Guardian 24426/Arachne – TGIF

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Some tough stuff here that had me using Chambers (not something I like to do on a Friday morning getting ready for work but I tend to have a bit more time). Bit of a disheartening experience discovering I didn’t know what SPINNERET (Arachne spinning her web?), BREADHEADS and CAVATINA meant — nor a couple of unusual meanings for ALSO and GRAM. Good clues though with surfaces that held together nicely. And I feel a barrage of explanations about to descend for all the things I didn’t understand.

Across

1 C(HA,’S,T)ITY – Can’t explain the HA though.
5 SCARAB – hidden in “genuS CARABus” and might be an &lit (is the SCARAB in the CARABUS genus?)
9 MASTODONS – (and so most)*
11 VAL(U)E
12 DISHEARTENED – I think this is a double definition with the first one being cryptic and the other def “down”. However, there might be some wordplay going on that escapes me: e.g. SHEAR,TEN in DIED??
15 LEA[r]N – good misleading surface: def is just “lean”.
16 F,ONT=not*,AN,ELLE – needed Chambers to check that FONTANTELLE is the soft spot on the skull of an infant.
18 THREEPENNY – tough clue: needed all the crossing letters to work this out: vulgar as in “The Threepenny Opera” and it’s an old coin (octagonal I think?).
19 [g]US,ED – not sure about the wordplay: should the clue have been “Employed boys who’re no good?”
21 CAVEAT=vacate*,EMPTOR=(pro tem)*
24 AB,ASH=has*
25 SPINNERET – it’s the part of a spider that knows how to spin (a web). But the rest? “Fly, oddly, only eats part of spider”.
26 STA(I)RS – Pegasus is a constellation, and flight as in flight of STAIRS.
27 STOCKMAN – two meanings.

Down

1 COMB – two meanings
2 ALSO – hidden in “hospitAL SOmetimes” — turns out that Chambers always says ALSO is archaic “item”.
3 T(R)OPIC – ref. TROPIC of Cancer e.g.
4 TOOTHSOMENESS – (one’s smoothest)*
6 CAVA,TINA – had to look this up… yes, it’s a kind of melody.
7 RELENT,LESS – nice charade with a convincing surface.
8 BREAD=(are, bd)*,HEADS – Brit slang for the money obsessed.
10 STARTING, POINT – ref. to start from “scratch” — and I imagine one of the 9000 meanings of POINT is “sting”.
13 PLUTO,C,RATS
14 LA, TR(A,VI)AT,A – might be an &lit if I knew the plot of LA TRAVIATA but it sounds plausible as is! I think the wordplay is: A,VI (few?) in rev(tart). But I could be wrong.
17 METAPHOR – (map, other)*
20 CO,G,NAC=rev(can=tin) – G for general but… how does pot give us OC or CO?
22 GRAM=rev(marg=margarine) – chickpea (didn’t know this… checked Chambers).

14 comments on “Guardian 24426/Arachne – TGIF”

  1. Eagerly awaiting the analysis. This was a wonderful crossword. I was delighted by the very high level of surface readability of the clues and the thumbnail opera plot summary was both accurate and hilarious!

  2. 12ac: I think “down” is the definition, and if “disheartened” is disheartened the result is “died”.

  4. 25ac: maybe spinner (fisherman’s lure) is a fly, and “e” and “t” are the only odd letters in “eats”.

  5. 1ac: I took ‘s as being abbreviation of ‘HAS’, which I thought was rather clever [the clue, I mean1]

  7. I agree with John about 12ac & 25ac, and with Eileen about 1ac. Certainly some very devious clues here, though also a few easy ones to get a foothold with.

    The old threepenny bit was actually 12-sided – ah, for the days when it was worth something! I used to take a one-stop train journey to school on what is now the Tyne & Wear Metro; the single fare was 3d, but bizarrely there was also an off-peak return for 2d.

  8. Just a couple of questions:

    7d: How is “not able” (or “not able to be”) “less”?

    23d: Is there a superfluous “w” in the wordplay of this clue, or am I missing something?

    Re 14d, the clue is an accurate (if somewhat abbreviated) summary of the plot of La Traviata.

  9. Amnesiac – I was about to agree with you on 23dn, but looking at it again I suppose it’s “Regularly mention” = ETO, plus N=New.

    I do share your puzzlement about 7dn, unless it’s an obscure meaning (I don’t have Chambers to hand to check).

  10. I think u/s is probably an abbreviation of ‘unserviceable’.

    The HAS (along with IS and even WAS) for ‘S is a technique as far as I am aware limited to Guardian puzzles.

  11. 20D GOC is General Officer Commanding
    18A I’m surprised no-one has challenged Ilancaron’s assumption that threepenny is something to do with the opera.
    It’s vulgar because it’s schoolboy slang for tits (threepenny bits)!

  12. Amnesiac 23D The answer is Eton. Starting from the “e” of mention it is the alternate letters ending with the N of New College. The W is irrelevant

  13. 5a – just noticed the question. No, as far as I can tell, the Carabus genus is not a genus of any variety of scarab beetle, but it is a beetle genus.

  14. Shirley – I got the answer, I just felt it was poor wordplay if the alternation produced 5 letters of which the last had to be discarded without explanation. However, I believe Andrew’s suggestion earlier is what was intended as that works correctly.

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