Guardian 24766 – Araucaria

by

As often with Araucaria, I’m still a little puzzled but thoroughly entertained.

Across
9 ALBATROSS There’s a lake ALO in Nigeria, and SS presumably comes from “southern sea”, but I can’t get the remaining BATR ALBAT is a homophone for (Lake) Albert and ROSS is the southern sea
10 OXLIP O=”love”, X=”kiss” and LIP=”kisser”
11 SINGLET polyester has a SINGLE T, unlike cotton
12 INSULAR Half of SULtan inside rev(RANI), Rani being the female equivalent to Rajah
13 BRAY The sound of the donkey and a reference to the Vicar of Bray
14 FLOODLIGHT BLOOD=”gore” losing the B, inside FLIGHT
16 ENTROPY OP short for opus=”work”, inside ENTRY (e.g. a competition entry). From my limited knowledge of entropy, “What’s happening to the world” isn’t much of a definition, entropy being a quantity and not a process.
17 BACK OFF BACK=”defender”, OFF=”given card”
19 VELOCIPEDE is a cycle. VIP=”bigwig” around old king COLE reversed. I can’t get EDE from “at the end of the french” E=”end of the” and DE=”of the french”
22 STET Hidden in “In haSTE To”
24 TROUNCE “counterproductive” -> (counter)*
25 VERTIGO VERT=green, before I GO
26 ODEON ODE ON
27 PERGOLESI Put it in from the definition “composer”, not too sure on the wordplay. PER~=”for”, GOL is Persian for rose, ESI is some of the letters from “freesias”? PERGOLA minus the A + some of the letters of “freesias”
Down
1 MASS OBSERVATION double def: a hagioscope allows people to see a Mass.
2 ABUNDANT A BUN DAN T
3 STILL Double def
4 MORTALLY (art)* in MOLLY
5 ESKIMO oriental’s -> East’S -> ES, KIMONO minus the NO
6 WORSE LUCK (clues)* in WORK
7 OLD LAG “record holder” being a cryptic def for someone who has been to prison a few times. [g]OLD L[eft] AG=silver
8 SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS (is out O first slip)*
15 FORCE NINE FOR CANINE with the A string changed to an E
17 BEDIVERE DIVER in BEE
18 OUTRIDER =scout. Not sure if it’s a pun on something like “How tried? Er…” An undecided jury is still OUT, and RIDER=comment
20 LOOKER double def
21 PREPPY PP=”quite quiet” in PREY=”quarry”
23 BROOD double def

55 comments on “Guardian 24766 – Araucaria”

  4. Thanks manehi. Quite a tough one I thought….

    9ac- The ALBAT part is a homophone of “Albert” – i presume there’s a Lake Albert in Africa somewhere, and of course there is also a ROSS sea in the Antarctic.

    18dn i think it’s OUT=”undecided” (not sure how this works, though), RIDER = “jury’s comment”

  9. 18d. I think “undecided jury” is a reference to “the jury’s still OUT”, and rider is a comment.

  16. I can’t get 19ac to work: ‘the end’ gives E but DE is French for ‘of’, not ‘of the’, which is ‘du’ or ‘des’.

    I liked the anagram in 8dn [I love the James Stewart film!] and I thought 7dn had a great surface.

  17. Thanks for explaining 27ac – I only got this composer from google, and couldn’t work out the word play at all.

    11ac too had me beat in the word play, but had to be singlet – Now seeing the explanation, phew!

    24ac COUNTERPRODUCTIVE? I guess only Araucaria gets away with clues like this.

    Nick

  18. 43 years since I last did French and therefore somewhat rusty, but now that you mention it yeah. Maybe we were supposed to read it “of – as said by the” rather than the literal “of the”.

  19. Eileen, I agree with you; I can’t think of an example in common usage to justify “de” for “of the”.

    Late to the party as watching the test. Can someone please explain the point of “needs” in 14ac, please?

  20. I see what you mean, Derek, but this device is used a lot in crosswords and I’ve never known Araucaria get it ‘wrong’ before.

    Neil, I think ‘needs’ is just a linking word.

  21. cul-de-sac, aide-de-camp? not that I’m convinced, but those two came to mind as examples of phrases that literal translations into English might give “de”=”of the”.

  22. Araucaria is one of my favourite setters but I didn’t like so I gave up about half-way through and I’m glad that I did.

    I had ALBATROSS as a possible for 2a but couldn’t figure out why.

    I didn’t like several other clues e.g. 11a nor others with obscure solutions (for me) like Pergolesi and Bedivere.

    Many thanks, Manehi and others, for explaining the otherwise inexplicable.

  23. Thanks, manehi. I would never have seen the wordplay for INSULAR! OLD LAG also misled me for ages. But the one that caused me the most trouble was BEDIVERE, a knight I’ve never heard of. For the longest time I was trying to make a word with DOVE in the middle.

    I did wonder about the EDE ending in 19ac. Aside from COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, I thought 27ac was pure Araucaria, with ‘a bunch of freesias’ cluing ESI…! Good fun.

  25. Manehi, yes and no. You can translate aide-de-camp as “helper of the camp”, I suppose, but that doesn’t really work – camp aider (or in old French, field aid, battle assistant etc. but with no “of the”.) In modern French, perhaps we should avoid translating cul-de-sac – “ar*e of the bag” doesn’t work as a substitute for “the bag’s ar*e”! (Hope no true French scholars are lurking.)

