Posted by araucaria
(here)
Now that we’ve all had to change our passwords, let me tell you my old one. As I mentioned somewhere a while back, I pinched my pseudo from someone who I thought didn’t need it any more: a Guardian cryptic crossword compiler who, it turned out, was still in business and turned ninety shortly after I joined Avalon 2 ½ years ago.
On a topical note, Araucaria’s latest effort was published on July 13 although he announced back in January (in a crossword of course, indicating that he had ’18 down of the 19, which is being treated with 13 15’) that he was suffering from ‘cancer’ of the ‘oesophagus’ (a subject that synchronistically came up in another connection in conversation yesterday) and receiving ‘palliative care’. While one would expect this to be a nonagenarian’s last battle, he is certainly giving his illness a run for its money. This is doubtless due to a positive attitude whereby his clue for 18 down was ‘Sign of growth’ – sign as in astrological sign, growth as in tumor, but ambiguous because the positive sense is more obvious. To see illness as a sign of growth is indeed a positive message that I want to pass on to Flash. It certainly helped me only this summer.
When I joined the forum, Atticus/Charles was airing his insider knowledge of the ‘33’ rulers of the world, who apparently split shortly afterwards. So when I chose a password, I thought of security as ‘not giving a clue’, but possibly instead giving a clue address, namely ’33 down’ (there may have been a bit of punctuation as well). Hence, whenever a hacker came along and found this by now useless password, he would at least be reminded at this coded level of the upper level campaign to bring about the downfall of the elite. They are so keen on of every kind of symbology, I just thought I would join in
http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/25842
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...ords-interview
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