Guardian 25,950 / Arachne

54 comments on “Guardian 25,950 / Arachne”

1. Thanks for the blog Eileen and for a great crossword, Arachne.

   Re SIREN SONG – Sirens on = wailing.

   Re BAULK – America – A – in Bulk – If something is in bulk it is “wholesale”.

2. Thanks, Eileen. Great crossword and blog. I think Baulk (my last in) is A(merica) in BULK. Not wild about A = America, but otherwise excellent stuff from Ms Arachne.

3. Thanks, Eileen. A corker as usual from Arachne!

   When I solved this in the early hours, your time, I assumed that the clue for BAULK was missing “in”, I suppose after yesterday’s online debacle. It wasn’t helped by the fact that at that time of the morning the PDF was mysteriously unavailable! Anyway, I’m sure the explanations above are correct.

4. I liked 12a, 22a, 25a & 28a and my favourites in this puzzle were CHASTITY, OBSCENE & WON TON.

   New word for me was CAMBER.

   I was unable to parse 9a, 1d, 29a.

   Thanks for the blog, Eileen.

5. Thanks Eileen; I was anxiously awaiting the blog, as I struggled with this one, while appreciating the brilliant surfaces – there were 6 or 7 I failed to parse! 🙁

6. Arachne, as ever, on cracking form.

   Thanks Eileen; I didn’t see the parsing of SUE, but isn’t it: zoo after removal of larynx sounds like SUE, rather than the reverse?

   As you say, CHASTITY is a classic, my COD. I also particularly liked GOALIE, OUTLAW, NEAR MISS and MYRIAD [and all the others too!]

7. I too struggled with some of this. In particular I had NOT NOW for 16,17d at first (the clue’s ambiguous), and when I’d got that sorted out I couldn’t decide whether 16a should be WITLESS or WITNESS (again it’s ambiguous).
   But that apart, there were some excellent surfaces, and a good few smiles.

8. Yes two very poor clues to spoill the rest , which are pretty good. How did they slip byy?/ More CoNSidrtaino reqiured.

   Roelwy

9. I had to go out immediately after posting the blog – thanks for all the help in the meantime. Amendments made now. I don’t think I would have seen 9 and 29ac however long I’d stared at them, so I’m glad I didn’t delay the blog any longer.

10. jim and Rowland: Some of us like ambiguity, it’s what cryptic crosswords are all about. Some of us do not rush to enter NOT NOW when it’s obvious that WON TON is equally valid.

    Orlando in 25697, less than a year ago, gives us ‘Chinese fare served up later’. Also ambiguous. Note the absence of ‘perhaps’. Eileen’s blog of this puzzle has interesting things to say about the fact that Hugh did not censor this clue even though, some ten days earlier, Paul had done something similar.

    ‘Chinese food perhaps later brought up, therefore happy’ This gives WONTON SOUP. Note ‘perhaps’, and no ambiguity. Typical of Paul that the surface, referring I suppose to bulimia, should be slightly unpleasant.

11. I hardly ever do the Guardian crossword, so this was a rare treat for me.

    I can’t agree with rhotician about the agreeability of ambiguity in clues, but while technically those to WON TON and WITLESS could lead to NOT NOW and WITNESS respectively, the former isn’t really a dictionary phrase and neither clue, in my opinion, reads very convincingly if you go for the alternatives. That doesn’t make them unambiguous of course, but I think it weighs the balance.

12. Rowly
    Presumably one of your “very poor” clues is 22 (NONMETAL) for the nounal indicator, but which is the other? Or do you mean WON TON and WITNESS and not 22? That would be 2 you’ve not objected to. Fine by me of course…

    I thought it was excellent – but certainly slightly libertarian here and there.

13. Great blog Eileen and another wonderful puzzle. Too many brilliant clues to list but my favourites were 13, 26 (brilliant surface), 22 and 20. A sheer delight. Thanks Arachne.

14. Can anyone please explain the significance (if there is any) of the WOMAN giving evidence in 16ac? A witness could be of either sex.

15. Hi muffin

    Arachne very often does this kind of thing: it goes some way to redressing the usual bias.

16. Thanks Eileen – I was just idling wondering why “person” wasn’t used, but your (and Arachne’s) point makes sense.

17. Sorry, muffin, I meant to add one of these 😉

18. Struggled after a start and eventually got stuck, damn.

    22 is slightly dodgy because in some respects Hydrogen behaves like a metal and in others like a non-metal (it can form both positive and negative ions). Hence, refering to it as being one rather than the other is inaccurate.

