

Araucaria obituary - robinhouston
http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2013/nov/26/araucaria-john-graham

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deanjones
I will miss his puzzles enormously. One of my life goals was to get drawn as
one of the winners of one of his Saturday puzzles. Despite submitting a few
hundred completed puzzles over the years, I was never drawn out of the hat
(perhaps there's a moral here about making your goals dependent on random
events over which you have no control). There were clearly lots of other
people who also enjoyed completing his puzzles.

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bhrgunatha
I remember spending many enjoyable Saturday mornings attempting the Guardian
crossword - more often than not set by Araucaria.

These things have an interesting way of marking the passage of our lives.

~~~
bazzargh
I could never quite get my head around his clue style. I'd usually manage
cryptics from the other setters, but seeing his name I'd get a sinking feeling
that I'm not going to get far.

And then... I found myself skipping the puzzles set by others, but tackling
the ones from Araucaria. As Camus put it, "The struggle itself toward the
heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

~~~
deanjones
The different styles of the setters is one of the nice things about the
cryptics. I could usually complete an Araucaria puzzle (admittedly after more
time that I'm prepared to admit here :-) but show me a puzzle by Puck and I'll
probably just sit there staring blankly at it. Different setters suit
different people.

Apart from Rufus, everyone should be able to solve a Rufus puzzle ...

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tim_hutton
I managed about half of his final puzzle, from November 16th. Even solved the
"nil by mouth" one without making the connection. Now I am sad.

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epo
Another fan here. How gratifying and unexpected to find such a niche story on
the HN front page, won't last.

~~~
robinhouston
I should think there’s quite a lot of overlap between British hackers and
Araucaria fans. Certainly among my acquaintances there is.

Less so in other places, no doubt.

~~~
Graham24
[shamefaced] I almost completed Tuesday's quick crossword.

