Apologies for the truncated blog, but short of time this morning. A bit of a curate’s egg from Arachne this morning, and one clue (16dn) that I couldn’t parse.
Thanks, Arachne.
ACROSS
1 Recurrent saying in busy pubs? (7,2)
BOTTOMS UP: <=MOTTO (“saying” recurrent) in *(pubs)
6 Oddly shunned, said piteous goodbye (5)
ADIEU: sAiD pItEoUs (odd letters have been shunned)
9 Suffuse disrobed limbs with beginnings of unalloyed eroticism (5)
IMBUE: l(IMB)s with U(nalloyed) E(roticism)
10 Consummate marriage? Not so! (9)
MATCHLESS: Someone unmarried would be matchless, I suppose, but I don’t think this works particularly well.
11 Accommodation and clothing denied to French revolutionary over time (4-1-5)
PIED-A-TERRE: (robes)PIERRE (“French revolutionary” with clothing denied) over DATE (“time)
12 Filthy place ultimately became eyesore (4)
STYE: STY (“filty place”) + (becam)E
14 Conveyance of gas round back of Number 10 (7)
CHARIOT: CHAT (“gas”) round (numbe)R IO
15 Spooner’s fake history published on the internet (7)
PODCAST: COD PAST (“fake history”) to Spooner
17 Port went off, in a manner of speaking (7)
ANTWERP: *(went) in A R.P. (received punctuation, so “a manner of speaking”)
19 Quietly handle extremely rare love potion (7)
PHILTRE: P (“quietly”) + HILT (“handle”) + R(ar)E
20 Left-wingers in Italian towns campaigned hard and long (4)
ITCH: Initial letters (leftmost letters, so left wingers) of Italian Towns Campaigning Hard
22 Are responsible for Her Majesty meeting Blue Peter dog in private (10)
PERPETRATE: E.R. (“Her Majesty”) meeting PETRA (“Blue Peter dog”) in Pte. (“private”)
25 Where Communists alone are elected to run neonatal facility (9)
INCUBATOR: IN CUBA (“where communists alone are elected”) + TO + R(un)
26 Drug finally injected into bare elbow (5)
NUDGE: (dru)G injected into NUDE (“bare”)
27 Decent sandwiches start to entice relative (5)
NIECE: NICE (“decent”) sandwiches E(ntice)
28 Depend on Jane name-dropping without ostentation (9)
AUSTERELY: RELY (“depend”) on AUSTE (“Jane” without N (ie name-dropping))
DOWN
1 First to burst flaccid balloon (5)
BLIMP: B(urst) + LIMP (“flaccid”)
2 Present for discussion on second key food additive (5,4)
TABLE SALT: TABLE (“present for discussion”) on S(econd) + ALT (“key”)
3 Gracious Evita reportedly turned up to embrace workers (10)
OPERATIVES: Hidden backwards in “graciouS EVITA REPOrtedly”
4 Collage of Matisse showing least variation (7)
SAMIEST: *(matisse)
5 A supporter of mine (3,4)
PIT PROP: Cryptic definition
6 Pain of brill swallowing tip of hook (4)
ACHE: ACE (“brill”) swallowing H(ook)
7 Sluggish ferrets regularly found beneath home (5)
INERT: fErReTs found beneath IN (“home”)
8 Draw peacekeepers’ fire with high explosive (9)
UNSHEATHE: U.N.’s (“peacekeepers”) + HEAT (“fire”) + H.E. (“high explosive”)
13 Maiden, with tact, ordered entree (10)
ADMITTANCE: *(maiden tact)
14 Alliance of nearly everybody in Congress (9)
COALITION: AL(l) (nearly “everybody”) in COITION (“congress”)
16 Turn red, sat awkwardly on top with a leg on each side (9)
ASTRADDLE: Can’t quite parse this one?
18 Criminal cartel headed by leader of pheasant pluckers (7)
PLECTRA: *(cartel) headed by P(heasant)
19 Surreptitiously photograph your American manuscript (7)
PAPYRUS: PAP (“surreptitiously photograph”) + yr. (“your”) + US (“American”)
21 Memory of country singer on the radio (5)
CACHE: Homophone of (Johnny) CASH (“country singer”)
23 Each is ruefully discontented after night before (5)
EVERY: R(uefull)Y after EVE (“night before”)
24 Old boyfriend said to be member of orchestra (4)
OBOE: O(ld) + homophone of BEAU (“boyfriend”)
For 16 down, I think it’s RADDLE (to turn red with pigment, used when rams serve ewes) after an anagram of SAT. Thanks for the blog.
