Guardian 26,668 / Arachne

58 comments on “Guardian 26,668 / Arachne”

1. Totally agree. After a thin week in the Guardian this was a cracker. 23a made us smile.

2. Back again. Sorry, forgot to say you missed out the O – nothing in 13a

3. She is wicked(ly good)

4. The best way to cheer up a grumpy Friday – discover it is Arachne and then solve the most splendid crossword of the week. Too many favourites to list but the top one has to be the absolutely splendid &Lit at 21a.

   Many thanks to the lovely Arachne. Thanks to lucky Eileen, congratulations on the 400 and have a lovely holiday too.

5. Thanks Arachne and Eileen – triply fortunate, Eileen; birthday (have a happy one), holiday and an Arachne to blog.

   Lovely crossword, as I would expect. I didn’t parse ADZE – too clever for me. The anagrams at 21 and 5 were fabulous. 3 and 6 were also particular favourites.

   Just one quibble though – a comet isn’t a star.

6. Oh, and I meant to say that the GNU returns to its natural environment!

7. Thanks, david @2 – corrected.

8. Thanks Eileen, and have a good holiday. The top left of this went straight in, soon followed by the rest of the left side. But I struggled for a while with the trolley and the pheromone, and failed on 24A. Liked the 20-1 bet, and the heroic anagram in 5D.

9. Thanks Eileen, ad multos annos! I giggled and hooted my way through this, earning myself some funny looks from my fellow commuters on the bus. I think 21a is my favourite anagram ever. Many thanks, Arachne!

10. Best crozzie for ages – many thanks, Arachne.

    Thanks Eileen, had to wait for you to parse ADZE & EXECRATE – both excellent clues.

    Great stuff everywhere but particularly liked ADVENT, BOUGHT IT, NINETEEN, LOONY LEFT, & SHORT SHRIFT.

    Pride of place for me was the surprising anagram in SAINT GEORGE.

    Many have disagreed over the offerings earlier in the week but I bet most will love this.

    Have a lovely holiday, Eileen.

    Nice weekend, all.

11. Andreas61 – you reminded me – should have included PRE-RAPHAELITES in my favourites.

12. swoon

    @Eileen
    Not a bad gig to get eh? Well done on getting 400*; have a lovely holiday

13. @Eileen – Should have added congratulations on your CD, hell of an achievement.

14. Excellent, especially 3d. Couldn’t parse 24a as in my universe a comet is not a star (I know the name is from the Latin for hairy star but all the same).

15. Thanks to Arachne and Eileen, the former for a lovely puzzle, the latter for saving my poor scratched head on a couple of parses, and both for being the best in their respective businesses.

    400? Wow!

16. Hooray, Arachne’s back! I thought 3d was marvellous, and 24a an absolute shocker for which we can probably blame Chambers. I enjoyed all the rest equally.

17. Thanks Arachne and Eileen. Congratulations on your 400th blog Eileen, have a pleasant walking holiday in Menorca.

    A lovely puzzle to finish the ‘week’. The top left went in quickly, then solving slowed down. I needed help to parse ACRIMONY and SHORT SHRIFT.

    SAINT GEORGE and PRE-RAPHAELITES were great anagrams, BOUGHT IT, LIE DOGGO, IVAN and ASPHODEL fun, and HADRON and AGELESS well hidden.

18. 24a is fine, Arachne has put a question mark, many people in the past must have thought a comet was a ‘star’, and they called meteorites ‘shooting stars’.

19. 24a potentially a reference to the Magi’s confusion re the Advent star?
    I had more concerns about 10a – how does vacation equal the removal of the middle letter of a word, rather than of its whole contents?
    And in 26a, how does “no” equate to “zero” without some qualifying reference? “How many cakes have you eaten today?” “No”.
    Otherwise a likeable (if not loveable) crossword. Compared to some this week, for me it built momentum with crossing letters opening up the (til then) unappreciated cryptic elements of unsolved clues.

20. 26a, “One’s wrong to eat no protein”, “One’s wrong to eat zero protein”, does it really need qualifying?

