Tough, but excellent puzzle on a topical theme. Plenty of clever clues and surfaces, and I groaned aloud at 1dn.
[There is a thematic nina around the edge of the grid, going clockwise.]
Across
7 Thin line crossed by source of information (7)
SLENDER
=”Thin”. L[ine] inside SENDER=”source of information”.
8 Put new gloss on a Pinter play? (7)
REPAINT
=”Put new gloss on”. (a Pinter)*
9 Beg leader to abandon witch-hunt (4)
URGE
=”Beg”. [p]URGE=”leader to abandon witch-hunt”
10 Repairer of faulty listening equipment (9)
OTOLOGIST
Cryptic def – an OTOLOGIST specialises in medical treatment of the ear.
12 Date for one dictator’s fall (5)
DRUPE
A type of fruit including the “Date”. Sounds like ‘droop’ = “dictator’s fall”.
13 Just about to consider interning liberals by name (8)
WELLNIGH
=”Just about”. WEIGH=”consider” around L[iberal] twice, plus N[ame]
15 GCHQ sees semi-redacted evidence of intelligence (4)
GCSE
=”evidence of intelligence”. GC[HQ] plus SE[es]
16 PRISM, for example, is old scheme (5)
SOLID
=”PRISM, for example”. (is old)*. PRISM is the name of the NSA’s surveillance program.
17 Keep at a distance, listening in on bug (4)
FLEE
=”Keep at a distance”. Sounds like ‘flea’ or “bug”
18 Commander in NSA outfit taking time off in Asian city (8)
NAGASAKI
=”Asian city”. AGA is a Turkish title for a “Commander”, inside NSA, followed by KI[t]=”outfit taking time off”
20 American nonsense about Manning regularly exposed in union declaration (5)
BANNS
=”union declaration”. BS=”American nonsense” around [M]A[n]N[i]N[g]
21 They rank with Troy in ruined greatness (9)
SERGEANTS
Sergeant Francis Troy appears in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. (greatness)*
22 Ban centre-left at great cost (4)
DEAR
=”at great cost”. DE[b]AR=”Ban” with the centre missing.
24 During holiday you head off westward, away from normal environment (2,5)
IN VACUO
=”away from normal environment”. IN VAC=”During holiday”, plus rev{[y]ou}
25 Seasonal barman in Italy wearing very, very cheap chain (7)
VIVALDI
Wrote the “bar”s of the Four Seasons. I[taly] inside V[ery] V[ery], plus ALDI=”cheap chain”
Down
1 Smear former Labour leader in Liverpool? (4)
BLUR
=”Smear”. Might sound like [Tony]] “Blair” in a Liverpudlian accent.
2 Exposed implication of nice ruse (8)
INSECURE
=”Exposed”. (nice ruse)*
3 Sinister financier getting hold of electronic information in cell (6)
GENOME
=”informantion in cell”. GNOME=”Sinister financier” around E[lectronic]
4 Wrongly use double ef in “defiled” (8)
BEFOULED
=”defiled”. (double ef)*
5 Helping informer, one is charged (6)
RATION
=”Helping”. RAT=”informer” plus ION=”one is charged”
6 Badgering military alliance to upgrade base (2,2)
ON AT
=”Badgering”. NATO is the military alliance, moving the O from its base to the top.
11 Completely surrounded by on-air broadcast, Nineteen Eighty-Four-style (9)
ORWELLIAN
=”Nineteen Eighty-Four-style”. WELL=”Completely”, inside (on-air)*
12 Had a chance to claim temporary residence in Russia (5)
DACHA
A Russian country house. Hidden in “[Ha]d a cha[nce]”
14 Finally witnessing US vice leads to Edward Snowden making judgement (5)
GUESS
=”judgement”. G=”Finally witnessinG”, plus US around the “leads to E[dward] S[nowden]”
16 Kate’s put under surveillance (5,3)
STAKE OUT
=”put under surveillance”. “Kate’s” is an anagram of STAKE, or in crosswordese, STAKE OUT.
