Comments on: Guardian 24351/Araucaria - April Fools!

By: Owen Jones

Owen Jones — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:01:58 +0000

Stuart: he is listing all the letters in “april fool’s day”, so he doesn’t need to mention any of the letters more than once. O, L and A are just the letters that appear twice.

5ac: When I did this I thought that the answer was “jumble” and the e had to be changed. Now I think about it I see that JUMBLY is the answer, the two definitions being “anagrammatical” and “one that had a navigational riddle.”

Overall a good crosswod. I loved the Lear reference. I got ALALIA because I recalled something called echolalia. I got SARDANA from the wordplay. I didn’t get SWANNY because I didn’t know the river or the song.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:22:52 +0000

Nobody has explained why Araucaria left out O,L, and A from “A,P,R,I,L,F,O,S,D,or Y” in the heading of this splendid Crossword. Can anyone ?

By: radchenko

radchenko — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:17:15 +0000

I made it only 5ac that you had to change the E to something else.

Was that the 21 12? It would have been better if you hadn’t ever had to do it and the instruction had still been there. Hence…

Still very clever, coming hard on yesterday’s. I guess George Perec would have been impressed.

By: AlanR

AlanR — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:12:13 +0000

Simply brilliant. I loved National bus pass!

By: linxit

linxit — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:19:25 +0000

Shirley - that’s not how I saw them.

5 is JUMBLY - “anagrammatical one” being a slightly whimsical description of the Edward Lear creation.

26 is SWANNY, i.e. bird-like, sounding like Swanee (river). I checked - SWANNY really is listed in Chambers under swan, meaning swan-like.

By: Shirley

Shirley — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:47:35 +0000

Linxit - Surely there were some “E’s” in the original answers to 5 and 26A?

By: conradcork

conradcork — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:13:45 +0000

5 down. Jacob’s is not the only sheep you get in crosswords. Merino turns up from time to time, as does Leicester.

By: Berny

Berny — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:01:22 +0000

Another delightful puzzle for April 1st. Well done once again, Araucaria.

By: linxit

linxit — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:11:13 +0000

15: Yes, but what I meant (and didn’t explain very well) was that the rest of the answer comes after “first”, as “after first” can’t indicate A as the first letter of after AND instruct you to put the letter at the front.

16: Thanks, I didn’t know that.

By: John Ridge

John Ridge — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:49:28 +0000

15 surely the A at the front is indicated by “After first”

16 Snout plays the Wall in the mechanicals’ play (Midsummer Night’s Dream)