21. Cookie@20 – I think so, because the protein is the definition, not part of the cryptic element. “One’s wrong to eat no”. No what?

22. Guessed 24a as MOVETH and couldn’t parse with only myself to blame. Huh!

    Apart from that, thanks to Srachne for a wonderful crossword and hopefully many more to come!

23. Hmm, but “One’s wrong to eat zero”, does a cryptic definition have to make sense? What about 9a “Five pound ten bill before”, before what? or “A-Z back to front in”, in what?

24. Congratulations on your 400th, Eileen! I hope your holiday proves to be a good way to celebrate that.

    I found this my fourth struggle of the week, but definitely the most fun. I didn’t see the construction for LIED in LIE DOGGO. My main problem was with COMETH, though. As muffin and others have said, a COMET is in no way a “star”, and I’m not convinced that the question mark is enough to justify it. As I doubted my interpretation of that part of the clue and also missed the word play for the H, I gave up on parsing that one. To me, that is the least satisfactory clue in the puzzle, and not just because of my failure to parse it.

    I think Van Winkle @19 & 21 does have a good point about MYOSIN, though I didn’t spot that while solving the puzzle. I’m not sure it is actually wrong, but it doesn’t feel right. If it was rewritten as “One’s wrong to eat zero protein”, I would have no problem as I’d parse it as “0” in “MY SIN” = “MYOSIN”, but I don’t think you can just substitute “NO” for “0” in that equation even though the two complete sentences have the same meaning. The “zero” version would be more satisfying, at least for me.

    There are really too many good clues to choose favourites, but I can’t resist mentioning PRE-RAPHAELITES AND LOONY LEFT.

    Thanks to Arachne and Eileen.

25. jennyk @24
    That should have been “but I don’t think you can just substitute “no” for “zero” in that equation”.

26. I took shamefully long to solve COMETH and MYOSIN but everything clicked into place deeply satisfactorily in the end. Arachne is the best of the best in the Guardian at the moment.

    I wasn’t 100% sure about “vacation” implying “losing the middle letter” – shouldn’t vacation be the removal of everything but the “walls”? Mind you I can’t explain *why* I thought that…

27. jennyk @24, the COED gives “star n. 1 a celestial body appearing as a luminous point in the night sky”, surely with the question mark this should be adequate to allow COMET?

28. All very entertaining as always from Arachne, and decidedly tricky in places. last in was COMETH, favourites BOUGHT IT, SAINT GEORGE and LOONY LEFT

    Thanks to Arachne and Eileen (and congratulations on the milestone, hope there are many more to come)

29. Now that was more like it. Superb. I thought I’d lost my sense of humour after the last couple. Many thanks Eileen for your always wonderful blogging. And of course thanks to Arachne.

30. 10a, LI(k)ED ‘vacated’ leaves LIED, a proper word, so I thought it worked all right.

31. COMETH was my last in and needed artificial aid. I feel justified, for all the reasons that appear above. I remember STEEL being clued as ‘metal’ a little while ago and my poor literal mind had that down as an alloy, whatever the dictionaries say. So these scientific inaccuracies are a good way to put me off the scent.

    All a great shame, for I’d ticked off numerous clues earlier on, just like everybody else. The warm glow of achievement with INGENU and NINETEEN, to pick just two early ones, made this sometimes frustrating hobby worth all the aggro. And then along came PRE-RAPHAELITES! Immediately, I could see Rossetti! And SAINT GEORGE too … two anagrams of the highest possible quality in one puzzle. Plus a cd in HOSTESS TROLLEY that must have Rufus kicking his heels in frustration.

    Eileen, I bet you wish you could take a book of Arachnes away with you.

32. Verlaine 26 and Cookie 30 – On reflection, “Disheartened,” instead of “On vacation” would have been more accurate and (in my opinion at least) would have read equally well. But I was perfectly happy with the original clue.

33. Cookie @27, it’s an interesting point. In my view, “a comet appearing as a luminous point in the night sky” could reasonably be called a star. However, for me, “comet” on its own means a large lump of rapidly moving rock and ice, not a twinkly light. My other objection is that I’ve never seen a comet appear as a luminous point. The two that I have seen looked more like dim clouds to me.