17 Join Guardian, if rebellious (4-4)
FINE-DRAW
=”Join” [sew sth together]. (warden=”Guardian” if)*
19 US taxmen going over account after a bit of a breather (3,3)
AIR SAC
=”a bit of a breather”. IRS=”US taxmen” followed by AC[count], all after A
20 He’s in charge of rigging sterling over in Balkan region (6)
BOSNIA
=”Balkan region”. a BOS’N is in charge of rigging, plus reversal of AI=A1=”Sterling”
21 Starts to suspect Ingsoc Newspeak has hyperbolic function (4)
SINH
=”hyperbolic function”. S[uspect] I[ngsoc] N[ewspeak] h[as]. Ingsoc and Newspeak are the philosophy and language espoused by the Party in Orwell’s 1984.
23 Helps head of Airstrip One kick stuffing out of dissidents (4)
AIDS
=”Helps”. A[irstrip] O[ne] plus D[issident]S. Airstrip One is the name given to the British Isles in Orwell’s 1984.
Thanks Arachne and manehi
Arachne is my favourite compiler, and I can only admire the cleverness of this offering. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it very much, largely, I suppose, because I found it so difficult. I had no idea at all on some of the word play (DRUPE, BEFOULED, BOSNIA for example) and completely failed on FINE DRAW.
Two quibbles. I didn’t like GCSE being given as (4) – I think you can only get away with this if the acronym is actually pronounceable as a word. WELL-NIGH is hyphenated both in my Chambers and Chambers on-line – “wellnigh” isn’t given as an alternative.
I won’t forget that “greatness” and “sergeants” are anagrams of each other!
btw I still don’t understand the explanation of “befouled”.
muffin @2: Anagram fodder: “double ef”; anagram indicator: “Wrongly use”; definition: “defiled”.
manehi @ 3
Thanks – get it now.
Thanks, manehi. Two themes and a Nina: quite something. Some really tough clueing to boot. I was close to giving up on a few when I spotted the Nina emerging and the additional letters gave me the extra wind to finish.
Would this have been accepted for publication in any other newspaper, I wonder? 😉
Two very linked themes, I should add!
Just failed to finish it – ‘fine draw’ got me, and, daunted, my silly brain couldn’t find ‘flee’ or ‘drupe’ – both ‘sound likes’, so I clearly need an otologist. Have to say this was a superb offering from Arachne, and, though some may argue the rights and wrongs of the Snowden revelations, in my view it is occasionally just right when, with humour, but with pointedness, the crossword sits within a wider and highly charged topicality as in today’s Guardian. Fantastic. Thanks to A and M.
I am unconvinced by the use of “vice” in 14D. The dictionary supports use of “vice” as a verb meaning “grip” – though I have never come across it in this sense. But if it’s a verb whose subject is “US”, the verb should really be the singular form “vices”, shouldn’t it? I suppose “US” could be a collective noun taking a plural as in “the government don’t” – but then it doesn’t really work in the required wordplay meaning of putting the (singular) word “US” around “ES”, does it?
I parsed 5d slightly differently (RAT = informer, I = one, ON = is charged), but I think your way makes more sense. Very tricky, but even on the clues I didn’t get, I enjoyed the surfaces. One further quibble, besides those above. Back when my grandparents were growing up, “Blair” was pronounced like the RP “blur”, but nowadays, it’s the other way around. “Blair” is pronounced “Blair” on Merseyside, but so is the famous Britpop group.
Thanks for the blog, manehi – and well done!
I think this is the hardest Arachne puzzle I’ve done! Like NeilW, I was encouraged to carry on by spotting the very clever Nina.
DRUPE was a new word for me, so I was put off by the misleading definition ‘date for one’.
The parsing of 21ac took a while for the penny to drop: a lovely clue, as was the Italian barman – and many others.
[FINE-DRAW is a reversal [rebellious] of WARDEN IF, rather than an anagram.]
