Comments on: Guardian, 24447/Araucaria – In hot water

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:21:57 +0000

Jim, being part of the UK does not make you an Englander! Being from England makes you an Englander, and that’s only one bit of the UK.

By: JimboNWUK

JimboNWUK — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:12:28 +0000

In 7d I assumed that the “if used” meant “if US’d” – i.e if used in America – the Englander would be ‘New’ as a New Englander is an inhabitant of one of the NE coastal ‘New England’ states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Connecticut. I was also amused to wonder if ol’ MonkeyPuzzle was accusing the Guardian readership of being insular “Little Englanders” who want no truck with, for example, the EU.

By: Kalowski

Kalowski — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:08:16 +0000

7d should not be “offensive”. The little or new Englander is the one doing the talking. It’s not one of us (solvers), it’s one of us Englanders could be little or new

By: Mart

Mart — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:57:07 +0000

Good crossie today – some easy, a couple of obscurities, the rest somewhere inbetween, and just about finishable for a novice like me (with a bit of web help). Araucaria is usually too hard, but today’s was pitched just right.

By: golgonooza

golgonooza — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:20:22 +0000

I enjoyed this one! Fairly simple as people say. I thought 8dn was interesting having the wordplay in the middle and the definition at both ends – ie Tom was a pipers son and a pig nicker.
30ac seems to me further confirmation that Araucaria is a bit of a reader of Crime fiction – especially the novels of Ian Rankin – he’s referred to him before in his clues. I think Ian Rankin is also a fan of Araucaria’s crosswords!

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:16:55 +0000

Harry, even a Scotsman is presumably a member of the UK and therefor “one of us”…so, no griping please from Scotland, Wales or N. Ireland. I, as a Yank, however, take umbrage!

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:48:55 +0000

I am English and have lived in Scotland for the last 26 years, and Harry’s sentiment occurred to me as I filled in 7d. However, I thought perhaps the “if used” was added to cover non-English solvers, but couldn’t quite work it out.

I also thought this was a very easy Araucaria, finishing it in about 17 minutes, a PB.

By: John H

John H — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:44:55 +0000

According to Wikipedia, Burke and Hare started as resurrection men but rapidly moved on to murder.

By: harry

harry — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:16:39 +0000

unusually for Auracaria a couple of nitpicks – 7dn – “one of us”, well I’m Scottish, and 30ac – Burke and Hare were murderers, not resurrectionists, they killed their victims, rather than dig them up

By: Ciaran McNulty

Ciaran McNulty — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:03:38 +0000

Andrew, if the term ‘englander’ is used in a sentence it can be ‘little’ or ‘new’ ?

Thanks for the explanation of INTEGER – I hadn’t spotted that ’say’ was part of the wordplay.