Comments on: Guardian 25,189 / Araucaria

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:40:06 +0000

Hi maarvarq

Sorry, I don’t understand either of your queries: Chambers is the only one of my dictionaries that has NIM-OIL and it gives it a hyphen; DJ = dinner jacket [Chambers and Collins] = tuxedo.

By: maarvarq

maarvarq — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 04:31:38 +0000

Not particularly impressed by this one, particularly the obscurities of 13ac and 17dn. Why is 13 ac hyphenated, and why has everyone accepted without comment that DJ=tuxedo?

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 20:32:30 +0000

Just dropping by after finally filling in some long-standing blanks (all but NIM-OIL).

The trouble with themes like this is once the theme is “cracked”, one either knows the answers or can readily pull up a resource (Woolf’s bibliography, in this case). I was reminded of the WW2 airplane puzzle from a few months back.

I’m fine with Morse being a cryptographer – I think people are forgetting that *any* encrypting is decodeable if one knows the key. If one does not actually know Morse Code, a message just sounds like static (or flashing lights, or smoke signals, what have you). Granted, the encryption is not *intended* to conceal the message, but it does.

Once I brute-forced DIAGHILEV (and I was so close in some ways!) HERB GERARD was hilarious.

Anyway, thanks A. and E. for the puzzle and the blog!

By: Peta

Peta — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 01:24:12 +0000

Thank you, Eileen.
This crossword appeared in today’s Canberra Times (22 Dec). I usually enjoy Araucaria’s puzzles (along with Paul’s) but this one stopped me. Nim-oil, herb gerard, locarno and Diaghilev were the culprits. Orlando came quickly and soon after Dalloway pointed me to Virginia Woolf. I didn’t have a clue why Thora=third – thanks for the explanation.

By: Frances

Frances — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:30:52 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I enjoyed this but needed your explanations for several clues.

In 4d, I took ‘E’ and ‘V’ to be the 5th from the front and the 5th from the end of the alphabet.

By: paul8hours

paul8hours — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:45:50 +0000

VW and the books went in very quickly for me which rather took the fun out of the puzzle, especially as it was not one of his best. Quite a low ‘kids solveability’ rating for this effort from the long serving Master although I have to say he has shown in many puzzles that he keeps up with modern events.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:26:43 +0000

Hi scarpia

I actually included a comment about Kidman’s prosthetic nose [ludicrously unnecessary] and then decided to delete it, in order not to put people off: it mustn’t!

By: Martin H

Martin H — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:21:13 +0000

Hi Sil – I too was vaguely uneasy about ‘sixth’ and ‘tenth’ without ‘the’. We would find ‘first and last’ acceptable for A and Z, I think, particularly if they occurred together in a clue. Is it a step too far to call B ‘second’ and so on, with E being ‘fifth’? If so could we treat the numerals in the same way, 1 being ‘first’ and so on – even in their Roman forms? I’m not entirely convinced, but it is some sort of a rationale.

By: scarpia

scarpia — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:49:15 +0000

Thanks Eileen.
I enjoyed this one,being familiar with the works of VW was obviously a big help.Guessed LOCARNO and didn’t see the wordplay until reading your blog.
Glad you mentioned The Hours,it is a fantastic novel,especially if read just after Mrs.Dalloway.I’ve not seen the film,which I know is said to be very good.Saw a clip containing Nicole Kidman with a false nose and I don’t think I could take the film seriously.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:28:42 +0000

Well done, Sil, and thanks for letting me know [it's so annoying not to remember]. I can go to bed now! [I'm off to Copenhagen quite early tomorrow morning]

I’d only got as far as looking at this week’s puzzles. – I thought I remembered it as being more recent. How time does fly – thanks again!