Many thanks, Arachne, for another brilliant puzzle, which really got the brain going this morning!
Agree with Eileen (as I usually do) that this is the hardest Arachne – it’s actually the hardest of all today’s cryptics too.
Lots of lovely stuff as always so thanks to Arachne and manehi too.
Can I ask what “Nina” means? (I know what it is – in this case, “big brother is watching us” – but I don’t know where the name comes from.)
muffin
See the FAQ page.
Ta Gaufrid
I thought it might be some sort of acronym – no wonder I couldn’t work our what it stood for!
I’m so glad to know that others found this as hard as I did! I didn’t spot the Nina, so had to resort to every known device to finish. DRUPE and FINE-DRAW were unfamiliar to me and I couldn’t see the parsing in a number of places, such as NAGASAKI and BOSNIA. My favourite was the lovely ‘seasonal barman’ at 25ac.
A really tough workout and a daring theme. Thanks Arachne for the challenge and thanks manehi for the blog.
(Sorry not to have contributed more lately, but I have been lurking… 🙂 )
21a: For those with less literary leanings, there’s also Sergeant Gavin Troy, who was one of Inspector Barnaby’s sidekicks in the television series “Midsomer Murders”.
Welcome back, liz!
[And I, too, meant ‘seasonal’ [not ‘Italian’] barman, of course, @10.]
J-Boh @8: US is not one word. It is two letters.
Sorry to come on again with my pet grump, but I did not like 17D’s use of a synonym for part of the anagram material. This seems to me to give wordplay which can be derived from the solution, once this has been obtained by other means, but which does not lead towards the solution.
Just popping by to say I thought BLUR was brilliant. Made my day.
David Mop @ 19 Just popping back to say that like Eileen I read 17d as a reversal – think ‘uprising’.
Thanks ulaca @21, but whether it’s an anagram or a reversal does not alter my point!
Thanks Arachne and manehi.
Everyone has their own tastes – types of clues they like and don’t like, conventions that should always be upheld and those that can be flouted, levels of difficulty that suit, and so on ad infinitum. I have said it often enough: each to their own. However, today’s puzzle is so phenomenally clever and beautifully constructed that all and any gripes over matters such as what constitutes an acronym and how one should be enumerated, or whether a solution should be hyphenated, are rendered utterly trivial an pointless.
Bravo Arachne – gorgeous work.
Beautifully put, Mitz! 😉
David Mop @22: Oh yes, it does!
Mitz @23
I accept you different opinion on GCSE, but “wellnigh” doesn’t seem to be a word, at least in the crossworders’ bible, so should have been indicated as (4-4).
Thanks manehi and Arachne. Brilliant stuff! I wondered for a time whether in 12ac “dictator” might be doing double duty to give Date (D) plus one dictator (= RUPErt Murdoch) makes DRUPE/sounds like DROOP.
Thanks manehi.
I’m glad everyone else found this tricky. I didn’t quite finish it before having to go out this morning. Fortunately, the penny dropped on the remaining clues when I got back this afternoon.
Splendid puzzle. I guessed there was going to be a Nina, but I needed three-quarters of the peripheral letters before I saw it – so it helped, but only towards the end. I agree that 13a should have been enumerated differently, but as Mitz @23 said, this is such a good crossword it is churlish to complain.
Many excellent clues, with Arachne’s characteristically fine surfaces. Almost too many to choose a favourite from, but the ‘seasonal barman’ takes the biscotto.
Bravissima, Donna Ragno!
rhotician @25: Please explain.
@muffin
I agree with you. Every single dictionary I can find agrees with you. My point is that compared to how brilliant the puzzle is as a whole, this matter (which is only partly Arachne’s fault and should certainly have been picked up by the editor prior to publication) is utterly trivial.
Guardian sgould pick things up, it spoils great puzzles!!
When completing the Captcha , did it remind anyone of “2 + 2 = 5”?
Mitz @ 30
Wouldn’t it have been an even better puzzle if the word(s) had been indicated correctly?
