It’s been some time since I blogged Arachne, whose puzzles I’ve always enjoyed. Thanks to Arachne. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
There is a nina around the grid perimeter: TIMOTHY AND CODY HEROES ALWAYS, but, unfortunately, its significance eludes me, in spite of an extensive web search.
Across
8 Composer accepting billion pounds for percussion instrument (8)
HANDBELL : [ HANDEL(George, British composer originally from Germany) containing(accepting) B(abbrev. for “billion”) ] + L(symbol for pound sterling).
9 Olive eaten by male astrophysicist (5)
HOYLE : OYL(last name of Olive, Popeye the Sailorman’s sweetheart) contained in (eaten by) HE(male pronoun).
Answer: Fred, English astronomer and cosmologist.
10 Ecstasy and anger in Ireland (4)
EIRE : E(abbrev. for Ecstasy, the drug) plus(and) IRE(anger).
11 Eccentric horologer with a wind problem (10)
LOGORRHOEA : Anagram of(Eccentric) HOROLOGER plus(with) A.
Defn: What a windbag suffers from aka verbal diarrhoea.
12 After change of leader, several become exhausted (3,3)
RUN DRY : “sundry”(several;of various kinds) with its 1st letter changed(After change of leader, …).
14 Old ducks spell trouble for gastropod (3,5)
SEA SNAIL : “o”(abbrev. for “old”) deleted from(ducks) “season”(a spell;a period of time in a year) + AIL(to trouble, as in “what ails you?”).
15 Our sort of environmentalists retired, overwhelmed by burden (3,2,2)
ONE OF US : Reversal of(… retired) FOE(abbrev. for Friends of the Earth, an environmentalist organisation) contained in(overwhelmed by) ONUS(burden;responsibility).
17 Cover skin of backside with trousers, back to front (7)
BESTREW : The 1st and last letters of(skin of) “backside” plus(with) “trews”(men’s clothing for the legs and lower abdomen, a traditional form of tartan trousers) with its last letter moved to the beginning(back to front).
20 Creep round ridiculously cool green hotel (8)
ECOLODGE : EDGE(to creep;to inch forward) containing(round) anagram of(ridiculously) COOL.
22 Married prince leaving old Spanish capital for plateau (6)
MESETA : M(abbrev. for “married”) + “p”(abbrev. for “prince”) deleted from(leaving) “peseta”(the former Spanish money;capital).
Defn: … from the Spanish word.
23 Imposed order on society, yet missed vagrant (10)
SYSTEMISED : S(abbrev. for “society”) + anagram of(… vagrant) YET MISSED.
24 Coarse group of women, rowdily discontented (4)
WIRY : WI(abbrev. for the Women’s Institute, an organisation for women) + “rowdily” minus all its internal letters(discontented).
25 Prayer of thanks from good people (5)
GRACE : G(abbrev. for “good”) + RACE(a people).
26 Remains for ever in mind, we’ll swear (8)
INDWELLS : Hidden in(in) “mind, we’ll swear“.
Defn: … to be permanently present in someone’s mind or soul.
Down
1 Quiet historian losing footing on edges of ruin (8)
TACITURN : “Tacitus”(historian of the Roman Empire) minus its last letter(losing footing, in a down clue) placed above(on, in a down clue) the 1st and last letters of(edges of) “ruin“.
2 Slothful extremes of island life (4)
IDLE : The 1st and last letters, respectively, of(extremes of) “island life“.
3 Maidens periodically need bluesy tunes (6)
MEDLEY : M(abbrev. for “maiden overs” in cricket scores) + the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th letters of(periodically) “need bluesy“.
Defn: …, specifically a collection of tunes performed as a continuous piece.
4 Scientist loves squeezing large marrow (7)
OLOGIST : [ O,O(2 x letter signifying 0,”love” in tennis scores) containing(squeezing) L(abbrev. for “large”) ] + GIST(the substance;the central idea;the marrow, of, say, a speech).
Defn: An informal term for an expert in a scientific field, from the suffix used in, say, “biologist”, “ecologist”, etc.