ASTRADDLE is (SAT)* plus RADDLE, which [my] Chambers says can mean “to colour or mark with red ochre.” I must make a point of slipping that into a conversation today.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick
Very nice, though I didn’t know RADDLE either. Favourites were AUSTERELY, PIT PROP and PLECTRA, which refers to the “poem”
I’m not the pheasant plucker
I’m the pheasant plucker’s son
But I’ll keep on plucking pheasants
‘Til the pheasant plucker comes
(I don’t expect Spooner ever recited it!)
For 16d, I took it as
ADDLE = turn (British usage) with (R (for red) + SAT)* on top
Thanks for the blog.
PETRA in the solution to 22 and the letters of petra in 4 other solutions as well. Some of the regulars here may well have met Ztilmob (whose real name is Petra) at one or another slogger & better meet – she turned 90 a couple of days ago, and I’m pretty sure that this is Arachne’s tribute to her. Lovely to have done so in such a subtle way.
Bit of a mixed bag, but overall enjoyable enough. Agree with previous replies on 16d, though I had to Google it.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick
I think 10A MATCHLESS works better as a charade: March (‘marriage’) plus LESS (‘not so’).
A slip: ‘love’ is part of the definition of 19A PHILTRE.
Having seen Ramki’s explanation of 16d, I think that’s better.
And another slip ….
Received punctuation?
Thanks for the poem, muffin, and the background, mitz! I had Blaise’s parsing of raddle.
@10 Received PRONUNCIATION = RP.
In contrast to last week this was a bit hard for a Monday I suggest, with a few obscure words t’boot.
I didnt know the Blue Peter dog although I know Petra.I’m not good on that subject although Dorothy’s dog is TOTO
So I had a choice of PERPETRATE and PERPETUATE and chose the first after thing Blue could be an anag ind for PETER and dig could be PET-thanks for parse there loonapic and congratulations to our Petra.
An absolute delight at the start of the week. Even Rufus die-hards should laugh at CACHE, not to mention COALITION.
Thank you Arachne and loonapick.
A brilliant puzzle I now realize after Mitz’s post @5. I, too, failed to parse 16d, but remember RADDLEd being used to describe a woman’s cheeks with too much rouge.
I agree with Alison @1
“For 16 down, I think it’s RADDLE (to turn red with pigment, used when rams serve ewes) after an anagram of SAT.”
My favourites were BLIMP, MATCHLESS, AUSTERELY, PLECTRA.
New words for me were cod = fake, and Petra = Blue Peter dog (I never saw that TV show, but I worked it out with some help from google). I also needed help to parse 3d and 11a.
Thanks Arachne and blogger.
also, I agree with PeterO @ 7
“I think 10A MATCHLESS works better as a charade: Match (‘marriage’) plus LESS (‘not so’).”
that is how I parsed it too
Thanks, loonapick.
Great to see Arachne on a Monday, to celebrate the new-look Guardian! And the fold doesn’t interfere with the first row of the crossword – hurrah!
Lots of lovely clues, as ever – many thanks, Arachne.
A lovely Monday morning treat.
I think the ‘turn red’ bit in 16d has to refer to painting the face with rouge, not least because the dye colours on the rams change as the weeks go by, so that the farmer has an idea when the lambs will be born
Thanks to Arachne for the fun and Loonapick for the explanations
Not sure about a mixed bag or curate’s egg: I thought it was all pretty good. I was thinking SHEP for the Blue Peter dog, but then the tribute wouldn’t have worked …
Thanks both.
Arachne being gentle for a Monday.
Is raddle really so obscure?
Until the pheasant plucking’s done is the usual last line, to give the rhyme.
Thanks to looapick and Arachne.
I’m inclined to agree with Ramki @4 with the parsing R plus ADDLE, even though that’s not how I got there, as it’s rare for the spiderlady to use obscure words as wordplay components. Still, learnt a new word today…
By the way, there’s at least one other variant:
I’m not the pheasant plucker;
I’m the pheasant plucker’s mate.
