Guardian Prize 26735 by Arachne

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A pleasant stroll through the web created by the Spider Woman, with many characteristically concise and witty surfaces.

I found this much easier than Paul’s Prize puzzle from last week, or indeed Vlad’s midweek puzzle,  but it’s clear that Prize puzzles are not necessarily intended to be more difficult than the weekday ones.  There are perhaps more cryptic definitions and anagrams than usual, with the delightful & lit anagram at 15 across my favourite clue.  Many thanks, Arachne, for the entertainment the puzzle gave to my wife and I on a cold November afternoon.

completed grid
Across
1 HUBBARD
Poet, to right of centre, founder of cult (7)

BARD (to the right of) HUB.  The founder of Scientology.
5 UPHILL
Demanding university hospital admit prince in poor health (6)

P in U H ILL.
9 PLUTONIC
Plod round Luton with one of the underworld (8)

LUTON 1 in PC.
10 DUMDUM
Charlie recollecting words of hippo­potamus? (6)

MUD, MUD (rev): an allusion to this song.  A dum-dum is a charlie; a dumdum is an expanding bullet.
12 WEDDING MARCH
A number of marriages? (7,5)

Cryptic definition, using the musical sense of “number”, but also perhaps an allusion to the former popularity of marriages in March in order to obtain the married man’s allowance for the whole of the tax year.
15 REAGANITES
Gee, Sinatra excited these Republicans! (10)

Anagram & lit.  What a splendid clue!
17 TIC
Twitch regularly observed (3)

Alternate (regular) letters of TwItCh.
19 HEN
Female in the nude (3)

Hidden in “the nude”.
20 BOTTLED OUT
Methuselah, perhaps, voiced misgiving and lost nerve (7,3)

BOTTLE (equivalent to eight ordinary-sized bottles of champagne), homophone of DOUBT.  Our last one in, as it took a while to work out why it was correct.
22 MAITRE D’HOTEL
Head waiter tolerated him behaving badly (6,6)

*(TOLERATED HIM).  I’m not bothered by the failure to indicate the apostrophe.
26 DOLMEN
Random old people in megalithic tomb (6)

*OLD, MEN.
27 PELOTONS
Groups of cyclists pootle around Nova Scotia (8)

*POOTLE, NS.
28 STRIDE
Son heard audible step (6)

S, homophone of TRIED (as in a judge trying, or hearing, a case).
29 TEDIOUS
I used to be stupid and boring (7)

*(I USED TO).
Down
1 HOPE
Hard work, energy and optimism (4)

H OP E.
2 BLUE
Melancholy, rude Conservative sportsman (4)

Quadruple definition!
3 ABOVE PAR
Better than expected, though not on course (5,3)

The reference is to the game of golf, where the aim is to score less than par.
4 DRIED
Airdrie district nurses like prunes? (5)

Well hidden in “Airdrie district”; “nurses” here is used as a verb to indicate the container.
6 PLUMMY
Posh, like Victoria? (6)

The reference is to the fruit, not to the fashion designer.
7 INDURATION
Becoming callous and cool over time (10)

IN DURATION.
8 LYMPHOCYTE
They comply, duffed up in cell (10)

*(THEY COMPLY).  It’s a white blood cell.
11 ON HEAT
Sexually excited male inhibited by nagging (2,4)

HE in “ON AT”.  I thought IN HEAT was the usual version of the phrase, but the wordplay demands “on”.
13 ARCHIMEDES
Principled Greek, close to Syriza, agreed to be bound by resolution (10)

(Syriz)A, CHIMED in RES.
14 PAINKILLER
It lessens suffering of old man held by assassin (10)

PA IN KILLER.
16 ISOLDE
Arachne broke drugs law — she took love potion (6)

I SOLD E.  In Wagner’s opera, both Tristan and Isolde drink a potion that causes them to fall in love with each other.
18 HEREFORD
Lower limits removed, therefore start to dawdle (8)

(T)HEREFOR(E), D(awdle).  It’s a breed of cattle.
21 FRIEND
Greasy sandwiches start to nauseate mate (6)