    Luckily, ACOMETAPPEARINGASALUMINOUSPOINTINTHENIGHTSKYH didn’t fit the grid or the definition, so I avoided that trap.

34. I was one of those who complained yesterday – about the setter being too clever, clever and trying too hard. No complaints today – this was a superb puzzle. Thanks a lot, Arachne. Thanks to you too, Eileen – I needed your help to parse COMETH and LIE DOGGO. Enjoy your walking holiday.

35. Cookie @27
    On that definition, one could call any artificial satellite that is visible from Earth a star. Anyway, for almost all of its existence a comet doesn’t “appear[…] as a luminous point”, being either too far away to see at all or visible as more than just a point, so even the non-scientific COED definition doesn’t (in my mind) fit well enough for a question mark to suffice.

    It doesn’t spoil a very good puzzle, though, just stops it being quite as near perfect as it would otherwise have been. 🙂

36. Van Winkle @19

    I think the answer to your question is that I have eaten no/zero cakes today.

37. Thanks to Ariadne and Eileen. Great fun. I needed Eileen’s help to parse ACRIMONY and for OVERUSE “wheeze” as “ruse”/scheme was new to me as was the term LOONY LEFT, but all did into place.

38. All said above, so I’ll just say welcome back to Arachne after a bit of an absence and thank you for a fine puzzle.

    Bon voyage to the Brian Lara of Fifteensquared. 400* is a bit scary.

39. LIKED vacated to LIED works fine if you’re thick-skinned.

40. PeterO @36. That was my point – you need to add in “cakes” as a referrant for the substitution to work. There is no referrant in the clue.

41. Van Winkle @40, I have heard people answer “Zilch” or “Zero” to such questions.

42. Best puzzle this week so far- although given the competition that, in itself, doesn’t say much -and mostly rather enjoyable. I didn’t like COMETH much for the reasons others have given, but I loved BOUGHT IT and NINETEEN. I knew ADZE was right but it took an age to parse it. The same with IVAN.
    However these are small quibbles.
    Thanks Arachne.

43. Cookie @41 – yes, but not “No”. I will confess that might original quibble did not justify the volume of comments that have followed it and will accept an end to discussions without being persuaded that the clue works.

44. Tralman@31 I agree with you that three down was a quality clue, but someone commenting on the Guardian site was incensed by it and saw it as an insult to his intelligence. Someone yesterday was saying a doodlebug isn’t a projectile, because a projectile is fired, not self-propelled. It just goes to show how different things appeal to different people. I’d have no problem with steel=metal (or mettle, for that matter – there has to be the makings of a clue in there) or comet=star. I have learned to live with the conflation of house and sign in zodiacal terminology, a previous bete noire. It just doesn’t do to be too literal (remember what used to happen to MR Logic at the end of every episode).
    To my mind, if the setter is presenting an honest, entertaining crossword that people have a chance of solving the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, without resort to Google or reverse dictionaries, I think he or she deserves some understanding. It’s when they start showing off that I can’t abide. But I’ll spare everyone that particular rant today.

45. I liked this quite a lot, and need not add to the plaudits already here, with SAINT GEORGE just edging PRE-RAPHAELITES as my favorite.

    I had difficulty with COMETH (for all reasons already stated) and LIE DOGGO (an expression that American English doesn’t have). ADZE went in fine, though.

    Thanks to Arachne, who is always a delight, and to Eileen, about whom I can say the same.

46. What were the odds on me solving 3d?

    What a clever clue!

47. Van Winkle @43, I see what you mean now, it is a form of double usage, and my comment @23 is irrelevant.

48. Magnificent. I can only concur with all previous praise. The puzzle is worth it for 21a, 23a, and 19d alone, but there is so much more.

