Comments on: Guardian Prize Puzzle No 25,849 by Araucaria

By: Gervase

Gervase — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:04:24 +0000

Ignore my last remark, which is total nonsense. This IS an indirect anagram. Mea culpa – but the maxima culpa was the good Rev’s!

By: Gervase

Gervase — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 23:45:28 +0000

Thanks, bridgesong

Pleasing as ever. I was another who first plumped for ROUGHLY SPEAKING.

One tiny amendment to the parsing: I thought at first that PLUM TART was *(TRAMP ULT), as bridgesong has indicated, which would have been an indirect anagram – a mortal sin even in the eyes of the most libertarian setter. However, the ULT appears unscrambled at the end of the word, so the parsing is *(TRAMP) + ULT. Entirely (?) virtuous.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:44:17 +0000

Thanks all
Typically Araucarian for inventiveness although, as others have said, not one of his hardest.
Last in was 13d. Like muck @3 I searched in vain for ?B? and was suitably impressed, when I bothered to do the anagram precisely, to discover A’s contemporary reference.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:32:59 +0000

Thomas99 @15: I like your analysis of 13d.
On 3,23 you are very succinct. I’ve seen the word ‘impressionistic’ used about some of his clues. In this case ‘surreal’ springs to mind. Araucarian. Ineffable.

By: chas

chas — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:24:00 +0000

Thanks to bridgesong for the blog. You explained several cases where I had the right answer without understanding why.

By: Robi

Robi — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 12:19:50 +0000

Another cracker, although I struggled in parts.

Thanks bridgesong; having got RAVIOLI ealy on, I thought with the cross-reference that 14a was ‘violin bow,’ although I failed to parse it properly, which lead on to ‘valley bed’ for 14d and ‘highlander’ as the answer to 12d – all nicely messing up the SW corner. I eventually unravelled it and got stuck on the last OSRIC, but Google came to the rescue as she did with PEEL. I particularly liked ISLE OF MAN and DISTRICT VISITOR, the latter taking some time to parse.

By: DunsScotus

DunsScotus — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 11:31:13 +0000

Many thanks Araucari and Bridgesong. I think that the deadly sins are mortal but not all mortal sins – e.g. missing Mass deliberately – are deadly. The latter category is defined by the well known list.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:26:00 +0000

Thanks for the blog. This wasn’t too hard (especially compared to recent puzzles in the Guardian – there have been some classics) but there was plenty of imagination and a few surprises. I liked 3,23 – very Araucarian.

I agree 13d is an odd construction but I took it slightly differently. I took the anagrind to be “gives us another look” (“look” in the fashion sense or similar). If it gives us another look it changes its appearance, so that seems a good indicator. What that left me with was a sort of reverse partial &lit – the whole thing is wordplay, but only “gives us another look” is definition. Partial &lits the other way round are uncontroversial I think, but this is weirder.

By: timon

timon — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:36:34 +0000

Couple of teasers here, notably 13 down, which, like muck@2, initially stumped us (well me).
I’d be happy to help, Bryan@5, but I admit to being something of an Osric to Bridgesong’s Hamlet – he saw 16a without missing a beat! Erudite or what?

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:33:18 +0000

Thanks bridgesong and Araucaria

Plenty of fun here.

I carelessly misparsed ‘mullion’ as Mull plus Ion(a).

I particularly liked 21,24 and 5,6.