N(auseate) in FRIED.  “sandwiches”, like “nurses” in 4 down, is a verb not a noun as the surface might suggest.
23 OVERT
Public poverty after banks fail (5)

(P)OVERT(Y).
24 YO-YO
Ma clipping lout twice (2-2)

YO(b), twice.  He is a cellist.
25 USES
Employs European aboard American naval vessel (4)

E in USS.
*anagram

27 comments on “Guardian Prize 26735 by Arachne”

  1. Thanks to Ariadne and bridgesong. I chose IN HEAT (the familiar term) though I agree that “on at” better fits the clue. I took a while getting DUM DUM (I know the song but not the connection to “Charlie”); INDURATION and LYMPHOCYTE gave me trouble (with the latter I got the “cyte” early on but struggled to get the full anagram) so that the NE corner needed several revisits. Still, well worth the effort. An enjoyable solve.

  2. Thanks to bridgesong for the blog. There were a couple of cases where I had the right answer but not the parsing.

    The ARCHIMEDES principle was obvious once I had the crossers but I was unable to sort out Syriza and the rest.

  3. Thanks bridgesong. Tale of two speeds, fast at the bottom and a chug uphill especially to the NE where DUMDUM was unparsable and last in. Didn’t help that I guessed ‘wedding guest’ early on for 12A. That made the well-concealed anagram in 8D all the harder to spot and winkle out. Entertaining stuff as always from Arachne, with sleek surfaces.

  4. Two speeds here as well, rather like last week. Mostly easy given it was a prize – I was really surprised to be given LUTON explicitly given that it’s most of the answer to PLUTONIC – but then a long time to finish it off, with INDURATION just not coming to mind for ages and finally right at the end remembering the lowing herd and getting HEREFORD. Yo-Yo Ma was somebody you either knew or didn’t, I’d have thought, and _O_O isn’t a lot of help if you don’t. But it was entertaining, and I agree about 15A – very nice. Well done Arachne, and thanks to bridgesong.

  6. Thanks Arachne and bridgesong
    Curious – I’ve only heard “on heat”, so no problem for me there.

    Not too difficult, but a lot of fun. Loved HEREFORD.

  7. Although this was a good puzzle it wasn’t one of Arachne’s best.

    When I saw Arachne’s name I was expecting something special as it was a prize puzzle. However, although there were some nice clues and the puzzle was quite a challenge, it somehow didn’t have the panache of Arachne’s usual weekday offerings.

    In fact if I had come to this without knowing the setter I think Arachne’s name would not have been one of my guesses for the author!

    I’m surprised at the “on heat” discussions. I personally have never heard the phrase “in heat” to indicate “ready for sex” only the common phrase “on heat”. The SOED has “on heat” and says “in heat” is chiefly American. However the OED only has “in heat” for this sense. However both the quotes showing usage are from America. (One form George Washington and one from The National and Civil History of Vermont!)

    Thanks to bridgesong and Arachne.

  8. Thanks Arachne and bridgesong

    Did this in three short sessions today in between household jobs. It did feel a little different from the usual puzzle of this setter – apart from what is becoming her trademark multi-definition clue. Having said that, there were a few cracking clues, including the ones for HEREFORD, BOTTLED OUT, HOPE and ARCHIMEDES.

    Some new learnings with Ma YO-YO, LYMPHOCYTE, INDURATION and the Victoria PLUM. Another who knew only of ON HEAT for sexually excited.

  9. A lovely puzzle despite being rather a quick solve. I loved DUM DUM and PLUMMY. And REAGANITES was inspired.
    Thanks Arachne.

  10. Thanks Arachne and bridgesong.

    11d was the one I failed to get, I only know the terms ON HEAT or ‘in season’ and could not relate them to a male.
    Favourites were DUMDUM, REAGANITE, BLUE and ISOLDE!

  11. A nice puzzle, one I too found easier than usual for Arachne. My only problem with it was the missing hyphen in the enumeration of DUM-DUM. As bridgesong said, without the hyphen it refers to the bullets, and that is not the definition which was clued. ON HEAT didn’t bother me as that’s the version of the phrase which I would use.