    Many thanks Arachne and Eileen (400! Blimey, I’ve only just hit double figures)

49. Well, what a pernickety lot some of you are. Yes; you know who you are!! Can any of the those who are nitpicking, put hand on heart and say that comet not being a star or ‘no protein’ led to them failing to complete the crossword? Of course not; and that folks is what it should be all about!!!
    Many thanks to Arachne for a superb crossword and to Eileen on a great blog and an impressive 400!!

50. A superb crossword from a very entertaining setter.

    My only tiny gripe is 23A but nobody else seems to have bothered. I didn’t like the “it” in the answer and in the “its” in the clue. It was strange as the its isn’t even really necessary! (No doubt our illustrious editor thought this was OK. 😉 )

    Thanks to Eileen and Arachne

51. Thanks, Eileen, and Arachne for a delightful puzzle; the clues were even more impressive after reading them again in this blog.

    I failed on 24a, because I didn’t link comet with star for the reason others have cited. (I did wonder if JOSEPH was an old star)

    Well, I am adding to the persnicketiness, Coltranesax @49. Cookie @ 18: “and they called meteorites ‘shooting stars’.” I think this is more likely to be meteors. ( A meteorite is properly the part of a meteor that ends up on the Earth’s surface)

52. Coltranesax @49 – I confirm that I am a nitpicker because I didn’t solve 24a and 26a, as I did not equate stars with comets and no with 0. So if finishing the crossword is what it is all about, my minor complaints take on a new gravitas that I was not expecting.

53. Dave Ellison @51, thanks, yes I remember now, we used to find meteorites on the South Downs when I was at boarding school in England – I have not lived in an English speaking country for over 40 years, my English husband has been dead these last 20 years so my English is very rusty, and now that I am over 70 years old the correct words are becoming hard to find.

    Thank you again, Arachne, for a great puzzle, nothing should be perfect since it is an insult to the gods.

54. Arachne’s surfaces and constructions are sublime. Many thanks Eileen; have a great holiday.

55. Brilliant. Lovely couple of days.

    Tramp, Knut, Arachne. My favourites.

56. As far as the quality of this crossword is concerned I have nothing to add.
    Some setters are good, some others are just that bit better.

    We didn’t find the puzzle particularly easy and had some trouble finishing the NE.
    COMETH was the last one in, without fully understanding why.
    8d (LOONY LEFT) was really good because it was not immediately clear that it was a reverse anagram.
    Paul, for example, often adds a thing like ‘might one say?’ which makes it more obvious.
    Difficult to single out clues today.

    Just one thing.
    In Arachne’s previous crossword there were two hidden solutions with an, in my opinion, questionable indicator.
    Today I am not fully convinced by ‘outside’ (in 6d’s HADRON) either.
    HADRON is inside ‘with a drone’ but that doesn’t (cryptically) mean that ‘with a drone’ goes outside HADRON.
    If something goes outside then it goes around it, surrounds it which it strictly doesn’t do .
    It’s for example not ‘with a’/HADRON/’drone’ if you see what I mean.
    Only a minor point though and surely someone will come up with a counterexample and/or telling me off for being a nitpicker.

    All in all, an excellent end of the Guardian’s working week.
    Arachne had indeed the edge over both Imogen and Tramp, although I disagree with posters who think these were inferior puzzles.
    For all Arachne lovers, do not forget this one in the FT (last Saturday’s prize, blogged coming Thursday):
    http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/f3dc694e-4816-11e5-b3b2-1672f710807b.pdf

    Enjoy, Eileen!

57. Sparking indeed! Thanks to Arachne and to Eileen for prompting me to have a go at this one with her preamble. I would have been sorry to miss this.

58. Thanks Arachne and Eileen

    A superb crossword which took me most of the day on and off last Saturday (8/9) to complete. A few new terms that held me up a bit included ‘wheeze’ as a word for ruse or trick, HOSTESS TROLLEY and LOONY LEFT (in the sense of Brit politics).

    ADZE, HADRON and HOSTESS TROLLEY were the last few in.

    She is a setter whose puzzles since resuming from her break have all been simply outstanding ! Congratulations on your milestone blog Eileen and hope that you had a marvellous holiday on your Spanish walk.

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