19. Derek Lazenby @ 18
    I don’t entirely agree with you on hydrogen as a metal. Unlike metals, hydrogen always requires the assistance of an electron pair donor, such as a water molecule, in order to form a positive ion. Without this a positive hydrogen ion would simply be an isolated proton, with so high a charge density that it would distort and associate with any electron clouds it encountered.

20. Thanks Arachne and Eileen.

    Wow. Just wow. Another Friday, another Arachne, and I don’t care what anyone says this is one of the best puzzles so far this year. Genius all over the place: SIREN SONG, SUE, NONMETAL, DALMATIAN, BUSHY – I could go on. I’ll admit to being hoisted by my own petard: I had “witless” at 16a which held me up with REDESIGN and hence the whole NW corner, but I’m not grumbling.

    Last in was BAULK – very clever, and I had almost given up.

    What a week. Can we top it off with a Picaroon prize? It seems to be his turn…

21. Hio Tom,

    WON T On && WITNESS, I’m not swwayd by all thwese excuses. up the threasds. The ambiguiuty is easilly addresse4d.

    22 is al least CONSCIOUSs of its failings, the QM ist here becaise Arachen knows the fault, so fair enough reallY, butDErek may have a point. Iu’m no scientisyt.

22. 29a A(merican) in BULK = wholesale

    15d Technical phonetics – Z is a voiced consonant, requiring the use of the larynx, S is it’s unvoiced equivalent

23. Apologies to your earlier bloggers. As a beginner, I was looking at a web-page which only had the solution on it.

    Further apologies to all for the rogue apostrophe.

24. Rowland @21: I don’t think anyone wants to sway you. And no-one is offering excuses. Nor does anything need to be “addressed”. Setters sometimes make mistakes that can and should be corrected. In the case of ambiguous clues most setters know what they are doing. For me they are adding to the fun. It’s only an error if the ambiguity cannot be resolved by way of crossing letters.

25. Many thanks to both Arachne for a wonderful puzzle and Eileen for the blog, which was needed for the parsing of one or two.

    The sun was shining this morning so the garden got attention again. My Mum and I did not start the crossword until after lunch and have just finished. We had a good laugh that my suggestion of BUSHY for thick was correct, after trying many Georges without success. My Mum’s recollection of Gordon Banks as Leicester’s goal keeper gave me the necessary prompt to put in GOALIE.

    When getting GCSE students to colour in the Periodic Table to show metals, we never included hydrogen, so it must be a NONMETAL to most people and the use of the H allows for a wonderful surface.

26. I thought BAULK was American pronunciation of ‘bulk’ for 29A

27. muffin, I didn’t say it could be a metal and therefore behave identically to a metal, I said like a metal. I also said like a non-metal, I didn’t say it could be a non-metal. How can it ever be classified as either? What other non-metal forms a positive ion? None, so it is not a non-metal, as they never form positive ions. Some published versions of the periodic table show it in both positions, which doesn’t say it can be either metal or non-metal, it just indicates what ions it can form. Positive ions behave in a metal-like way, negative ions in a non-metal like way. How Hydrogen ions are formed (either type) is not really relevant, how they behave once formed is what is important.

    So, basically, Hydrogen is not an element to which the metal/non-metal classification applies.

    George, most people thought the earth was flat. What most people think is never reliable. Facts are reliable, thinking is not.

28. Thanks to Eileen for the blog.

    I am another objecting to (part1) up (part2) in 16,17 where you need crossing letters to decide which solution to select 😡

29. Derek @27
    I take your point. Periodic Tables used to show hydrogen twice, once with the alkali metals, then again with the halogens. More recently it is shown, together with helium, separately. (This makes good sense, as they are the only two elements with electrons only in the first shell, which only has an ‘s’ orbital.)

    However your (implied) definition of a metal seems a bit circular – metals form positive ions, so elements that form positive ions are metals. The point I was making was that the WAY in which hydrogen forms positive ions is quite unlike the way that metals do.

    The separation of elements into metal/non-metal is over simplistic, of course – there are also “metalloids” or “semi-metals”. However I am quite happy to accept (certainly for crossword purposes!) that an element that is NOT a metal is therefore a non-metal. I think hydrogen qualifies.

