Comments on: Guardian 25,784 / Araucaria

By: Nonchalant

Nonchalant — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:49:40 +0000

24A

Possible that ‘to arrive’ ie. ‘to arr’ is ‘ordered’/anagramed with just ‘Eus’ to give ‘Eurostar’? As given that’ton’ ie, ‘not’ is not to be the ending on Euston(terminus)?

By: muffin

muffin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 08:51:35 +0000

I too have fond memories of Lavengro as a compiler – I think it was one of his that was the first ever I completed.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 07:34:31 +0000

Hi samui pete
One of the policies of this site is that we do not discuss prize puzzles until after the closing date for entries. I have therefore removed the spoiler from your comment.

By: samui pete

samui pete — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 03:00:40 +0000

Would anyone be kind enough to tell me why 21d is ******? Prize 25790. Really enjoyed this. Many thanks Enigmatist

Edited by Admin to remove spoiler

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 02:00:51 +0000

I don’t think MEET in that sense is obscure for a crossword. If WOOD is mad, then MEET can certainly be appropriate.

By: anio

anio — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:18:42 +0000

When I lived in the wilds of Wales my local was the George Borrow , and 40 qdd years ago a mate of mine did his phd on Proudhon so I was off to an easy start. I think this must have been my quickest ever solve of an Araucaria-just over 20 mins but I got my comeuppance today and only managed to finish with lots of help.

By: samui pete

samui pete — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 23:35:24 +0000

I agree RCW re today’s. Me and my big mouth..

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:21:34 +0000

Thanks all
I thought this was moderately easy (especially compared to today’s!).
Last in was ‘Lavengro’, this and ‘Borrow’ both solved cryptically since I did not know them. Like exscouse @4 I do remember the compiler.
Favourites were 20ac and 15,1.

By: mhl

mhl — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:02:18 +0000

Thanks to everyone for their interesting comments, as ever.

@pangapilot: just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting in any way that “get-together” was MEET wasn’t fair – I just thought it might be worth an example usage.

@Thomas99: in my experience, it’s generally accepted that it’s fair to use very well-known one or two letter abbreviations as part of the anagram fodder, but a three letter one (“arrived” => ARR) that’s rather infrequently used is pushing it a bit.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 14:17:56 +0000

Sorry… Good puzzle. Failed on Lavengro. Thought the general level of difficulty was a touch higher than we have often seen of late from Araucaria.
Thanks for the blog.