5 Seniors righted a wrong (5,3)
THIRD AGE : Anagram of(… wrong) RIGHTED A.
Defn: After middle age, a period of retirement occupied by activities such as travel, further education, golf, etc. before one rides into the sunset.
6 Turns section of poultry farm into co-op? (10)
HYPHENATES : Cryptic defn: Refers to the grammatical process which turns “coop”(a section of a poultry farm) to “co-op”.
7 Arab in Italy supporting the old folk (6)
YEMENI : I(abbrev. for Italy) placed below(supporting, in a down clue) [ YE(old;archaic term for “the”) + MEN(folk;human beings).
13 Roman emperor, regularly ignoring advisor, called time on Scotsman (10)
DIOCLETIAN : The 1st letter, and thereafter every other letter deleted from(regularly ignoring) “advisor, called” + T(abbrev. for “time”) placed above(on, in a down clue) IAN(a popular name among male Scots, the equivalent of John).
16 Mum dined merrily, as luminous as ever (8)
UNDIMMED : Anagram of(… merrily) MUM DINED.
18 All children tire, lying about (8)
ENTIRELY : Hidden in(… about) “children tire, lying“.
19 Dramatic deep breaths heard over microphone (7)
SEISMIC : Homophone of(… heard) “sighs”(deep breaths) placed above(over, in a down clue) MIC(short for “microphone”).
21 Iroquois dude turned up in California area (6)
CAYUGA : Reversal of(… turned up, in a down clue) GUY(“dude”, an American informal form of address for a man) contained in(in) [ CA(abbrev. for California) + A(abbrev. for “area”) ].
Defn: A member of one of the 6 American Indian peoples of the former confederacy of Iroquois.
22 Girl said medic mostly managed (4,2)
MADE DO : Homophone of(… said) “maid”(a girl) + “doc”(informal term for a medic) minus its last letter(mostly).
24 Roots of sow thistle are dedicated gardener’s enemy (4)
WEED : The last letters, respectively, of(Roots of, in a down clue) “sow thistle are dedicated“.
And the prickly sow thistle is a weed, too.
A very enjoyable puzzle from Arachne, for which many thanks; also to scchua for the explanations, especially the parsing of 14a, which had me well and truly stumped.
At 24a, scchua, I think you mean “1st and last letters” rather than “minus its last letter”?
As for the Nina, it seems to refer to the 5th anniversary of this tragic event: https://www.wthr.com/article/two-ems-workers-killed-in-saturday-morning-crash
– but I can only guess at its significance to Arachne.
Thanks again, both.
Thanks Trismegistus. You’re right, that’s what I meant. Blog now corrected.
Thanks schua for the season in 14A and the full explication of co-op. Re the nina, MEDLEY is Cory’s surname.
And thanks Arachne, my favourite setter. Wonderful to see her on a Friday or any day.
Lovely puzzle, thanks to Arachne and greatly spotted Nina as well. Could not parse wiry but the rest ran quite smoothly.
Thanks Arachne and scchua
Lovely, with favourites HOYLE, LOGORRHOEA, TACITURN and HYPHENATES.
I too couldn’t parse SEA-SNAIL. I didn’t know MESETA, but could work it out from the clue. I knew CAYUGA, but only for the name of a hybrid mallard – I didn’t know the Iroquois connection.
First rate even by Arachne standards. A great example of slightly unfamiliar words that can be obtained from following the instructions. Spotting the nina helped finish and googling Timothy Cody (thats what I googled and it paid off)found me the sad news item.SEA SNAIL was a late parse.Great stuff.
Thank you Arachne and scchua
CAYUGA was new to me, but derivable from the wordplay. I’d never have parsed SEASNAIL in a month of Sundays! Thanks, scchua. INDWELLS need not be metaphysical, by the way.
I’m becoming a fan of Arachne.
Puzzle of the week for me. I print off the PDF version partly so that I’m not tempted by the reveal button and so that I can draw smilies on my favourites – several today, my favourite favourites were HYPHENATES and SEA SNAIL. Many thanks A&S.
Thanks, scchua – and Trismegistus for the explanation of the Nina.
