!

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:01:43 +0000

OOer. Despite half a dozen Araucaria finishes, I never got anywhere with his Saturday ones, until this one. Yee Hah! Trouble with yee hahs though is once you’ve done it, that’s it for keeps.

Still it was nice to have one that even I could enjoy instead of fighting with gritted teeth.

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 29 May 2010 19:48:32 +0000

Hi. I’m at it again with a bad day. Apologies STELLA Heath!

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 29 May 2010 19:46:36 +0000

Hi Liz Heath re 2d. As my comment in 6 makes clear, I also like Tokyocolin’s (and your) suggestion as providing a tighter fit to the solution. I am less sure about your ‘of course’. I have so far failed to find it, but there has been a clue in the last few weeks which referred forward to the next answer, if I remember rightly. It was this I had in mind,
The real question to be solved was the ref. to ‘former’ which led me and rightback to ponder about ER1. Once I’d thought of my own idea of ‘former’ = ‘previous’, inertia set in – of course it did not specify which ‘er’ in terrier needed removing, but the answer to that was clear from the clue. Both ideas solve the problem.