Comments on: Guardian Prize Puzzle 25,580 by Araucaria

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:54:13 +0000

It was a very strange error since ‘King’ was printed with an upper case K.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:19:27 +0000

I received the same information from HS.
It is,of course, quite incorrect as tupu says.
I see only the print version and the word ‘cactus’ was absent.
So, PeeDee, there is little to thank.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:08:54 +0000

Hugh – thank you very much for coming to fifteensquared and giving us the explanation.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:31:31 +0000

Hi tupu

I did like your suggestion, though.

[My copy of the Guardian didn't have the correction, either.]

By: tupu

tupu — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:28:35 +0000

Thanks Hugh Stephenson

In fact my copy of the Guardian did not have the correction included. I suspect the same is true of other bloggers’ copies (on paper and on line)too.

Hi all

Clearly the majority view, as Gervase sensibly suggested, was correct! I’m glad it’s (more or less) sorted.

By: Hugh Stephenson

Hugh Stephenson — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:59:50 +0000

I have finally got to the bottom of the mystery.

The corrected clue for X, published in the paper on 10 March, was:

Cactus king backed by student, I hope, getting moving (9)

Normally the PDF of a puzzle published online is taken from the final version for the paper. Unfortunately on this occasion the PDF for this jigsaw puzzle was uploaded early without my knowing and thus did not include the late change to the clue for X.

My apologies. I am trying to get the correct PDF substituted now in the archive.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:59:07 +0000

Very nicely put tupu!

By: tupu

tupu — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:32:53 +0000

Hi PeeDee

Thanks. I’m reminded of Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam verse
‘The moving finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tearswash out a word of it’.

I begin too to think there might be possibilities of a clue involving King Caractacus!

By: Vince

Vince — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:41:22 +0000

“Xerophyte is a plant that can survive on very little water, such as a cactus. The definition is thus ‘cactus””

Brilliant response when the answer we’re all querying is xerophILE!

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:25:55 +0000

Looks like another case of the moving cactus then, it must have left the crossword entirely by the time it got to the printers.