Superb clues, as ever: favourite has to be HYPHENATES, especially as it immediately reminded me of this Two Ronnies sketch – not the first time I’ve provided a link to it.
Many thanks, Arachne, for a lovely puzzle.
PS: and, of course, 4dn reminded me of this this
Would like to mention my favourite today, 9a – in spite of the loud groan when I realised which Olive was in question. Good to see Sir Fred again; he helped kindle my interest in astronomy when I was much, much younger.
11a and 6d were nearly as good, though….
Fantastic puzzle as every from Arachne – loved SEA SNAIL, HYPHENATES, LOGORRHOEA and a few more. Many thanks to A and s.
Very enjoyable and the Nina (even though I didn’t know its significance) helped in solving a few at the end. ‘Olive’ in HOYLE brought back happy memories of B&W post-school TV. SEA SNAIL was satisfying to eventually parse though missed the parsing of HYPHENATES, despite there being a similar clue device for ‘lisp’ in my local cryptic today. Always welcome to add a couple of new words to the vocab. in ‘trews’ and CAYUGA.
Funnily enough the Maureen Lipman ad immediately sprang to mind for OLOGIST – thanks to Eileen@10 for the link. Again, happy memories.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua
Arachne gives some explanation of the Nina here at comment 9
This was in the days before we gave the clues in the blog – you can find the puzzle here
Thanks to Arachne and scchua
I particularly liked the OLOGIST and finding lovely Olive Oyl made me smile too
Great crossword, but how on earth did scchua manage to parse 14a?
Thanks to Arachne and scchua. I agree a good puzzle, but a bit too tough for me today. I felt after first couple of passes I was going to fail on this and I was correct. Generally struggled through most of it and was pleased to have got as far as I did only failing on seismic and mesata, and managed to sort out all the parsing including sea snail (one of the last to parse). That said had to look up the Roman emperor and the wind problem answers. Overall enjoyed the challenge, even though it spoiled my so far perfect week, and maybe next week I will get all five. Thanks again to Arachne and scchua.
Thanks Arachne for another super crossword, and to scchua for the good blog and explaining the parsing of SEA SNAIL – and thanks to Eileen for the nice links.
I forgot to look for a NINA, so that was no help.
Lots of good clues but my favourite was the one for HYPHENATES.
I made steady progress through this but needed the Nina, which I spotted just before the end, for BESTREW and then HYPHENATES. I like the latter because of the difficulty in getting away from the normal solving process of identifying particles and indicators in order to see what’s going on. SEA SNAIL was another “see first, parse afterwards” clue but I like its construction and resultant surface very much.
Quite a few new words or people today – MESETA, DIOCLETIAN, INDWELLS, THIRD AGE. BESTREW is also unfamiliar, although the passive form BESTREWN is less so.
I stupidly thought Arachne was taking liberties in 8 by having us insert B and L separately and not indicating this. It’s only this morning that I see “pounds” refers to the last L, not the internal one. D’oh!
Thanks, Arachne and scchua.
On 16th February 2013 two beautiful, brave young men, First Responders Timothy McCormack (24) and Cody Medley (22), lost their lives when their ambulance was involved in a collision in Indianapolis. Tim’s father Bob McCormack, New Jersey crossword enthusiast (and my dear friend), and his wife Rosie are in Indianapolis today for a memorial ceremony. RIP Tim and Cody, heroes always.
Many thanks to scchua for the excellent blog, to Trismegistus @1 for the outstanding sleuthing, and to Eileen @14 for the link to my previous tribute to Tim.
Arachne
A great puzzle, and closer to full strength Arachne than many recent ones. Failed to parse SEA SNAIL, and spotted the Nina without understanding who it referred to, so thanks for the enlightenment on those. CAYUGA and MESETA were unfamiliar to me.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua
Thanks to Arachne and scchua
It is Friday, a beautiful sunny day, the kitchen door to the garden is open, the first daffodils are coming out, and there’s Arachne.