But I agree that it is a trivial point.
Mop is wrong about 17d, which is a reversal;. WARDEN+IF. There is a synonym, but that is standard AFAAI.
Rowls.
Agree with rhotician & Rowland re 17d. Indirect anagrams are generally felt to be unfair, not indirect reversals. Straight reversals are rare, and surely risk being rather dull and easy. No idea what AFAAI means though. As far as anyone apprehends it?
Thank you Anon @35. So let’s say 17d offers an indirect reversal, and that this is fair, even with no indication of the nature or even of the existence of the indirectness. Now how many solvers got from “Guardian, if” to the solution, and how many worked it out afterwards?
You must be VERY new to crosswords!! Synonyms are used in the charade- type clues ( like 17D ) all the time. Just because it is baclkwards does not mean anything.
@David Mop.
Me for one. It was one of my last in so I had several crossers (one from the nina): F???-D?AW. The second word could only be draw, and from that I spotted “warden if” backwards. In fact, I had to convince myself that FINE-DRAW actually worked as the solution.
@ David Mop
Me too. Add me to Mitz. It’s an unfamiliar word so I wasn’t likely to think of it without help from the wordplay. It’s not a stunningly hard clue, even if it doesn’t give you all the letters straight off to make it easier. Like Mitz I needed a few crossers though. As I said before, indirection is normal (except in anagrams, because of their characteristic unpredictability/randomness, I assume) so an “indirection indicator” is not needed, and would just add a meaningless extra bit to the clue, probably making it much harder. These rules do seem to work pretty well for most people.
Mitz @24
Attention to detail is important. For instance no-one has mentioned acronyms. It’s anagrams. And surely that’s what this site is for.
The Nina, Orwell, 1984, Ingsoc, Newspeak, Airstrip One, Manning, Simpson, GCHQ, NSA, PRISM, NATO, surveillance, intelligence,
informers, exposure, bans and bugs – nothing to argue about there.
One last detail. It’s Brava Arachne.
@ David Mop
However if you read through, you will see that at least two of us didn’t solve it at all!
rhotician @ 40
Actually, I was querying whether the “acronym” (or not, as it can’t be pronounced as one word) GCSE should have been indicated as 1,1,1,1 rather than 4.
muffin @42 So you did. Apologies to Mitz.
I just don’t get the complaint David Mop is making. This is a puzzle with clues, you’re supposed to be able to write stuff straight in! I liked this offering, a good one, better than most you get in the Guardian by my reckoning anyways. Good Friday puzzle.
rhotician @ 40
My comment was #23, not #24.
😉
@ David Mop
From yesterday’s Gordius and Paul the day before:
backwater = AES
republic raised = ERIE
boy meeting love on the rebound = ONIA
European king after backing = RENAD
Thank you for blogging, manehi.
You can add me to the list of those who couldn’t finish this one. Topical and worthy of discussion theme; well done to the G for publishing it (although the paper itself is part of the story, of course). But just too hard for a daily cryptic in my opinion. I got over half of it, but the remainder remained impenetrable, and so I wasn’t able to see the nina around the outside, although I suspected that there probably was one.
Anyway, others have enjoyed it, so well done Spiderwoman.
Mitz @45. Dammit. I post about attention to detail and get two details wrong. Time for my nap.
I was surprised to find that I had solved this correctly, without aids, when I checked. Goodness knows how long it took me, but I don’t care. It was a very thorough and enjoyable workout, made more difficult by the fact that I saw the theme, and most of the allusions, but missed the NINA. I agonised over whether to insert ‘flee’ or ‘flea’ (it was sheer good fortune that I chose the correct one) and solved ‘fine-draw’ by wordplay as I did not know the definition ‘fine-draw’ = ‘join’.
Time to clear my head before I tackle the Times and watch England take on the mighty Montenegro – how things change.
Thanks for the blog manehi.
I couldn’t agree more with Mitz@23, an outstanding offering from the spiderwoman!
