I don’t think I’ve come across Arachne before, but I enjoyed the puzzle. The clues were mostly fair, although some were quite tricky and four living people – all politicians – appeared in the solution (which I wasn’t expecting, being a regular Times solver). I didn’t see the wordplay of a couple of clues while solving, but I got most of them later when I had access to a dictionary.
Across
8 BIG NOISE – (is being)* around O.
11 GRAND,STAND – stand = stomach in the sense of to tolerate.
14 A,PERI,(s)TIF(f) – a peri is a fairy in Persian mythology, quite popular in cryptics.
17 T,ROUBLE – I was a bit doubtful of T=Thailand, but it’s the IVR abbreviation.
20 SUPEREGO – (purges + (th)E + O)* – I’m not too keen on O=no.
24 BO(r)AT – one I had to look up. A hooker is a Dutch fishing vessel.
25 (vot)E,QUA,L(iberal)
26 T(H)RILLER – ref. the album by Michael Jackson, which is (or maybe was by now?) the biggest-selling album of all time.
Down
1 MILIBAND – (man libid(o))* – limitless in a cryptic normally means remove the first and last letters, but here we just have to lose the last. David Miliband is currently Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
3 MING,’ER – Party leader being Sir Menzies Campbell (or Ming for short), who’s leader of the Lib Dems.
5 LANDSEER (a slender)* – took me a while to realise this was a simple anagram.
7 B(ells),HINDI – a.k.a. ladies’ fingers, or okra.
16 E(YE)BALLS – Ed Balls is Economic Secretary to the Treasury, definitely one of Gordon’s pals.
18 LOP-EARED – don’t understand the wordplay of this one. “A red” is obviously in there, but where does LOPE come from?
19 TOM(T,I,T)S – TOMS = most*
24 BILL – being WILL with B(arnstorm) replacing W(ife)
18dn: lop is an instruction: lop [ie take the top off] eared = a red
If it’s the Arachne I know that means another female setter in the Guardian ranks
Why was 21D – uneven?
I get the definition of rough but how does the cryptic part work?
UN + EVEN
UN is a regional form of one = Local individual
EVEN = just
I think until fairly recently Arachne was one of the setters for the Guardian Quiptic, a puzzle designed to educate or assist would-be solvers.
This also appeared in the Guardian Weekly this week and the proper names were impossible.
Also did this in the Guardian Weekly. Still don’t get 18dn. Also didn’t like ‘snap’ for ‘shot’ in 2dn. I discounted ‘superego’ for 20ac because I thought that means conscience, not no conscience. D’oh.