Comments on: Guardian 25312 – Araucaria

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:01:05 +0000

Robi – I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that Araucaria intended to cause offence – I am certain he didn’t. My problem is with the thoughtless use of expressions which, though they may be have once been regarded as acceptable, are now rightly seen as patronising and offensive to women.

By: Robi

Robi — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:31:48 +0000

Val & Wolfie; I think the Reverend might be mortified if he thought that he had caused any offence. TROUBLE AND STRIFE is a well-known Cockney phrase; MY DEAR OLD DUTCH is a song (like ‘my old man said follow the van….’); SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED is referenced in the Rider Haggard story – ‘according to Haggard’s daughter Lilias, the phrase “She-who-must-be-obeyed” originated from his childhood and “the particularly hideous aspect” of one rag-doll;’ HER INDOORS might be seen as mildly offensive but was used by Arthur Daley in ‘Minder.’

So, I don’t think any offence intended, so perhaps none should be taken.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:16:30 +0000

Thank you Val – it is good to know that mine is not a lone voice here!

By: Val

Val — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:15:22 +0000

Wolfie @31, yes, I found it disturbing as well and would have preferred it if the editor had overruled on the theme. Starting reading through the comments I was very surprised that no one said anything earlier on but then realised that the early commentators all seemed to be male. Is this perhaps something that’s easier to overlook if you’re not the usual target? The reference back to Cameron’s use of Winner’s catchphrase is an offensive, IMHO, here as it was then. It really isn’t funny.

I do tend to make allowances for people of another generation because norms have changed. That does to some extent excuse Araucaria (but not Cameron!).

By: Davy

Davy — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:25:58 +0000

Thanks Uncle Yap,

I’ve just finished this today and it turned out to be great fun and not that difficult eithor. I got nowhere with it yesterday because I had put PLUG instead of PUFF for 2d and didn’t even bother to check. My wife said it was PUFF but I just ignored her and went my own way (sorry Wolfie). Once PUFF was in place, everything fell together quite quickly.

I certainly don’t think that Arry was meaning to be sexist but these are all common expressions mainly from the past. I could be wrong but I think that HER INDOORS came from Arthur Daly in Minder.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:58:49 +0000

Carrots @35

I could not have produced a better illustration of the prevalence of casual sexism in our society if I had stayed up all night trying to invent one myself. Surely vulgar abuse has no place on this site.

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:51:36 +0000

My old dutch – surely Duchess..

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:49:14 +0000

great stuff… great clues

By: Carrots

Carrots — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:48:22 +0000

Get a life Wolfie!!

….or a wife, assuming you can find one who does`t keep your balls in her handbag.

For those of us who bewail cutting the grass, trimming hedges or painting the walls Springtime Puce (absolutely indistinguishable from Autumn Purple), the alternative to married bliss is inconceivable. The most joyous sport in late middle age is thwarting the attempts of `Er Indoors` to make oneself useful.
As laziness is the one thing at which I excell, the Old Gal hasn`t an icicle in hell`s chance of ever prevailing.

But, after nearly fifty years, she still tries, bless her, she still tries.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:52:53 +0000

Maybe it was because we were a bit tired (like Stella), but I can’t say that for us it all fell very quickly in place today.
Surely not in the way it did for Ian @12 – 21,22,9 contains only 3 six-letter ‘words’, and after that it was a matter of just inserting the answers?
In fact, we couldn’t get 21,22,9 (at all ). One reason for that was that 21d could be SEE THE, SEE THY (after all it’s Araucaria), SEE WHY – we didn’t think of SHE WHO. Moreover we made a mistake in 6d, entering the non-existent ‘signon’ [which I thought would be perhaps be a cross between 'mignon' and 'signor' ] leading to O?E?I? for 9ac. Well, what can you do when there are no resources around?
Nobody seems to be bothered (except MickH @13) by ‘uttered’ as the very unusual anagram indicator (if any at all; we thought of a homophone indicator).

Thanks to UY for the blog and NeilW @3 in particular for explaining MOTHER (12ac) – quite witty, eventually.

A lot has already been said about ‘(old) Dutch’ and the two ‘ancient’s. I am on MickH’s, Geoff’s, Robi’s and malc95′s side who think that one ‘ancient’ would have been enough.
And even if the language goes back to 450 AD, Dutch is not the first language you think of when seeing ‘ancient language’ (Greek, Latin etc are more appropriate). BTW, Dutch people use the expression ‘old Dutch’ in the same way as, I guess, Brits talk about ‘old English’: the language as it was in the Middle Ages.

Liz @30 didn’t see the wordplay in 8d (SPOUSE). We did see it, but were not very happy with it.
“Mr and Mrs with its top in pickle”: how can ‘its’ point at ‘pickle’? It points at eg ‘Mrs’ (although that’s not an ‘it’, of course), at something that’s been said earlier, not at something that still has to come (‘pickle’). “.. with pickle around its top” would have been OK, although that doesn’t make sense for the surface.

Even so, a fine crossword.
Despite our slow start and pace in general (which was almost putting us off because of all these cross-references), we were rather proud that we got that far in the end (with, as I said before, no resources at hand).

Finally, Wolfie @31, we’ve had this discussion before.
And while you might be right, I am not sure whether one should make such a point of it here.