  26. Neil – fair points. Just thought of “fruits de mer”=”fruits of the sea” rather than “sea fruits” or whatever..

    (I know it’s still too tenuous to justify the clue, the comments just got me thinking)

  27. Yes, very good Manehi! I’ve been struggling in the tea interval to think of one too! (Don’t really like to question the Master.) You’re absolutely right although one has to question how the translation arose… if it was originally an English expression, I can’t see the French not using “de la”.

  28. Well, Bopara’s gone and I’ve finally thought of one, Manehi! “Fin de siecle” – end of the century. Bit of a struggle though, like England’s batting.

  29. What a terribly loose crossword! I almost dread to see Araucaria’s name as setter because it means imprecise cluing. lax definitions and wholly imprecise wordplay. Examples are 27 Ac and 15 Down — why not using cluing such as “plus a bunch of letters” rather than tell us it’s “some of the letters of freesias”.

    Sloppy and unenjoyable.

    John M

  30. I am surprised no one has commented on 25a. I thought this was one of the best clues, and a kind of double &lit. In fact, the clue could have been (cleverly) just “Before I turn green”, but I think A’s version is much nicer.

  33. I really enjoyed this today. I found it much better than yesterday’s. Maybe I was just in a good mood today, or got lucky by solving a good few clues fairly quickly… but I quite liked some of the weird constructions (the double t thing, for example). It’s curious how sometimes crosswords are such a matter of taste. Disliked yesterday’s, enjoyed today’s.

  34. The strange thing about the “DE” problem is that the clue would make just as much (or as little) sense if it read “…of French..”.

  35. ‘Ere! 19ac. Is it not: VIP=”bigwig” around old king COLE reversed + th(E)end + of the French (DE)?

    Maybe “…th(E)end of French(DE) would have been less confusing.

  36. Yes, aferick, you’ve precisely described the problem and the best solution! Bad light’s stopped play now, I see…

  37. NeilW: Vey nice, very witty. But “bad light”, Araucaria? How is that possible? We’re still going to win though. (I mean”, however”)

  38. preppy – liked the clue but my son tells me “quite quiet” is not “pp” which is VERY quiet. Hence in my ignorance I got it and he didn’t.

  39. Maybe I missed it, too many posts to check accurately, but Bedivere was the last knight of the Round Table, the one that throws Excalibur into the lake.

    I’d guess those that said they didn’t know it really did and were just having a senior moment. I’m good at those, so I should know! 🙂

  40. re 39 Thanks, Derek. No one so far has mentioned who Bedivere was.

    I guessed the connection to Arthur (eventually) from the -ere ending. I did read the legends years ago, but the name Bedivere has never stuck. Funny what does and what doesn’t! Great stories, though, I should read them again.

  41. Andrew, re comment 34: [sorry, I’ve been out quite a while in the meantime]: that’s really the point I was trying to make at comment 20 – it’s just so unlike Araucaria!

    mike, I thought along the same lines as your son initially but ‘quite’ can, paradoxically, mean both ‘rather / somewhat / fairly’ and also ‘exactly’, hence, presumably, ‘very’!

  42. Re comment #29 – I can see why John and others lose patience with Araucaria, but for me he gets away with ‘loose’ (I prefer ‘unconventional’) clueing because of the humour – which is of course a matter of taste.
    11a was a good example – I nearly threw my pen down when I twigged the the wordplay. Single T! How dare he ? But found I was smiling at his cheek…

  46. Yesterday evening’s Prom (broadcast live on Radio 3 and BBC 4) included a performance by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra of Stravinsky’s ballet suite Pulcinella, a ‘reworking of rediscovered 18th-century scores (reputedly by Pergolesi)’. Pity I didn’t mention this before the performance, but the recording is available on iPlayer ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00lwppg (radio) and http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lwm69/BBC_Proms_2009_Prom_20_Stravinsky_and_Schumann/ (TV)).

    Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony (Thursday’s puzzle) will be performed in next Thursday’s Prom.

  49. Dinos, it’s difficult to generalise. You can generally rely on Monday being Rufus, and fairly easy, but apart from that it depends more on which setter it happens to be that day.
    I’d say Araucaria is perhaps more variable than most – he does set easy ones, but also some right tough ‘uns!

  50. I know I’m a bit late but the 19ac debate about “of the French” = DE: surely you have to understand that THE French word for “of” is “de”?

  51. Cholecyst (and others) – I think that’s what was intended and the use here of “of the French” is not incorrect. The debate has arisen because the convention would be “of French”.
    I wonder why his unusual cluing involving “freesias”, or the one requiring changes of strings resulted in fewer comments. Perhaps those clues were so unconventional that it wasn’t clear which rules had been violated.
    One of the things that makes Araucaria puzzles refreshing is his disregard for convention and I admire the fact that after half a century of compiling, his clues remain inventive and contain fewer clichés than most.

  53. Just back from the pub and can’t think of a witty response to Shed’s comment (or a translation that wouldn’t offend).
    How about an attempt at a clue? Not a very good one, I’m afraid.
    Made pie with turn of French cooking (you’ll have to pardon my French) (6,2,5)

  54. Quelle surprise.

    Perhaps The Debate should be about whether The Convention really is that ‘of French’ (never mind ‘of the French’) = DE.

    Such travesties of indication have always been allowed in the Grauniad, and so are in that particular respect conventional.

    If you can be bothered to chatte about it, that is.

  55. Two days late so nobody will read it, but:

    if Andrew, #4, is right about Albat being a supposed homophone for Albert, the Rhotic half of England should be outraged and offended. It’s SO rude and thoughtless to so many of us (let alone the Scots, Irish and North Americans)!

    As for 19, I just took it that ‘the French cycle’ was the VELOCIPEDE, ‘cos it is.

Comments are closed.