    Favourites included DUM-DUM (if I insert the missing hyphen), REAGANITES (lovely surface), TIC (simple but elegant), PAINKILLER (nice misdirection, “held by” suggesting an envelope) and OVERT (again for the smooth surface).

    Thanks to Arachne and bridgesong.

  12. Good to see Arachne becoming a regular prize setter – long overdue. This was one of her easiest, but there was still plenty to enjoy, especially DUMDUM

    Thanks to Arachne and bridgesong

  14. What joy this setter brings – every time. Not too desperately hard to solve but enough of a challenge for me, wonderfully creative and filled with her characteristic wit. Thank you Arachne.

  15. jennyk, looking further I see that dum-dum is used very frequently for the bullets, it is mentioned first by WIKI and used by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

  16. Thanks all
    Enjoyable, favourite was 28 across {for brevity!).
    I did not know the cellist MA Yoyo but solved it from the cryptic.

  17. Cookie @13 and @15: I bow to your research – my comments in the blog about DUMDUM/DUM-DUM were based solely on Chambers (which incidentally gives the name of the Indian town as DUM DUM – without a hyphen).

  18. Cookie @13
    Yes, but the question is not whether the hyphenated form is used sometimes for the bullets. It is whether the unhyphenated form is ever (or at least often) used for the clued definition, “Charlie”. When I checked last weekend, I couldn’t find that in any online dictionary.

    I can see why Arachne wanted to clue it with “Charlie” rather than the bullets, as that allowed her to devise a lovely surface with the allusion to that song. It just the enumeration which niggles. I wonder whether she had other sources which made it acceptable, or it may just have been a Grauniad slip.

  19. Very enjoyable, just about the right level for me, though I failed to get four (DUMDUM, INDURATION, UPHILL and PLUMMY). I thought of Yoyo Ma quite quickly so that clue gave me no trouble.

  20. bridgesong @17, the clue did not bother me, I was just pointing out that changing the answer to DUM-DUM would not avoid confusion with the bullet. Thanks again for the blog.

  21. I will add “on” as opposed to “in heat” to my mental list of U.K. usages that I have never encountered in the US – and I’ve been a dog owner for 40 years. “Prang” stays at the top of that list.

  22. jennyk @18, I cannot find it either, except in the American Slang Dictionary “the only man safe enough to see is this dumdum cop”, and in the Jabari Authentic Jamaican Dictionary. Yes, thinking further it would be best to include the hyphen.

  24. Thanks Arachne & bridgesong.

    Very enjoyable with some trademark spidery clues. I don’t think the omission of a hyphen in DUM-DUM was really a cardinal sin. I guess we all solved it anyway!

  25. Thanks bridgesong and Arachne.

    Another good – although not great – puzzle to untangle.

    Like you bridgesong, I decided that I wasn’t bothered by the absence of an apostrophe indicator in 22ac – otherwise it would have been a dead giveaway. Similar thoughts about the lack of a hyphen indicator in 10ac.

    Hadn’t heard of YO-YO MA before but clear from the clue so no cause for complaint.

    Thought REAGANITES was excellent for the surface.

  26. I’m surprised respondents are blase to the absence of apostrophes or hyphens. How can you possibly solve a puzzle that depends on precise knowledge of the English language if you’re prepared to throw punctuation away?

  27. Jamie @26: And I’m surprised to receive a reply more than 3 months after the blog was posted! I think that there’s a distinction between apostrophes and hyphens. Apostrophes can give too much information and are not easy to include in the enumeration. I’m not bothered if they’re omitted, although to be fair, Azed usually does mention the presence of an apostrophe in his enumeration (although he makes it harder by not indicating the lengths of the individual words within the phrase, just the total number of words). With hyphens, there is often no unanimity, even in dictionaries, as to whether they should be part of the word. The problem arose in this puzzle because omitting the hyphen gave a different meaning. It is Guardian practice to include them in the enumeration, and I feel that should have happened with DUM-DUM. Having said that, Azed never indicates the presence of a hyphen!

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