I’m only plucking pheasants
‘Cos the pheasant plucker’s late.
Which reminds me of my favourite piece of graffiti: Les Dyxia lures KO
I was thrilled to see an Arachne today (on supposedly “Easier Mondays”), but then did not enjoy it quite as much as other puzzles she has set. Some similar experiences to others. I failed to parse 17a ANTWERP (the RP part escaped me), and I didn’t fully understand why 22a was PERPETRATE nor why 16d was ASTRADDLE. Even if I had spotted the PETRA repetition – which I didn’t – I would not have appreciated it. While the meaning of “COD” as fake seemed to ring a vague bell, 15a PODCAST was really a guess. 4d SAMIEST seemed an awkward word to me.
I really liked 25a INCUBATOR, 28a AUSTERELY and 14d COALITION.
Thanks to various commentators for the reminders about the old “pheasant plucker” rhymes which raised a smile, as well as of course to Arachne and loonapick.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick. Found this a bit tough for a Monday and a couple I could not fully parse, including the nebulous 16d and had not heard of philtre. Nearly gave up a couple of times but pleased I persevered and got there in the end. Thanks again to Arachne and loonapick.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick.
I thought this was a super crossword. A lot went in quickly but then I laboured over the last two or three. When I saw ‘Jane’ I thought of Mansfield, then Campion, doh!
What a splendid &lit for BOTTOMS UP! I also really enjoyed INCUBATOR.
I did notice there were a lot of Ps in the answers, but failed to spot the PETRA connection.
I guess that, this being Monday and hence ex-Rufus-day, Arachne’s been charged with spinning a slightly less tangled web – one to catch a midge but not a hornet, perhaps! Certainly out of her usual genre but well done to her for upholding the tradition!
With one exception, that is. 4d. I wrote in SAMIEST, sure enough, having nothing better – but cannot see that as an actual word! Certainly not in Chambers: it has SAMEY but surely the superlative would be “SAMEYEST”? So then I did something which I never ever do (cross-my-heart!) as a ‘cheat’: I entered S_M_E_T into the ‘Autofind’ feature of Crossword-compiler. The only word it could come up with was “Simkent” which apparently is the name of a town, somewhere or other. So I see where Arachne may have got caught in her own web, if this was the filler-word!
Apart from that, excellent work, not a doddle but gentle all the same. I got OBOE wrong, briefly: I’d put in BEAU (“Bow”) but soon realised that the stock of words ending in —-U is rather limited!
Thanks Arachne and LP. Fine start to the new Grauniad format!
16d ASTRADDLE I think is ADDLE (turn) with (Red SAT)* on top, assuming that R can stand for RED — in chess? I know they’re usually black and white, but in Looking-Glass Land, at least, they’re red and white.
I’m with those who thought this was a great puzzle – and I’m amazed to see I’m the first to comment on 26a. I had BARGE in on the first pass and it parses perfectly. That meant we spent ages trying to figure out 13d with a B in it and 16d with an R in it. It was only when wordsearch didn’t come up with anything for 16d that I considered the possibility there was a mistake in the puzzle as I still had complete faith in BARGE. Eventually I resorted to the check button and had to face the reality that it was me that was wrong! NUDGE came easily enough and then the down clues were fine. This is the best misdirection I’ve ever come across – thanks Arachne for making it take twice as long as it should have and loonapick for the blog. I went with the ram interpretation of 16d.
Oops. I entered my parse of ASTRADDLE before I read the two better ones @ 1 and 2. Now I know what authors mean when the cheeks of dissipated women of a certain age are “raddled.” The closest I knew to this word was the reddleman in Return of the Native.
Well I don’t want to appear curmudgeonly but there are some iffy clues here. 10ac as loonapick points out. Also 11ac “time” is, at best, a very loose definition of “date”. My LOI was philtre of which I hadn’t heard.
Valentine @ 26: R can definitely stand for red: the three-colour system used for computer monitors is RGB = red, green & blue.
I bought the paper Guardian today because of the new format, and was a bit gobsmacked to see Arachne on a Monday. But I thought she adjusted pretty well to the ‘easier Mondays’ principle. My favourites were AUSTERELY, PODCAST, CHARIOT and the wonderful PLECTRA. Many thanks to A & l.