Eileen @ 10 – I immediately thought of Maureen Lipman too, so thanks for the link (which also has the wonderful line “Anthony, people will always need plates”). I heard Maureen Lipman speaking once at our local cinema, and she said that taxi drivers still turn round and say “he gets an ology”.
Thank you Arachne for another great puzzle, and Scchua for confirming my parsings.
It took me a long time to unravel this, but got there in the end. CAYUGA, MESETA and INDWELLS were new to me. Had to leaf through Chambers for MESETA and only then did I twig the Spanish capital meaning.
SEA SNAIL is brilliant. Took me ages to see SEA S(o)N. Loads of other ticks too: 9, 22a, 26, 6, 18 to mention a few.
I find I’m really slow noticing the hidden answers, so ENTIRELY and INDWELLS were LOI. *sighs*
I didn’t see the Nina either. Very sad.
What a wonderful tribute Arachne @20. Alas I missed the nina – more the pity, as I’ve recently got both themes and pangrams. Still need to up my game then.
I was so pleased with myself for getting the OYL and thus HOYLE more or less straight away. At the other end of the scale, SEISMIC was last in – misled into thinking that the answer was entirely a homophone of ‘deep breaths’. And no matter how hard I looked, there was no way I could squeeze the former Spanish capital of Toledo into 22a, until the penny dropped (or should I say the peseta dropped?).
We learn a little more each day. Great puzzle and lasted well after we’d finished lunch. Thanks to everyone.
Beautiful puzzle, Arachne, and a tribute to two Hoosiers, to use a word from the previous puzzle. (To UK readers, a Hoosier is a person from Indiana. I don’t know why.) I liked it all, but coop flew above all for me. And thanks to both scchua for an enlightening blog for the parsings I couldn’t get and to Eileen for the links. I must have done the earlier puzzle when it came out, but I don’t remember it and enjoyed the trip back in time. And now I’ve got to go back to YouTube for more Ronnies and BTC — how it all piles up!
I usually by-pass the daily “Guardian’s” and preserve my brain-strain for Sunday’s Azed but have to say this was a treat. No clumsy wording and some gems of newbies. LOI was CAYUGA, not in my ancient Chambers. Many thanks.
This was superb and I learned quite a lot- mostly about the Iroquois but hey! I won’t list favourites because it would take too long. I loved ECOLODGE though. FOI was HOYLE,LOI was MESETA.I didn’t see the Nina but thanks to Arachne for explaining it.
Great fun.
Thanks Arachne.
I mentioned my knowledge of CAYUGA earlier. The duck is here.
A whole 11ac of somewhat obscure, or awkward, words here – BESTREW, ECOLODGE, MESETA, INDWELLS, CAYUGA, OLOGIST. And I’m not so sure aout SYSTEMISED either – shouldn’t it be “systematised”? Surprised that I managed to make it to the line without delving into Chambers or Wiki (that came after all the write-ins!).
Top marks? Have to give it to SEA SNAIL – easy definition but wonderfully succinct wordplay. Wish I could come up with clues like that! And HYPHENATES has got to be one of the cleverest I’ve seen for a while…
Pedant’s corner: 7d: “YE” is often supposed, mistakenly, to be an old form of “THE”. But it’s actually a mis-reading of “ÞE” written with the ‘thorn’ character (if that comes out right on this blog!). The “E” was usually superscript but I can’t manage that!
All right – enough of that! Thanks to the web-spinner and scchua
Laccaria didn’t add that the “thorn” character was pronounced “th”.
Think this was probably the toughest Arachne puzzle I’ve come across – took quite a while but was well worth it.
Learned new words in LOGORRHOEA, MESETA, DIOCLETIAN and CAYUGA and needed scchuua to explain why 14a was what it had to be.
9a made me smile but HYPHENATES was my clue of the day.
Many thanks to Arachne and scchua – and also to Eileen for the reminder of that excellent Two Ronnies sketch.7
Thanks to Arachne and scchua. I did not parse SEA SNAILS and missed the WI in WIRY but I had come across MESETA before and knew CAYUGA. Very enjoyable as usual from this setter.
A delight as ever from Arachne. Queen of all she waylays. (Ungallantly i’d love to know how old she is).