Bravo Arachne and encore!
Very tough, I agree. But excellent stuff. My CODs were VIVALDI and SERGEANTS, both exceptionally “nicely” constructed. Many thanks A and m. As usual, I didn’t spot the Nina until coming here!
Thanks manehi and Arachne
Like many others, I found parts of this very hard. Like Gervase didn’t quite finish it this morning and came back to it late afternoon. My last answers were GCSE and drupe and I only understood this last one when I was just about to give up. It was very satisfying to get all the answers and parsings but I’m sad to have missed the lovely nina.
Despite the difficulty, there are some lovely light touches e.g. in 1d and 24a.
J-Boh @ 8
I saw vice as a noun, with US used adjectivally, so U – – S is a vice ‘clamping’ E S
Any other views?
Thanks to Arachne for another brilliant puzzle (much use of the Check button required) and to manehi for the blog
Some really great spidery clues but harder than usual, and I had to cheat a couple to finish.
Thanks manehi; of course, I ‘fell’ for the dictator, only thinking of those nasty men and wondering at first where the homophone indicator was. 🙁
Brilliant ‘seasonal barman,’ well-nigh impossible to fathom at the beginning. 😉 It’s easy to start with an 8-light space and forget to change the enumeration, which is not exactly a mortal sin. I’m ashamed to say that I cheated GENOME as I thought it was some financier that I had never heard of!
As others have said, quite possibly the most difficult Arachne puzzle. With 17ac and 17dn left I had to resort to aids. I then got FINE DRAW but guessed the wrong “FLE?”. Of course, had I seen the nina it would have been obvious ……… A very good workout indeed.
It defeated me, but so brilliant, Arachne. Thanks to manehi
We had to resort to some electronic assistance (just like the intelligence community) to finish this one!
We finished it this morning having started this late last night. Plenty to do later on so Joyce sneaked a look at the blog. Thanks manehi! Having suggested that Bert look for a NINA he was able to finish the puzzle.
Yes, it was difficult but it was beautifully constructed. As K’s D suggests, it may have been better as a Prize puzzle though.
Thanks Arachne for spinning a lovely puzzle!
Sorry, too many excuses being made for some very lax and inaccurate clueing – I won’t be doing any more Arachne puzzles…
Hi ds @ 58
That does seem to be a strong reaction to a puzzle that has received many accolades both here and over at the guardian site too.
In keeping with this site’s policy no 2, “2. Any criticism of a puzzle or clue must be valid, constructive and presented in a polite manner. The reason for any dissatisfaction should be clearly indicated. Comments that do not comply with these criteria may be removed.”, could you be a little more specific so that we can understand the grounds for your views?
Thanks!
I have returned to the grid and taken the first two clues unanswered:
dictator – does not mean “as read out”
flee – does not mean keep at a distance
ds @ 60
DRUPE sounds like DROOP when said by someone who reads it out, ie dictates it, so they would be a dictator
If you FLEE from someone you are trying to keep them at a distance, surely?
I don’t see any inaccuracies in the cluing there.
Very late, for which apologies. First things first: huge thanks to manehi for the outstanding blog. Thanks, too, to all for taking the trouble to comment.
ds@60: Please see Chambers’ definition of “flee” (“vt to keep at a distance from”). The homophone @12ac is not “dictator” but “dictator’s”.
Arachne
No inaccuracies at all, ds, at least not in the setting! I also checked vice (14d) in Collins: vb transitive, to grip, so that is precise too.
I’m all at Rhotician @ 40.
A far better puzzle than I realized while solving. Completely missed the Nina, but when does one look for them?
Hadto bang on OneLook for the last few in the NW and SE, embarrassed over SLENDER.
It’s a Friday puzzle, should be the hardest and most complex of the week. I think this one should have been saved for Saturday, though. (I solved this Saturday Prize more quickly than this one)
Excellent puzzle, Spiderlady, and thanks for the blog, Manehi and the rest of you lot.