We pay tribute to the late John Graham with a selection of 26 of his finest clues
There are many reasons it's hard to choose a selection of Araucaria clues, but among them is not sadness. The chutzpah in those puzzles which John Graham set between the diagnosis of his cancer and his death yesterday seems to me an invitation to respond with gentle playfulness.
As always in crosswording, the problem is what to leave out. And as always, the fun starts with structure.
Every so often, Guardian solvers would open the Saturday paper to find no numbers in the grid and know they were in for a different kind of challenge: one of Araucaria's "alphabetical jigsaws": a list of clues for which the answers begin with A, B, C and so on, which must be fitted into the grid "jigsaw-wise, wherever they will go".
Here then are 26 of my favourite John Graham clues: 26 answers from A to Z, all given at the end.
They're mainly from the Guardian but pick up on Graham's other outlets. One category of clue that's missing is those that have probably brought the greatest pleasure of all: those in the personalised puzzles commissioned by fans for the birthdays of friends and relatives. Another of Araucaria's many legacies.
Time to go.
A
We start, appropriately, with one from 1 Across, the the monthly crossword magazine co-founded by Araucaria in 1984.
22d Preserving jelly so pretty? (5)
The playfulness is in play...
B
And here's one from the Financial Times which reflects the political undercurrent which meshes with the erudition and wordplay in Graham's work:
14d/24d Consequence of gripe led into Nye's basis for the welfare state (9,4)
In that paper, Graham set under another name …
C
...as clued in a special puzzle for Newsnight. In this, "2" refers to the answer at two down, GUARDIAN, and "10" to ten across, ARAUCARIA.
29ac Film lover's FT version of the 2′s 10 (9)
The answer is also, ticklingly, an anagram of "Chile pine", the tree otherwise known as … Araucaria araucana.
D
Now, here's a clue from a puzzle by Paul, one of Araucaria's proteges.
24ac A lesser figure in Jude the Obscure – have you read this somewhere before? (4,2)
Except it was also the exact same clue as had appeared the day before, also at 24 across, in an Araucaria puzzle.
E
For many readers, Araucaria was their Steve Bell: the reason they bought the Guardian; a sense of humour which helped form the identity of the paper. And his clues which made reference to the Guardian were always fondly amusing:
12ac Hair swept back? Mr Rusbridger must be in love (9)
F
Time for a colloquial answer, with deft misdirection:
21ac Squashed? Accommodation urgently needed with an easy lot of pieces (4,2,1,7)
G
And a miniature masterclass in concision:
13ac Rise and fall in subsidy (8)
H
Sandy Balfour's book Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8) is a love letter to the crossword, as well as a kind of autobiography. Araucaria is one of its heroes, and it ends with a Guardian puzzle by Araucaria that retells the book in cryptic form. The levels of affection are mutual, overlapping and touching. It also contains this gag:
19d It isn't so funny to be given the elbow (7)
I
We're already at I and we haven't yet had one of those distinctive incredibly long answers. Let's put that right:
6d Funny thing afoot – shy vernal youths go contemplating girls: Thus (in catalectic trochees) poem by 19 unfurls (2,3,6,1,5,4,5,7,5,2,8,2,4)
Nineteen across is, by the way, TENNYSON.
J
And let's also see one from the many occasions – April Fool's Day, anniversaries – marked with themed clues and puzzles:
9ac/7d Dickensian whisky makes Christmas music (6,5)
K
Of course, the imagery in an Araucaria puzzle is not always so wholesome:
12ac Prevent passing of legislation to reduce police numbers? (4,3,4)
L
1d Crave drug from receiver of kicks? (4,5)
M
It's impossible not to lose some time pleasurably pondering Bayreuth, when the feast in question here…
8d Traditional feast of Wagner's work gets us up into its sequel (9,6)
… is quite different and a lot more fun.
N
Now, I don't believe we've yet had an excruciating pun:
23ac Bike burnt by Eliot makes line for the Irish (6)
O
Today would be a good time to listen to Araucaria's Desert Island Discs, although Kirsty Young appeared to find this superb early clue …
Correcting sets in the North? O don't! I can't bear it (11)
… a little like pulling teeth.
P
When the solver imagined Araucaria's working environment, the imagery tended to be calm: the retired churchman assembling anagrams with Scrabble tiles and checking the Oxford Book of English Verse. It's instructive, then, to learn…
7ac For first option there's no end — keep going! (5,2)
… that Graham, like all of us, spent more time than can ever be justified waiting for the correct department in a call centre.
Q
It's the Guardian – so, the reader wonders, is this a typo?
11ac Lady's man? (5)
It is not.
R
Even with a cryptic device as established as the spoonerism, Araucaria played fast and loose, swapping the middles of words or whatever seemed most likely to raise a smile. Here's one which works more conventionally, while cunningly exploiting two different senses of "fast":
24ac Embarrassed Spooner broke fast and went fast (3-5)
S
Sometimes the answer would yield easily enough from the definition …
16ac People like Lolita — it's a difficult thing to do (3,7)
… but it would take a while for the wordplay to become apparent and raise a smile.
T
Devoted to health, no? Word is, antiphlogistine will be needed (3,4,2,4,2,5,4,4,10)
For T, of course, there is also that famous other long one.
U
The GNU is, like the EMU and the ORCA a word much beloved of crossword setters. Here, Araucaria uses it as a frame for some odd zoological imagery:
14d Not red and not quite blue bone in antelope's back (10)
V
Araucaria's themed puzzles are underrepresented here because the intricacies of the related words are designed to work in a puzzle as a whole. Here's a flavour, though, of how one about Alfred Hitchcock, the answer to its 25 across, begins:
1ac I turn green in front of 25's work (7)
W
Having omitted that one, we must include this one:
O hark the herald angels sing the Boy's descent which lifted up the world? (5,9,7,5,6,2,5,3,6,2,3,6)
X
And we'll close with three from those alphabetical jigsaws. First:
X Return from fraud, an axed scheme for site of dome (6)
Y
Y Farmers' circle in Middle Eastern country (6)
Z
And, alas, the end:
Z Figure God not quite good parent? (6)
There will always be more - many more - in the Araucaria archive.
The answers
A: ASPIC
B: BEVERIDGE PLAN
C: CINEPHILE
D: DEJA VU
E: ENAMOURED
F: FLAT AS A PANCAKE
G: GRADIENT
H: HUMERUS
I: IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY LIGHTLY TURNS TO THOUGHTS OF LOVE
J: JINGLE BELLS
K: KILL THE BILL
L: LONG GRASS
M: MOTHERING SUNDAY
N: NORTON
O: ORTHODONTIC
P: PRESS ON
Q: QUEEN
R: RED-FACED
S: SEX KITTENS
T: THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
U: UNBLUSHING
V: VERTIGO
W: WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS BY NIGHT ALL SEATED ON THE GROUND
X: XANADU
Y: YEOMEN
Z: ZEUGMA