30. Just got in… Re 29, wouldn’t it be smoother if it was “America’s IN wholesale decline”?

31. sitywit – the point is that the synonym for “wholesale” is “in bulk”. So the clue reads “America’s [in bulk] decline.”

32. Sorry, can’t agree. You are applying a membership test that isn’t valid. You argue that there are reasons why it is not a metal, fine, then completely ignore the reasons why it can’t possibly belong to the other set either. Non-metals do not form positive ions, end of story. Neither category fits.

    You are trying to say the equivalent of that if someone is not a Catholic, they must be a Protestant, whilst ignoring the fact that they may not even be Christian.

    I suspect the real problem is the use of the prefix non which is not helpful as it implies there are only two categories, when there are actually three (plus the sub-divisions you mentioned). It’s best to think metals, some other class (make up a name), and hydrogen, and not be mislead by the false implication created by the use of “non” that there are only two classes.

33. Derek, Wiki has an article on the term nonmetal that explicitly identifies hydrogen as such. You may well think you know better, as you do on the subject of ratio, but if so you should take it up with them. This is not the place.

    Use of the symbols of the chemical elements is something of an Arachne trademark, which I, for one, welcome.

34. I’m chuffed I completed this one, but needed some help with parsing e.g. siren song, myriad and sue. COD was CHASTITY. I agree that 16a was ambiguous, but it was OK once you had got 2D (redesign) to give you the crossing letter to confirm (although I also could not understand why it had to be a woman). Is that not acceptable in crossword land?

    The chemistry lesson has gone completely over my head.

35. You actually believe every thing you see on Wiki? It’s a good first start, but that’s all.

    All sorts of topics have been discussed here and not just by me, so .

    On the elderly subject you mentioned, I was merely reporting the proper technical definitions as opposed to dictionary humbug, I was not expressing my own opinion (which was only coincidently the same as the technical definition), but you’ve always enjoyed sarcasm when you’ve nothing sensible to say.

    Who mentioned any objection to the use of chemical symbols? Some people always did have trouble reading English.

36. rhotician@24: “It’s only an error if the ambiguity cannot be resolved by way of crossing letters.” I am 100% in agreement.

    I had to resort to aids to get BAULK, but I have no complaint with the clue. I went down the blind alley of trying to think of an American word that meant utter or complete, as in wholesale carnage.

    Another very good puzzle.

37. Late to contribute as usual.
    Some brilliant surfaces,subtle misdirections,concealed definitions and clever connections.
    I found the southern half straightforward (save for ‘baulk’), but I stalled for a long time in the North.
    Ambiguities are usually fine by me (unless perhaps I can’t begin to work out any possible definitions)
    Many thanks to A & E.

    PS: The server kept crashing on me last night, but I enjoyed that one too

38. Derek L. I eschew sarcasm. And asserting that I have ever had nothing sensible to say is, to say the least, ill-mannered.

39. Gentlemen
    Please keep comments on topic, ie related to this puzzle, not personal exchanges which could be continued, if you so wish, under General Discussion.

40. Indeed, let me try to bring us back to discussing the puzzle. There were some fine clues, but if Eileen is struggling to parse one or two, then it’s an indication it’s a tricky one, I think. Clever surfaces, tricky wordplay, some trademark misdirection.

    My only whinge with this is the grid. And I know I’m boring everyone by repeating this, but this, for me, is a really solver-unfriendly grid: very few starting letters, loads of clues with less than 50% checking, and essentially four separate puzzles in one. A few other folk have commented on this before as well, but most people seem unconcerned about it, so perhaps I should just shut up. Or get better at solving cryptics without needing to be spoon-fed the answers.

    Thanks to Eileen and Arachne.

41. Good point Kathryn’s Dad @40 (about the grid) – I meant to say the same

42. We thought about commenting on the grid but it seemed rather a shame to carp about that when the crossword was so good. As Eileen said, lots of fun, lots of twists and lots of head scratching, especially for our last entry 29ac.

    Thanks Eileen for the blog and Arachne for a wonderful, wicked web of intrigue. We particularly liked 13ac and 20d.

43. Thanks Arachne and Eileen

    Really struggled with this and did solve it as four hard mini puzzles. Ended up failing on 29a – having settled on BALLS.

    Apart from that, enjoyed the many clever twists and turns getting to the end eventually.

