Comments on: Guardian Prize No 25,706 by Araucaria

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:51:56 +0000

Sorry: did I imply that I’m au fait with that pastime? Tut!

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 16:31:29 +0000

Good grief. I’ve just googled churchcrawling and there it is. ‘Nerdo-Goddist’ made me think you were joking but it turns out that the joke was of A’s making. Typical.

Still I can console myself that I am clearly not alone in lacking your breadth of knowledge.

Thanks.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:42:27 +0000

The clue is fine as it stands, I rather think, and quite funny really.

As I tried almost quite hard to imply, you would find the surface odd if you don’t know what church crawling is about. But, obviously, that doesn’t make the clue bad or unintelligible: it just makes you ignorant in that specific regard.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 13:31:33 +0000

Well said, sir. The clue should indeed have a hyphen and strictly speaking sticks applies only to hurdle races so a for instance is required.

But we shouldn’t quibble. I found the surface so nonsensical that I deferred thinking about it until I had sufficient crossers to solve it.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 12:55:04 +0000

I should cocoa.

‘Church crawling’, ‘church-crawling’ or ‘churchcrawling’ exists as a Nerdo-Goddist pursuit of architectural delights, and sticks are fences (in horse-racing). So ‘accelerated church crawling’, being synonymous, in its way, with steeple CHASING, gets ‘with sticks’ added (for a more complete description), and there you have it: cryptic definition.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 10:49:06 +0000

Thanks for the blog. I just wondered if people had missed something in 1d:

I agree with NeilW @6 “Sticks” means horse racing over jumps, i.e. steeplechasing, providing a straight definition, and “accelerated church crawling?” is a cryptic definition (N.B. it is inherent to a good cryptic definition that it should not be familiar as a definition of the answer; so the unfamiliarity/novelty of “church crawling” cannot in my opinion count against the clue, regardless of its overall quality. I rather liked it.) I don’t see anything remotely vague about this clue if properly parsed (DD not CD).

One could also see “with sticks?” as the straight definition, in which case we read the answer as an adjective (“a successful steeplechasing jockey”). I saw it as a noun though (e.g. “I like the flat racing but I’m not much into the sticks”).

I’m not particularly into racing but there’s a major website called “overthesticks.com” so I take it the expression is still current.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 08:23:15 +0000

So my efforts on behalf of insomniacs have not been in vain.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 01:11:36 +0000

21, 22, 23, 24, I was bored when you once again began your multiple-posts. Even with just the three identities. But now sleep doth beckon. Yawn.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:54:25 +0000

I was preparing a short essay on the subject of indirect anagrams, incorporating observations on such mattters as what is “fair”, what is “too easy”, where lines should be drawn, what is a homophone…

I will confine myself to observing that the clue for TRURO has a partially indirect anagram and that the article Cryptic Crosswords in Wiki is worth reading.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:14:11 +0000

Well that’s better than A’s clue, which is poor in so many ways without being amusing.

For a start pub-crawling involves more than one pub. The original steeplechasing required only one church. I could go on but you’ve distracted me.

Could an Irish pub-crawl be desribed as a point-to-point? Shillelaghs optional.