As regards SAMIEST, the COED gives it as the superlative of ‘samey’, British colloquial.
Whiteking@27 – I didn’t fall into that trap – seeing as I’d already filled in the crossers before writing in NUDGE. But you can be sure, even on a Monday, it’s highly unlikely that, in a Grauniad cryptic, a word in the clue will also be part of the solution (anagrams and very short words excepted).
Anyway, cheer up and enjoy a bit of fun!
Enjoyed this one a lot but it was definitely trickier than we have been used to seeing on Mondays, if easier than Arachne can be.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick
I’ve never seen Blue Peter,so for awhile I thought dog was pet, which left too much word to account for. Also, for us “private” (military) is Pvt, not Pte.
I thought “table” meant set aside, not to be discussed now, rather than its opposite, “present for discussion.”
My LOI was OPERATIVES. I’m very bad at seeing those hidden ones, especially backwards.
Pap = photo? News to me. Comes from paparazzi?
Cache = memory? Where?
Valentine @34
“Table” is one of those classic words that have opposite meanings on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
Cache is a form of memory in computers – not exact, but close enough.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick. Like others I had trouble with ASTRADDLE, SAMIEST (it does turn up on Google), ARP in ANTWERP, PTE for “private,” and PAP for photo in PAPYRUS. Still, very enjoyable.
Hi Valentine @34 – I know that, in the last two or three weeks, I have blogged [or commented on] a crossword featuring ‘pap’ but, infuriatingly, I can’t find it. I do remember looking it up in Chambers. It’s the third definition: ‘to photograph [a famous person] as, or in the manner of a paparazzo’ – i.e. ‘surreptitiously’.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick
For those of us who buy the paper edition I thought it was a real treat to have Arachne on the first day of the tabloid. And clearly printed (a little larger I think) without, as Eileen @17 points out, an intrusive fold. The oft-criticised editor clearly fought his corner well.
I know it is a lost cause, and meanings change, but the joke behind the original Punch cartoon was that there was no such thing as an egg where parts are bad and parts are excellent. It is either wholly good, or wholly bad.
@34 and @35, Isn’t that because Congress puts a law on the table when it has been approved whereas Parliament puts a bill on the table to be discussed, or is it more general than that?
@Eileen
Travelling to the pole, in need of pap (9)
Arachne, December 6th 2017
Many thanks, James. I was pretty sure I’d blogged it and sort of felt that it was Arachne but thought it was more recent than that. Doesn’t time fly? 😉
Great stuff, and not a gimme for Monday either. I went for ADDLE and R for turn red, and consequently ASTRADDLE was one of my favourites today, along with PIED-A-TERRE and AUSTERELY. To my shame, I didn’t correctly parse OPERATIVES, which I therefore thought was very well hidden! Thanks Arachne and loonapick.
Thanks for the link Laccaria – I’m smiling now :-).
Like Marienkaefer @38, I thought the grid was printed somewhat larger than before – a quirk of going tabloid. But the dearth of references to the new format so far on the blog implies that few of us on fifteensquared are paper solvers.
And as for the crossword? Yes, a toned-down Arachne, for the most part. My delay was in the SE, with needless uncertainty over ASTRADDLE, inability to get beyond Shep for the dog (though I do remember, now), and the wrong tack on 19d because of PAP as a verb. I do hope that those paper purchasers who like an easier Monday weren’t too much put off!
WhiteKing @27
26a NUDGE was one of my first in (having no crossers to help me), and only now do I see how lucky I was not thinking of BARGE first, as it is a perfectly valid solution. I would say that the ‘misdirection’ was not intended by the setter – but perhaps it was!
This wasn’t easy for me, and I had to come here to understand how to parse a few clues. One of them, 1a BOTTOMS UP, is now one of my three favourites, the other two being 25a INCUBATOR, which included a highly original way of indicating ‘in Cuba’, and 8d UNSHEATHE
I didn’t know SAMIEST was a word, but as someone pointed out this part of the grid would have been difficult to fill otherwise.
I didn’t think this was quite as good as two other Arachne puzzles I have solved recently – one (as Rosa Klebb) in the FT and one in a 3D Crossword Calendar that I received as a Christmas present and have started to work through.