I was ok with it all but had to check Cayuga and Logorrhoea, and consequently Ologist was loi.
In mitigation for those who had problems with SEA SNAIL – I found it a devil to parse, too! Once I realised AIL = “trouble” I got to work on SEASN – then it clicked!
Never spotted the NINA – just didn’t occur to me to look! That might account for some of the difficult words. Alberich’s website has a lot to say about Ninas, and demonstrates how easy it is to go OTT and make the grid utterly unfillable… I think it’ll be a long time before I try my hand at one!
This wasn’t my favourite of the three crosswords by Arachne that I have completed in recent weeks (one of them by ‘Rosa Klebb’), but still a very satisfying puzzle. Seven words were new to me – the same seven that Laccaria listed @30.
11a LOGORRHOEA was a super clue, and a great word to have in a crossword. That was my first in. There were other enjoyable clues too, like 6d HYPHENATES.
I couldn’t complete this puzzle unaided (which is how I prefer to complete them), but I was sufficiently motivated to spend time looking up a few things and take it to a finish. I loved seeing the Nina emerge, and I guessed before coming here that there was something personal about the message. Incorporating that message into the crossword was something that I admired, in the end, most of all.
Many thanks to Arachne, and to scchua for the blog.
Jealous, Laccaria – I spotted “ail”, but didn’t make the jump to “seasn”!
muffin @37
Same here. 14a SEA SNAIL is what I call a ‘very crypitc’ clue.
Lucky then that Arachne didn’t set to work on AIL = French for “garlic”, or something like that! 😮 Especially seeing as escargots are often served up with loads of garlic!
Nice idea, Laccaria. Are sea snails eaten by us?
Yes – I’ve had whelks and winkles – very tasty (though perhaps not to everyone’s liking), but not tried escargots. You’ll get all sorts if you go to a French restaurant and order the assiette de fruits de mer….
[I’ve eaten escargots in garlic butter – pretty much indistinguishable from butter in garlic butter. Whelks and winkles always seem to be soused in lots of vinegar.]
I thought this was an excellent puzzle and that was before I came here and discovered that there was a ‘Nina’ – so surely makes it even more impressive.
I failed on MESETA (‘capital’- nice misdirection), BESTREWS and CAYUGA (apart from the guy). Along with these LOGORRHOEA was another new word for me and one I can’t wait to use in conversation! HYPHENATES was the best for me and took me ages to spot it was a cryptic definition. The construction had me looking at all sorts – especially when I spotted from the crossers that HEN would fit in the middle!
Thanks scchua for a very detailed blog. Thanks and best wishes to Arachne
This was an excellent puzzle and happened to be pitched at the perfect level of difficulty for me. Over and over, I thought I was stuck, but then something would click and I’d start making progress again.
I didn’t spot the Nina (as usual), and like others I failed to parse SEA SNAIL.
I also wrote in WARY instead of WIRY at 24a, guessing that maybe there was a Women’s Association and not worrying about the fact that the definition didn’t fit. Stupid of me, because I do actually know about the WI (Jam and “Jerusalem”, right?).
Many thanks to Arachne and scchua!
[Ted @44
I’ve actually attended a WI meeting (a relaxed chapter!) to hear a gardening talk. Fortunately I knew the words of Jerusalem; the actions wren’t required.}
Muffin is always good for a laugh! For me snails fall along with crab, lobster and white asparagus into the category “Foods Whose Charms Allude Me”.
[Hi BlueDot
Mmmm – I’ not all that impressed by lobster, but I love crab, though I rarely eat it, as my wife is allergic to it, and I love white asparagus, but I’ve only eaten it in Germany!]
P.S. Did you mean “elude”? “Allude might be more evocative!
Muffin@45: when you said “the actions weren’t requred” I couldn’t help wondering if you meant this.
Sorry but this was my least favourite Arachne ever,
I’m sure the sentiments were honourable although of course I failed to notice the nina. However this does seem to explain the unArachne-like clunkiness of a lot of the clues.
Not much fun for me.
Wonderful blog.
