Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,805 by Araucaria

By: rhotician

rhotician — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 02:04:57 +0000

In between there’s the French ‘ciboule’, which means oignon du printemps. (Not to be confused with ‘ciboulette’ which means chive.) Google provides easy access to 32 pages of images of spring onions and 34 of scallions, a few amusing and some surprising. There is also discussion of the difference between the spring onion and the scallion. And lots of recipes. Champ is good one, from which come the expressions ‘thick as champ’ and ‘ignorant as champ at a wedding’, meaning stupid and unsophisticated respectively.

It all goes to show, again, that the Rev knows his onions and that the Web is a trap.

By: Gervase

Gervase — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:23:53 +0000

If anyone is still awake…

SYBO, a corruption of ‘cibol’ – from the Latin ‘cepola’ – is therefore cognate with ‘cipolla’, the standard Italian word for ‘onion’.

PeterO has a nice typo in his blog, describing Pyramus and Thisbe as ‘the play-within-the-olay’. I didn’t remember its being so emollient.

By: Brendan (not that one)

Brendan (not that one) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:48:50 +0000

Once the Divided We….. etc went in it was all pretty straightforward except for some of the parsing of course.

Thanks to everybody on here for clearing that up!

Last in was FRIEND as I couldn’t believe that the last 3 letters could be END! In fact I still can’t as the def appears to be end also! Perhaps I’m missing something

Where’s my copy of “Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword”?

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:10:06 +0000

Thanks Araucaria and PeterO. I always enjoy the Puzzler’s puzzles but enjoy the parsing, too.

Bottom was an early entry and I was looking round for a Dream theme. Of course Titania sprang to mind for Bottom’s love interest but the Bellows mender soon followed.

Like many others, sybo was new. I was looking for ice for diamonds!

All good fun.

Giovanna x

By: hammock

hammock — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:56:01 +0000

Sybo!! I have been growing the lttle green and white buggers for 40 odd years and that’s a new one. Ridiculous imho.

By: postrophe

postrophe — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:09:25 +0000

To Ian Payn @18

I once had to pleasure of sharing lunch with Fenella Fielding in the RADA canteen, circa 1970. I was totally seduced by that magical husky voice. Happy days!

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:45:11 +0000

Great crossword which seemed impossible on first reading. As a mancunian, kept trying to justify Free Trade Hall for ages. I thought tetragram was a complete reversal of Margaret with a t inserted before the e. After solving ‘divided we fall’ was delighted to discover ‘united we stand’. Araucaria never disappoints!

By: PeterO

PeterO — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:43:37 +0000

Speaking of mental blocks, there is the little matter of FAR in 13/15. It evidently was just too obvious for me to see; but I will stick with ‘first’ for A – Araucaria does this quite often.
I will put in the omitted homophone(-ish) part of 10A; thanks NeilW.
JollySwagman @4 – Somehow “liberties” and “Araucaria” form a natural association. “Tricks” would serve very well.

By: John Appleton

John Appleton — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:59:28 +0000

Right old mental block today, not helped by there being a number of new words to me. Of the ones I did get, I very much liked 6d.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:45:22 +0000

Thanks all
First in ‘oxygen’; last in ‘noble’ and ‘busybody’ (‘sybo’ new to me.
The two long ones opened up the whole thing and I was expecting disappointment. However, A rarely does disappoint, and I was left with 3 or 4 challenges at the end.
‘Penny stamp’ came easily because of course I shall be voting for that amazing young woman in the SPOTY.
Of course Mo can run fast and Bradley can certainly ride his bike, but she can do everything to a very high standard.