Thanks to Arachne for an enjoyable crossword and to loonapick for the blog (sorry you had to rush).
Trailman @44 I’m a paper solver. I had a brief dalliance with the online version, but somehow find the feel of pen on paper much more satisfying. And yes it is pen. I like to live dangerously, so no pencil and rubber.
Thanks to Arachne for another enjoyable puzzle, and to loonapick for the blog.
Glad to hear it Crossbar @46!
And Alan B @45, I’ve not yet tried this year’s 3D Arachne as I’m strictly a date-order sort of guy, but for those that don’t know what a 3D puzzle is, go to http://www.calendarpuzzles.co.uk – they’re a creation of my old school friend Sirius, so I’m duty-bound to plug at any opportunity.
Valentine, muffin, Derek Lazenby
I thought that “table” is used in the US when in the UK we say “shelve” – ie to put away, mostly to gather dust, but occasionally to take down, blow the dust off, and read again.
Trailman @47
I’m delighted that someone else is ‘into’ these 3D puzzles. They are new to me, and I have to say already they add a new dimension (figuratively as well as literally) to the solving experience. I really enjoyed both Arachne’s January puzzle, which I completed in December, and Vlad’s February puzzle, which I completed this month. I too intend to to do these monthly – sort of a month in advance in my case.
I’ve been in email correspondence with Sirius – interesting that you have such a strong connection to this champion of 3D crosswords.
A bit disappointed with this. I enjoy Arachne’s puzzles usually but I think that the attempt to be Mondayish spoiled the puzzle and some of Arachne’s elegance was lost. Obviously there was quite a lot to enjoy but the spiderwoman is usually better than this.
Perhaps I’ve been put in a bad humour by being unable to throw the sports section away, thanks to the new format.
Thanks Arachne.
P.S. I was an ADDLE rather than a RADDLE!
Peter Aspinwall @50
I thought the newspaper’s new format is generally ok, as it is easy to extract the two inner sections (G2 and the Journal) from inside the paper, and the crossword now appears on the back page of the Journal – not the inside back page.
But I agree that the Sports section was better separate – not occupying (today) the last 20 pages of a 68-page newspaper.
Yes, harder than the usual Monday offering, but fun and finished it sooner than expected. Thanks Arachne and Loonapick. Favourite incubator
[Teething troubles, I hope, but there were pages with a bewildering number of different fonts and effects, and a lot of inconsistency in using background colours – far too much colour in general, for my taste. The size was more satisfactory than I expected, though. I (as almost always) did the puzzle on a printout, but I did notice that the Quick crossword seemed a lot larger.]
I was an Addle only because I didn’t know raddle, but I did worry r was invalid for red.
I thought this was pretty good – NE and SW dropped in effortlessly, but the rest needed more thought – something for everyone maybe. I didn’t know rp, or the blue peter dog, so many thanks loonapick..
I enjoyed BOTTOMS UP and laughed out loud at COALITION. Hardly a dull puzzle.
Many thanks Arachne.
I can hardly believe SAMIER is a word, I would have bet against it. But then, as I was remarking to an online mate yesterday, I would have bet against Edinburgh being further west than Bristol. Surprises turn up all the time.
[Agree with muffin @ about fonts and effects etc, though the front page has lost its distinctive blue the Guardian. However I would have preferred a larger Killer than a larger Xword]
Thanks loonapick and Arachne
I enjoyed this puzzle, but my impression (at least initially, before coming here) was that, for a setter who often “turns it up to 11” on the excellence/creativity/wit scale, this was in maybe the 9 range. I needed Google to confirm that, yes, raddle is a word and it means to turn red. Likewise, I needed to Google the phrase “Blue Peter dog” to confirm that it is a thing (and provides a fair definition of “Petra”) — I had heard of the maritime flag (probably from solving Rufus puzzles) but not the children’s TV show in the UK. But coming here and reading the commentary above has raised my impression of the puzzle. For one thing, I see that I completely mis-parsed 1ac — I missed the “recurrent” MOTTO, and thought that perhaps the letter B stands for “bottom” in some acronym and that the clue was a simple anagram of B + PUBS. And, I either never heard, or forgot that I ever heard, the “pheasant plucker” poem(s) — and in either case did not notice the Spooneristic quality of that phrase — and I was completely oblivious to the “Petra” tribute described by Mitz @5.
