Comments on: Guardian 24,634/Arachne

By: KB Pike

KB Pike — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:22:32 +0000

Too much wittering chat for me! But then, what do you expect for a puzzle that’s free online? Action, please, Mr Moderator.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:10:36 +0000

(Sorry – 3, 15 and 46 all kick off at 1,1.)

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:08:42 +0000

Hey Gauldrey Guy! This grid (31) is not the most friendly, but it’s certainly not the worst the Guardian has come up with. Witness 22, the most recently chopped (I think). And if you care to go back beyond current, or near-current Penguin collections, you’ll find some really hostile numbers.

And for your friend to say that every grid that starts with the first black square proper at 1,1 is ‘as dangerous’ (as grid 31, I think he means) is to ignore the infinite subtleties of Guardian grids 3, 15 and 46 for example (though possibly not 30, the other one that kicks off at 1,1), and countless others, some really brilliant, in use by the other papers.

Apart from The Times, that is. I’m not sure, but I think their 1 ac light is usually on the top line.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:44:27 +0000

17dn: PILOSE was the last word I put in, though it is familiar to me. It is used mainly in a botanical sense, to describe plants which are sparsely hairy, as opposed to hirsute (a lot of long hairs), tomentose (thickly downy), hispid (bristly) etc etc. And if your plant has no hairs at all it is ‘glabrous’ – lovely word.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:10:07 +0000

I agree with Derek in not loving this particular grid. It always seems to make for a harder Xword for me. I had to chip away at it several times, though all of the words I knew, so that was not a problem. Turgenev was around somewhere recently, Radio 4 or in the Guardian?

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:01:03 +0000

Thanks John, in particular for bringing the conversation around to the matter at hand, if that’s not too controversial a remark. However, I regret to inform you that the two examples you supply are in fact perfectly okay, standard abbreviations. You’ll find them in Collins for sure, and the other dictionaries very probably.

By: don

don — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:42:26 +0000

I knew, probably from a previous crossword in the dim distant past, pilose meant hairy, but I didn’t understand the cluing until Andrew’s blog – I don’t think it fair, far too ‘clever’, or that it makes sense when you analyse it.

By: John

John — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:39:01 +0000

More obscurities (baobab? pilose?) and another example of a pet hate of mine, the indiscriminate use of initial letters ( h = husband?, m = male?) spoiled an otherwise decent puzzle for me.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:35:33 +0000

Shirley, I actually did have to look up PILOSE to check, but it’s from the same root as words such as “depiliatory”, and also “pile”, as in the pile of a carpet.

By: chatmeister

chatmeister — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:29:27 +0000

Some of the comments, and parts of others, in this post are seriously off-topic. Please read the ‘discussion policy’ (linked to at the top of the page) and comply with it by not including, or responding to, comments that are unrelated to this puzzle and which should therefore have been made elsewhere.

I do not want to have to start deleting and editing comments, but I will if this situation continues.