Comments on: Guardian 25,197 (Christmas Jumbo, Sat 18 Dec)/Araucaria – Moonlight departure

By: matt

matt — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:30:19 +0000

Cheers Rightback. I will miss your posts for their detail and humour. The wit was often self-deprecating, but I don’t think you had much to be self-deprecating about.

Good luck.

By: PLL

PLL — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:13:40 +0000

Re the thematic connections, there seems to be a minor theme of canines (WOOLF, DOG-FOX, DINGO), whimsically linked to the theology via DOG/GOD wordplay? DINGO is also vaguely but elegantly echoed by INGOT.

Re Davy’s comment, am slightly surprised that the Rev. didn’t keep it clean with an ornithological clue instead of petto, since he tends to be one for the birds. That was a new word to me, though, so I’m not complaining!

Thanks muchly, rightback, from a frequent reader but rare commenter. The replacement will have a high standard to match!

By: Robi

Robi — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:13:37 +0000

Belated thanks to rightback.

I eventually solved this, albeit with a lot of steam coming out of my computer. Pandarus took some finding.

By: molonglo

molonglo — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 23:11:38 +0000

Thanks rightback, the hare chased for years by us unfitter hounds – I always enjoyed your blogs and wish you success with the TCC.

By: Davy

Davy — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:29:19 +0000

Thanks rightback and good luck for the future,

I finally finished this after ignoring it completely for over a week. On the day of publication, I only got two clues and thought that it was beyond me and so cast it aside. I think it was Daniel Miller who described it as doable and so I had a second attempt at it. Surprisingly it wasn’t half as difficult as I had previously thought and slowly (ever so slowly) I started to make inroads. What a marvellous puzzle it turned out to be and to finish it was a great achievement for me.

I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned Arry’s use of the word tit (petto) in the clue for TRAIT and this from a man of the cloth. I do hope that Ian W wasn’t doing this puzzle with his young daughter as he would be outraged.

By: Carrots

Carrots — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:22:47 +0000

Auntie E you have given me quite a TURN! Charles The Hundredth ?!?! One is more than enough, thank you!

Whilst Googling to find out what number our future king comes in at, I was intrigued to discover that Charlotte Cory, the ceramacist, has produced “A Royal Mug In Waiting”, available from the Rebecca Hossack Gallery. It`s eighteen quid, but has a lovely portrait of a Spaniel on it.

Guess what I`m going to do next……

By: liz

liz — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:15:29 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Rightback, and all the others over the years. And good luck with The Times championship. We’ll miss your contributions!

I saved this puzzle until Christmas Eve and found it relatively easy to get into — my first was ILL MET etc. Still managed to make one mistake — NIGHTCAP instead of NIGHTJAR. Had a niggling feeling that it was wrong at the time, but didn’t follow that up…

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 15:55:37 +0000

sschua (#23), again re 12ac, I think you’re parsing is right, but the first part of it (DEMONS) is nót properly defined [unlike TRAIT]. Suggesting that DEMONS is a part of DEMONSTRATE (‘display’) does indeed link both 12acs here, but is it enough to define DEMONS? Or should we know from 16,12 that the first part has ‘spirit’ as the definition?

sidey, yes, that’s a thought – and you’re right, of course, although Eileen’s idea of Charles C is an attractive one too.
On previous occasion I wasn’t happy with eg V for ‘fifth’ and X for ‘tenth’ [without 'the'], both of which cannot be explained in a similar way as C(enti).

By: sidey

sidey — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 15:09:57 +0000

C also stands for centi the prefix meaning one hundredth.

By: scchua

scchua — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 15:00:31 +0000

Thanks Eileen@18 and Gaufrid@19. Got it, add “earth” to “den”, “lair”, “holt”, and “covert”.

Sil van den Hoek@21, re 12A, I think we’re both making the same point (my@17). “Characteristic” would be a definition for TRAIT but that would overlap with the clue for DEMONSTRATE, plus “(as some would say)” would be out of place for the clue for TRAIT.