Now winter’s round the corner, like every sensible UK resident I’m looking for my January holiday. What’s the point of going away in the summer when the weather’s good and travel expensive? I’d much rather escape the sock-wearing winter instead, when flights are cheap and the monsoons haven’t messed things up yet! And when sunshine and vitamin D are both a distant memory … Problem is: how can I stay away as long as possible and still keep working? These days, the answer’s simple: with a super-lightweight netbook. After considering a tablet, I’m now persuaded that a netbook is the best way to go. And not just because it’s a way of avoiding the famously bad Apple customer service! So the choice seems to boil down to two contenders: Lenovo Ideapad (used to be the indestructible IBM Thinkpad, apparently) or the HP DM1. Whichever I choose, it will involve clicking on this link - in the hope that ONE day I’ll be able to claim my affiliate earnings from Amazon. I wish!
This Saturday I did the Guardian crossword with a friend who has just had surgery. So we needed an interesting crossword with the right level of humour and difficulty, and when I saw that the setter was Biggles, my heart sank slightly as we would have liked a nice Araucaria.
Biggles notwithstanding, we started solving it - and were DELIGHTED with some of the clues we found. It took us a couple of hours (but there was a certain amount of chatting!) to finish it, but some of the clues were just lovely:
10 ac: Live wire’s second season of Sex in the City (6)
16 ac: “Testes” in translation producing “sweet sins” (9)
1,30: Battered maid regretting this? (7,7)
I could go on, but go and have a look yourself for more. And maybe you can explain 24 across: I know that relativity has never been my thing, but if I know the answer to a clue I should be able to work out why it’s the answer!
Looking forward to the next Biggles puzzle!
Facebook’s a handy little site - I know it has its detractors. My crossword collaborator (everyone must have one!) has been on holiday for the last few weeks, but she texted me to discuss this Saturday’s fine Araucaria crossword. Texting proved a touch laborious, so we switched to Facebook chat! We’d finished it within about the hour.
Amongst the clues were some tremendous specimens: German decapitated by neighbour (7) was very neat. and we enjoyed working out why our answer to Homes for Chinese in Yellow Pages (10) was correct.
Have a look and see what you think: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/prize/25095.
I particularly liked the two really really long clues, though I could find no record of a play called The Head That Wears a Crown. Any help identifying that would be most welcome!
Looking forward to next weekend’s as it’s the August Bank Holiday, one of those times we can confidently expect a 20×20 Araucaria (or Paul?) special. There are benefits to the end of summer … and of course my Kindle arrives at the beginning of September!
Araucaria’s at it again - some lovely clues to enhance Saturday morning. I give you: St Peter, etymologically, to scrub the deck (9). I love it when it takes me more than a day to solve a clue - and that was worthwhile. It does make me wonder - am I getting more stupid when it takes me that long to get one clue? Or is it Araucaria’s deviousness? Probably both. I did like the theme, too - though I’m not really a fan of 9 10 4s.
Other clues that pleased me greatly were: Buy wildly into lawyer for president (5) and Start of play on island with flexible toy (6,3). Sweet.
I won’t spoil it - have a look at the August 7 Prize Crossword for yourself!
I felt like I had stepped back in time, to the days of crosswords in The Times with obscure literary connotations. Yes, the ‘royal four’ in Pasquale’s Prize Crossword was truly flummoxing! After getting the fairly obvious clue One of 4 offering protection - shield - I thought we were onto a heraldic link. How wrong I was …
It wasn’t until I’d been talking to my co-conspirator for an hour on Monday night that we realised that it had something to do with Masters of the King’s Music (see what I mean about The Times? What’s that doing in The Guardian???). Hence spelling Cusins wrong! Luckily, there’s always Wikipedia to help 
Apart from that, there were some elegant clues, such as:
Group of nine men, one mad - not a leader amoung them (6)
German vessel sunk by block of ice almost (8)
Like some fiction I start to read in French - no good (9)
… all of which impressed by massively leading me up the garden path at the outset!
Where you might see aileron move? That can be frightening (9) should have been easier, but how was I to know that an ‘aileron’ is not a made up word? Could have asked the L of my L who - though thinking crosswords are a huge waste of time - is a glider pilot. But I didn’t want to involve him …
If you want to see the whole puzzle, go to the online version here. And come back and tell me what you think.
I am intrigued by the Kindle, I must admit. What a marvellous way to read books! Though I don’t think you can write / solve crossw0rds on them, I’m afraid. But my latest payment for writing some clues destined for the Antipodes is going to get spent on a Kindle. I am also intrigued to see what’s going to become of my clues … I’ll post in here when they tell me!
If you want one too, please buy your Kindle by clicking on the banner below as Amazon will give me a fiver every time someone buys a Kindle through it.
Thanks so much!
I recently went to a wedding at the Albion Hotel in Brighton that my brother and friends at i-Clic photography were photographing. Having seen the finished photos I am extremely impressed with the quality of some of their work, and they asked me to write about it on my blog. I will put in a nice cryptic clue for them sometime, but in the meantime have a look at their website to see why I was so impressed! They are i-Clic: Brighton Wedding Photographers. And if you are planning a wedding in Brighton or London, use them - you get two photographers, DVDs of your day, and no nasty financial surprises at the end!
… and despite my lack of respect for the Telegraph crossword this clue has been brought to my attention (thank you, Trevor!): See odd perennials sprouting (5,3,5). At first glance it looks like an anagram, but how could ’see’ be 5,3,5? I am used to ’see’ indicating ‘lo’ and anything to do with vision, but the clue is beautifully misleading. It’s A see. And my ecclesiastical knowledge is limited so I had to look it up: and Rippon and Leeds IS a holy see!Well done, that Telegraph setter!
Suggest you move to the Guardian …
It can sometimes take a while, but we’ve finally finished Araucaria’s latest - and there were some damned classy clues in this weekend’s! Favourites were Student groups seize firm amid loud applause - they’re up to the neck in revolution (11) , though I would say it was (4-7). There were a couple of other times that we thought he was making up words, but it was an altogether lovely puzzle.I’ll put some clues in here once the answer’s been published (not wanting to encourage cheating!); it was a nice thing to have on a rainy weekend!
Hey, it’s a Bank Holiday here in the UK, which means only one thing - yes, a supercharged cryptic crossword from master-setter Araucaria from the Guardian. So there goes the weekend!