Marienkaefer @48 and Derek Lazenby @39, here in the US, “table” as a verb is a common term in formal meetings (using what I have always heard referred to as “parliamentary procedure” – of all things) when the body that is meeting decides that an item on the agenda needs to have discussion (or a vote that has been proposed) suspended, to be resumed at a future meeting. As muffin @35 and Valentine @34 note, it is literally the opposite meaning as what I now understand to be the UK meaning of the term. Another TILT (Thing I Learned Today).
Many thanks to Arachne, loonapick and the other commenters.
Dutch @54 and others – I don’t think there is any support in dictionaries for r = red; I mentioned this many years ago. This is despite its use in acronyms, such as RBG colours and RBC (red blood cells.)
Perhaps some people do not remember that Arachne joined the Guardian team as a Quiptic setter.
I would go with Alison Copland @1 over 16D ASTRADDLE because a) I knew the word RADDLE, b) it was my choice of parsing and c) the abbreviation R for ‘red’, although OK, I would say is not common, and as such doubtful as indirect anagram fodder (or unindicated particle ordering). However, the is by no means the first clue with more than one valid parsing.
Laccaria @25
SAMEY is not a common word, but it is given in Oxford online with comparative SAMIER and superlative SAMIEST – cf. lovely/lovelier/loveliest, gamey (with or without the e)/gamier/gamiest.
Frankie the Cat @29
Loonapick’s take on 10A MATCHLESS is, as he says, iffy; but, as I pointed out @7, there is another reading, which I think is quite OK (apart from the typo).
Me @57
My explanation of my inept parsing of 1ac is inepter.
I’m not sure if that is a word or not, but I am encouraged by the fact that that samier and samiest, apparently are.
I always love Arachne, but it was a real relief to see that the needs of the paper solvers had been considered in the new format, with no need for letters to the editor! A slightly larger grid is a real bonus. I am ashamed to say I spotted the spoonerism in pheasant plucker when still a teenager. Colleagues of my Dad mocked him up a spoof bottle of Famous Grouse whisky called Pheasant Plucker and he was horrified when I laughed!
Just curious: if the UK definition of “table” as a verb means “present for discussion”, then what verb is typically used in the UK during a formal meeting of a council, committee, association, etc., when the decision is made by the members present to suspend discussion of a given agenda item until a future session? Is the matter “postponed”, or perhaps some other term?
Dave @62
Prorogue8?
That didn’t work. Try here
DaveMc @62
It is given somewhere above as “shelve” (although that has more of an air of semi-permanence, whereas “postponed” is more like a promise to return; I have the feeling that “table” is somewhere in between). It is about time you got ept. Sorry, I could not resist that one.
16d. Took me a while. Regarding Alison’s (@1) explanation about the red colouring of ewes when they have been ‘tupped’. I always thought that was ‘reddle’ as in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Return of the Nation’. The character of Diggory Venn was a reddleman – a seller of the red chalk used by shepherds or farmers.
I recall in my junior days learning the rotes of an agricultural auctioneer that at livestock sales, after a pen of sheep had been sold, the buyer would often mark the back of the animals with an coloured grease stick to make it easier and quicker for his purchases to be loaded onto a livestock truck.
Defer – to suspend discussion to a later date.
PeterO @65
Ha ha! I always try to be ept, at minimum (or as ept as I can mange to be), in whatever I do. The struggle continues.
Crossbar @46, we too live dangerously (pen on paper). The new format is rather limp so it has to be felt pen, although as a plus it is now being printed in Scotland, increasing our chances of receiving it.
Managed the left hand side ok but really struggled with the right but enjoyed it a lot.
muffin @63, Darkstarcrashes @67
Thank you both. I think “prorogue” has a different meaning because it means to discontinue the session itself, and not merely to “hit pause” on the item in question and move on to the next item on the meeting agenda. “Defer” seems like it could be a reasonable synonym for “table” as we use it as a verb here.
Me @68
My goodness. There I was, going on about trying to be ept, and there’s a typo even in that brief post. Must be due to the mange.
