Comments on: Guardian 25,354 – Arachne

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:03:47 +0000

Thanks RCWhiting and tupu.

Fun to see two different parsings for the S.
Indeed, tupu, we went for your option.
It didn’t worry us either, but given the fact that is a rather unusual thing to do, I would have expected some remark by some person at a site like this.
That’s all.

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:39:32 +0000

Hi RCWhiting and Sil

I assumed assets was parsed a + s(small) + set (class) + ‘s (has).

I imagine it is this parsing that Sil’s comment refers to. I seem to remmber there was some argument about such use of the apostrophe some time ago. It does not particularly worry me.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:34:23 +0000

ref: the final ‘S’ in ‘assets’ (16d)
Although the term set in educational usage is most commonly found in secondary schools I have heard it used in primary schools.
There it refers to a ‘table’ of pupils of similar ability. Hence several ‘sets’ would make a class.

By: JH

JH — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:05:06 +0000

Well, I proudly put ARMAGH into 7d, having confirmed with Google that there had been a rail disaster there, only to trip up when I realised what 6a was. Oops.

By: Carrots

Carrots — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:22:45 +0000

With no “aids” available, I was obliged to guess the clues I could not parse. There were quite a few: BOW-WOW, HAVE NOTS, CALLUS, ORGANDIE, and LIMBER among them.

PAINTS, LIONEL MESSI (who he?) NODDER all stretched it a bit for me.

But, thanks for stopping by, Arachne. I shall spot you immediately on Saturday: resplendent wearing a rug, mucky sandals and Wyeth hair-do….sporting a copy of “The Psychology of Housework” peeping from your Indian Bead satchel.

If you turn up with a red rose, ironed and furled copy of “The Times” and a bag by Prada, I am lost.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:07:08 +0000

We have the impression that Arachne’s recent crosswords fluctuate in difficulty and whatever else can fluctuate.
But this one was in our opinion a real corker.

Yes, there was that ‘mishap’ (in 5d) [mishap of the editor too, I guess ].
Yes, was another ‘mishap’ as a hidden in 7d, which we didn’t like very much as ‘hap’ was too obvious [I would have tried to find something like ....MISH A P...., I think].

But when one can write a clue like 12ac (WINDOW SEAT) of which we thought (like Dave Ellison) it was a cd, only to discover that clever construction, well … wow!

Like others we couldn’t parse UTTERS, but isn’t this original?

A brilliant anagram for LIONEL MESSI – quite unbelievable that some people don’t know who he is.
And 22ac (MEATLESS): another highlight.
3d (HAVE-NOTS) was our last, and it took a while to exactly find out why (even after finding the answer). But isn’t that one of the reasons why it is such a good clue? (apart from its splendid surface)
And although I don’t (want to) know anything about cricket, 23ac (DANUBE) is very clever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Benaud).

On top of that, I think 1ac (PARDON) is just brilliant in its simplicity.

Gosh, why am I so enthusiastic about this puzzle?

[only a bit surprised that no-one so far commented on the final S in ASSETS]

By: Martin P

Martin P — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:37:22 +0000

Thanks for the reminder of dear old Ritchie’s broadcasts, less so for the one of napalm: all in all quite some mixture I thought.

By: gm4hqf

gm4hqf — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:43:00 +0000

Thanks for the blog

I also got to this one late and HAVE NOTS stumped me

By: Robi

Robi — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:28:00 +0000

Arachne @32; ‘One of my campaigns is to “out” the bisexuality of various words – no “chapesses” for me.’ Haven’t got any response to whether a curtsy is a female bow or otherwise how bob=BOW works.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:07:15 +0000

‘One of my campaigns is to “out” the bisexuality of various words – no “chapesses” for me’

We’ve noticed= hurrah!