Guardian 24117/Araucaria (Sat Jun 30) - flighty
Posted by ilancaron on 7th July 2007
Avian theme. 14D (CHAFFINCH) was my way in. I solved this twice. The second time took as long virtually as the first since I’d forgotten most of the birds already.
Across
| 1 | PART,RIDGE |
| 9 | PORTIA=”Porsche” – is there another PORTIA other than Shylock’s? The clue says “ladies”. |
| 10 | FIELD,FARE – my last clue. Didn’t know it was a bird. |
| 12 | PERE,GRINE=”green” – ref. PEREGRINE falcon. Apparently can be pronounced to rhyme with “green” which takes care of saving the planet. Not sure about “a drink” though? |
| 17 | DEN – two meanings &lit I suppose if one accepts that a DEN is squalid. |
| 19 | H(OTC)AKE – as in, selling like HOTCAKES. OTC=”Over the Counter”. |
| 20 | OAK GALL – a slightly indirect anagram: (AKA, log, L)* |
| 21 | EBB – two meanings: turns out it’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning who’s our poetess. Yes, I googled. |
| 27 | C,OR,M,OR,AN,[i]T – another bird. Our numbers are Roman C and M. |
| 28 | IND[i]ABA – replace I for “one” in India with AB for “sailor” to get an African “conference” – which I didn’t know but the wordplay was clear. |
| 29 | P,HAL,A,ROPE – another bird. Ref. Prince HAL. |
| 30 | CAVE,L,L – ref. Edith CAVELL (British WWI nurse) and CAVE is derived from the Latin “beware”. Trivia: Edith Piaf was apparently named after her. |
| 31 | BRAMBLING – another bird (implied two meanings). |
Down
| 2 | ARISEN – (is near)* — Not sure I understand the part of speech here – can “come up” and ARISEN be used interchangeably? |
| 5 | GIRONDE – ref. the French river and I think the relatively mild revolutionary Girondists? |
| 6 | CORN,C,RAKE – and another bird |
| 7 | P(TAR,MIG)AN – another bird: MIG’s our Russian “aircraft” and “black stuff” is TAR. |
| 8 | B(ALD)EAGLE – lad* in BEAGLE for a bird. |
| 14 | CHAFF,IN,CH – my first undefined clue: clear wordplay and once I got it everything fell into place pretty quickly. |
| 15 | STO(C,K,DO)VE – I don’t really like “Note - £1,000 note” indicating the contents here. But it’s a bird. Stilt notes that C and DO are the same note. |
| 16 | R(A,ZORB[a])ILL – a bird again. Ref. “ZORBA the Greek” so no need to qualify with “for example”. |
| 17 | DEE – two meanings: the river and the letter. |
| 22 | B(R)OTHER – another “stream”: this is R (others were RILL and DEE and GIRONDE). |
| 25 | C,RURAL – new word for me: means “relating to the leg or knee”. |
| 26 | IN[ch],SPAN – SPAN is literally an old measure of nine inches. And I think the def is “get ready for a trek” if you’re a yoked ox. |
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