Comments on: Guardian 24,908 – Arachne

By: Barnaby Page

Barnaby Page — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:11:31 +0000

Thought 5ac was brilliant – it took me forever to get it, but “Dr John” was a very neat bit of misdirection.

“Not feeling pain” as a def of “analgesia” seemed a bit clumsy, though. “Absence of pain” or “prevents pain”, maybe.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:36:35 +0000

Well, that’s all very interesting.

By: Monica M

Monica M — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:40:40 +0000

Thanks for the support …. but Robert wasn’t to know I’m from Brisbane, so my comment may have seemed implausible. And right now I’m regretting that I might have had too many beverages last night …. only the one XXXX, but too many wines with dinner.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:40:34 +0000

Thank you, Mr Beaver, got it now.

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:38:42 +0000

Sil – ‘bowl over’ = stun (sort of)
‘bananas’ = NUTS (as in crazy) though it’s a bit of an Americanism perhaps.
Didn’t have any trouble with this one, though it’s maybe two colloquialisms compounded

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:58:17 +0000

It doesn’t happen very often, but today we stopped working on this crossword after filling in about a quarter of the grid.
We were asking ourselves “what’s the frequency, Arachne?”

Looking back at it, most of it was clued completely fair.
Well, ‘Dr’ = ‘cook’ is not that obvious.
I should have known XXXX (and ANALGESIA, NAURU, SERAGLIO and MINOAN)?
But I don’t like the main feature of this crossword: its cleverness.
The way of cluing felt mathematical (“construction first”) and I don’t like that, even though I am a mathematician …

There was no ‘lightness’ at all. Yes, 11ac was a good anagram, but for us not enough to ‘laugh out loud’ (which we hardly ever do anyway). We stopped after the horrible clue 24ac (SHORTCUT).

Sometimes there’s no chemistry at all.
The date: 15 Jan 2010.

PS, can anyone explain 22d to me?
As this crossword is faultlessly constructed, it must be possible, I guess.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:02:31 +0000

I have just looked up pica (on wiki admittedly), and it isn’t really an unnatural craving for food, rather for non-food stuffs. This is why I wasn’t convinced pica should be part of the answer until very late on in the crossword.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:55:53 +0000

It started out easy – 8 completed on first time through, 12 by the second, 18 the third, and in the end failed to get 4 solutions, so thanks for the answers.

Pica I knew, but found it difficult to work in – I thought it also referred to eating non-foods, such as coal, in pregnancy.

I still kick myself for my U blind spot. 25a I had -e-u-n-e, but couldn’t spot the answer. My rule, which I always forget to follow, is that if there is a U try a Q before it – I would have got it straight away then.

11a One of the best ever!

Not keen on the “back” in the down 19, nor on “Cardinal” as the definition in 10a: “A cardinal” would have been fairer.

By: Chunter

Chunter — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:47:49 +0000

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that ‘pica’ is the Latin for ‘magpie’.

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:36:30 +0000

I did think this was hard, but there were enough laughs to compensate. We put in 5a, 10a and 14a without knowing why – hats off to Manehi for decoding those ! – and didn’t get MINOANS at all – it was a bit tortured I thought.
I was pleasantly outraged by 12d – quite refreshing to hear a reference to rubber johnnies – the word condom was unheard of (outside anti-VD leaflets) before AIDS, now one never hears them referred to as anything else.
The one clue I thought was a real duffer was 15d – worthy of Rufus on a bad day, not cryptic at all IMO.