44. Don’t know if anyone will be reading this now, but the definition in 22ac is fine. In astrophysics a metal is any element other than hydrogen or helium. No chemical reason – just a convenient term for “everything else”. (Hydrogen and helium make up around 98% of the visible matter in the universe.)

    Thanks to Arachne for another refreshingly varied set clues and to Eileen for the blog.

45. It took me ages to work out 29A. Of course it’s – America (A) IS in bulk (wholesale). Damn!

46. Well yes, I think crossing letters are there to help, so let’s hope, if clues are ambiguous, that at any given point within your solve you happen to have some. But when you’ve just sat down, blank lights everywhere, and, as here, the grid is giving you zero assistance, you’re not going to get that help, are you. And that’s why, for most people, clues should be discrete units that provide an unequivocal route to solutions. We can have some exceptions, as with cross-referencing (which some people dislike exactly because you can’t solve anything until you crack the – sometimes greatly esoteric – gateway clue), but, as I’m sure a compiler of Arachne’s quality would agree, it’s best to be fair.

    Re Derek-bashing, this is not the first time the GUist mob have had a go, is it!? And it’s even more frustrating for you when he makes a good point, isn’t it!?

47. The WITLESS/WITNESS clue is sorted out by having the word “woman” do double duty. It’s not there just to be different, it means that the “heart” of idiotic (witless) changes to “woman”, or ‘n’. (cf “N or M?”) This also sorts out the ambiguity.

    I agree that “WON TON” could be “NOT NOW”, though.

48. Here’s an explanation of N and M, if anyone was wondering:

    http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/emmchrad.html#ntakem

49. Even if ‘woman’ equals N, as I’m sure it must do in some discourse or other, if not in any dictionary, then what does ‘giving evidence’ mean as a definition for WITNESS?

    I don’t know who you are Kathryn (thanks for the link anyway), but you don’t understand crossword clues!

50. @Kathryn #47 – I think you’ve might have cracked it.

    A straight reading of the clue is as per the blog but adding the N idea tightens it up, a bit like what happens in an “extended definition” only this time it’s an extended wordplay. I wonder whether that was intentional or a happy accident.

    Of course making the witness female is a standard Arachne tactic – she often applies the female gender to otherwise arbitrary pronouns etc.

    Superb puzzle I thought; you think this setter can’t keep topping her own act and again and again she does. Made hard work of it but that was mainly down to the ghastly grid.

    Thanks for the blog Eileen.

51. I vote for non metal. Its not shiny and you can’t hit anyone with a lump of hydrogen at room temperatures

52. To quote K’sD @40, “Clever surfaces, tricky wordplay, some trademark misdirection.”

    COD for me as for many was 20, I also ticked the TD at 25. 15 was also fun to parse long after penciling it in. I also liked about 98% of the rest, though most came slowly, enough pennies were dropped to keep the gas on for a month.

    Pretty much did the four puzzles one at a time,proceeding CCW from the NE. Didn’t think to look up “Split”, so totally missed 28, and got nowhere near 29. By the way, the US spelling is “balk”.

    Now on to the massive debate at 22a. For a long time – working with no checked letters due to won ton/not now, perhaps a misreading of Genesis (the fourth man I encountered was Enoch), perhaps I had the M, but I was looking for things relating to the letter H, or perhaps goalposts, when I noticed the potential anagrind and correct number of letters in “Mantel on”. Mixing it up into NONMETAL only took moments, and I happily inked it in.

    But then I researched it, since I knew there is a (theoretical, not observed in the lab yet) metallic state of hydrogen, which, from what I could glean, is actually a liquid. The definition of “metal” in this case is that the outer shell electrons in the substance are free to move independent of “their” atomic nuclei. This allows the passing of an electrical current. It is theorized that there may be a lot of it deep inside Jupiter and Saturn.

    That said, H is also classed as a nonmetal.

    As someone moderately well-versed in matters that English and History majors indulge in the absolute minimum of in school, I never mind such tiny niggles over the exact and precise details, I just enjoy their use in word puzzles. I’d be more concerned if a setter messed up on something about a major literary figure (real or fictional) or a(n) historical event.

    Thanks for the tightly-constructed challenge, Spiderwoman, and the lovely blog, Eileen!

53. 22 across is an anagram of Mantel on, however the H refers to the element hydrogen which is an example of a non-metal.

54. reallordtim @53

    I can’t see how that is different from what I said in the blog! [The definition is underlined.]

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