Feeling sadness and deep sympathy for the family Arachne’s nina references and for all those loved ones and colleagues mourning the tragic loss of the two young paramedics. What a skill Arachne possesses to be able to eulogise these young men so delicately, poignantly and compassionately in a crossword!
Didn’t finish the puzzle but loved what I solved. Congratulations to those who succeeded – and I feel great admiration for scchua’s excellent unpacking of the grid and for the puzzlers who parsed as well as solved.
Thank you also to members of this solving community for the kind responses to Arachne’s hidden message, as well as for the lighter moments provided in various links and comments, which balanced nicely against the gloomy thoughts that the nina and explanations of it evoked.
What a fantastic Friday offering from Arachne! I popped in IDLE, EIRE and WEED right off the bat, and was thinking this puzzle was going to turn out to be uncharacteristically easy for this setter, but then came skidding to a halt, and then I couldn’t seem to find any way to get started again. Of all things, it was DIOCLETIAN that finally yielded a re-entry point for me, and once that was in I was able to make steady progress straight on through to the end. Although my solving pace was more tortoise than hare, I had one of those pleasant solving days in which it seemed easy to get onto the setter’s wavelength with each clue, and even the trickiest of Arachne’s parsings popped right to mind once I focused on the clue in question for a few moments. (And, as others noted, even unfamiliar words like INDWELLS and MESETA were going right in with an “it can’t possibly be anything else” level of confidence.)
There were many clever clues and elegant surfaces, as always with Arachne, but I think my favorites were SEA SNAIL and HYPHENATES. OLOGIST and ECOLODGE were also great. I enjoyed the reference to Miss Oyl in 9ac, and I also liked CAYUGA, not because of the duck (thanks to Muffin @29), but because I have fond memories of my college years “Far above Cayuga’s waters”.
I spotted the Nina only after completing the puzzle, but I knew I would have to come here for the explanation. The Nina did seem vaguely familiar, though . . . because, as it so happens, the June 2013 puzzle linked by Eileen @14 (Arachne’s original tribute to Timothy M.) was one of the first Guardian cryptics I ever attempted, and I believe that manehi’s blog of that puzzle may have appeared on the day of my first ever (lurking) visit to 15^2!
Eileen @10, thanks for the telephone ad, which I had never seen. Very funny. And Laccaria @49, thanks for the hilarious MP sketch (I had seen it many years ago, it was no less funny this time around). But top link of the day for me was definitely the Two Ronnies sketch provided by Eileen @9. I was laughing out loud.
Many thanks to Arachne, scchua, and the other commenters. A happy weekend to all.
“About” in 18 is a strange hidden word indicator.
Coming in late to this, but I’d just like to add my voice to the chorus of approval. This was a beautifully balanced puzzle. A couple of ins for less gifted solvers (like me) fair wordplay and a bit of vocabulary stretching to boot. Many thanks Arachne and scchua.
Coming in even later…. Got the SW corner quickly, but held up for ages in the NE corner. LOI meseta ( didn’t think about capital as money). Loved hyphenates when we got it. I was helped by my knowledge of Roman empowers to get the breakthrough for the top.
I do like an Arachne!
Really sorry to hear about the two young men – but having them in a crossword adds us to the people who will remember them.
Though solved last week, only catching up with 225 now. I feel bound to echo beery@21 (it’s quite uncanny how often I’m in agreement with his view); it’s a pleasure to see Arachne nicely straying back towards her ‘tricksier’ best at long last. Still pretty straightforward but most enjoyable. I ticked SEA SNAIL (great fun to parse), OLOGIST and HYPHENATES of course, the last taking a minute to spot – just how I like it.
Wombles@55 makes a lovely point with her/his final paragraph.
Many thanks as ever to the wonderful Arachne.
scchua provides yet another brilliantly comprehensive blog – so generous, as are all our kind bloggers. For those new to cryptics, this must be very helpful.
I can’t believe this was by Arachne! I usually really enjoy her crosswords, but this was utterly, utterly, unforgivably dreadful.
I’m really disappointed.
If only I was flexible enough to actually kick myself. HYPHENATES!!!!