Another good Arachne crossword, definitely closer to her Quiptics than to her other output [probably deliberately so].
Altogether a mixed bag as to its level of difficulty but we thought ‘curate’s egg’ is a bit unfair as there is not much wrong with the clueing.
I am a paper solver (as is my solving partner), either using the print options on the website or the dead tree version of the actual newspaper. The reason is simple. I want to have the puzzle as a whole in front of me. It allows me to hop around and to link clues wherever I want to. As to the paper version today, it was nicely printed in the revamped Guardian. But while the Print option on the website was unchanged (good as ever), the PDF version was a huge disappointment. Grid and clues were positioned the same way as on the Print version (portrait). However, both grid and font were not only smaller than on the latter but also smaller than in the actual newspaper. I couldn’t see any value added. IMO, the Guardian should consider to create a PDF version identical to the newspaper version, with clues to the right of the grid (landscape). If the FT can do it, the Guardian can!
Superb puzlze form Arachne as ever.
I don’t agree that it was one of her easier offerings but it certainly wasn’t one of her most difficult.
Most amusing to me were the petty (and unsubstantiated grumbles on here) as well as the vain attempts to support the obviously inferior parsing of 16D with R(ed) ADDLE. (It’s certainly (SAT)* ADDLE. Just read the clue.
By the way CACHE is an area of storage in which previous results are stored for an anticipated future reference. This reference is very very likely to happen so CACHE is almost always stored in memory directly addressable by the CPU. (i.e. not a disk or other device which require IO to access their contents). This area of memory is almost always referred to as CACHE MEMORY or even just the CACHE. So nothing at all wrong with the clue.
I can only imagine that the new “tabloid” format has been adopted so that cheaper industry standard publishing software can be used. The initial result looks a lot less “professional” than the Berliner incarnation. (Of course the content is just as bad 😉 . IMHO of course. )
Muffin @53. I agree with you about the new format being a bit of a muddle, though not as bad as The Observer.In particular I dislike the pinkish background to the Journal section and just think of the waste of all that pink ink when they could have just printed it on pink paper.
Apologies to all for straying from our muttons and thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
Just to say
I’m a print solver too (long may it continue), and as with Eileen, I’m pleased that the irritating crease across the top row has gone.
Also, as in days of yore, the crossword is on the back page again.
Put me down as a vote for ADDLE rather than RADDLE, on the grounds that the parsing with the less-obscure word seems more consistent with Arachne’s style, although both parsings seem to work. R for red seems fine to me. Think of the RGB colour system.
Good stuff from Arachne although I didn’t think she’d toned it down and found some of the parsing quite tough – missed the ‘motto’ in 1a along with the famous man in 11a and was another who didn’t register ‘raddle’ in 16d.
Fairly amazed when the checkers left me with only one possible answer for 4d – think I’m rather glad the BRB doesn’t recognise it.
Top three for me were 1,25&28a.
Thanks to Spiderwoman and to loonapick for the blog.
COALITION – brilliant, thanks Arachne!
PS: I like the way the crossword folds. No more puncturing the top line with the biro tip. Also the texture of the paper seems smoother (rather like The Times), making it more pleasurable to write.
16d: Why are some people persisting with R + addle? R for red isn’t supported in any dictionary, but ‘raddle’ meaning colour with red ochre clearly is. Addle = turn is just a coincidence. (As for RGB as an explanation, you won’t find G for green or B for blue in a dictionary either.)
I solve on paper too but because I had no problems with the new format once I had found the crossword I didn’t comment on it earlier…
lurkio @74
For ASTRADDLE, you meant (SAT)* RADDLE [not …ADDLE]. Petty, I know, but you did make your point rather strongly.
Thank you Alan B you are quite correct.
I can only blame old age and a dissolute lifestyle.
The loss of the “Preview” facility doesn’t help either. Surely this is a “built-in” in your package Gaufrid? (I know you mentioned some problem about this when you changed over. Perhaps I could help with some research if you’ve no time as I do have some experience in this area)
lurkio @83
I have replied to your observation regarding the comment preview facility on the Site Feedback page.
I do paper and online but bought first tabloid out of curiosity. Didn’t even notice absence of fold which is a wonderful freedom – like an ache that’s gone away! Got Barge for 26ac which messed up that corner