Guardian 27,624 – Arachne

by

A nice surprise to get an Arachne for my first blog after a couple of weeks away in the Highlands (thanks to Loonapick and Teacow for keeping my seat warm). Lots of fun as always – thanks to Arachne.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. PRIME TIME Get ready, while attracting lots of viewers (5,4)
PRIME (get [something] ready) + TIME (while)
10. UMRAH Pilgrimage of posh bloke ends in Andhra Pradesh (5)
U + MR + last letters of andhrA pradesH – a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca
11. IMAGINE Pretend one’s cool, entering declining years (7)
I’M (one’s) + IN (cool, fashionable) in AGE
12. ABETTAL Helping discontented barista around coffee counter (7)
B[arist]A reversed (around) + :LATTE reversed (counter)
13. AXIS Time to abandon cabs for Central line (4)
[T]AXIS
14. COMPLETELY Quite attractive guards finally stop all disruptive conduct (10)
Last letters of stoP alL disruptivE conducT in COMELY
15. INSULAR Short, slight Arab surrounded by water (7)
Shortened INSUL[T] + AR[ab]
17. STOMACH Put up with some alterations to machines (7)
Hidden in alterationS TO MACHines
19. LARYNGITIS Raving angrily? It’s cause of hoarseness (10)
(ANGRILY IT’S)*
22. BOWL Women going into loft backwards to make deliveries (4)
W in reverse of LOB
23. STRAFED Airily attacked Trump’s revolutionary deeds on regular basis (7)
Reverse of FART’S (trump’s) + alternate letters of dEeDs
24. TROTSKY Communist cobblers in extremely tremulous state (7)
ROT (nonsense, cobblers) in T[remulou]S + KY (Kentucky)
26. OFFAL Old fellows always lacking manners? Rubbish! (5)
O FF + ALWAYS less WAYS (manners)
27. GESTATION Development of gallstone gutted Victoria, for one (9)
G[allston]E + STATION (of which Victoria is an example)
Down
1. OPTICAL ILLUSION Over 100 Lilliputians sadly accepting love is mirage? (7,8)
O (Over) + O (overlove) in anagram of C (100) LILLIPUTIANS
2. BINARIES Stellar couples sign book in advance (8)
B IN ARIES – the definition is of binary stars
3. YETI Hairy humanoid oddly ignoring my meat pie (4)
Alternate letters of mY mEaT pIe
4. FIRE DOOR Exit half-cut Finn with scarlet jumper upside down (4,4)
FI[nn] + RED + reverse of ROO
5. DECAMP Mum returns quietly after month in Split (6)
DEC[ember) + reverse of MA + P (quietly)
6. SUPEREGO Leader of Greece pricking Europe’s uneasy conscience (8)
G[reece] in EUROPES*
7. WRITHE Summons male to move sinuously (6)
WRIT (summons) + HE
8. SHILLY-SHALLYING Awfully shy friend stopping Bob vacillating (6-9)
SHY* ALLY in SHILLING (bob)
16. LANDFILL Refuse to be buried (8)
Cryptic definition
17. SKITTISH Nervous sibling consumes pot, mostly, and heroin (8)
KITT[y] (pot, as in a collection of money) in SIS, + H
18. ACOUSTIC A magistrate disrobed after firstly cursing, out of hearing (8)
First letters of Cursing OUT in A [j]USTIC[e] (Justice of the Peace = magistrate)
20. RAREFY Thin umpire in bit of sunshine (6)
REF in RAY
21. INDIGO Violet’s neighbour doing somersaults round island (6)
I in DOING* – indigo is next to violet in the traditional list of colours of the rainbow
25. ORAL Using speech of Sadiq Khan, say, to oust PM (4)
MAYORAL (Sadiq Khan is the Mayor of London) less [Theresa] MAY

50 comments on “Guardian 27,624 – Arachne”

  1. After both the long ‘uns jumped off the page it looked like a romp, but there was a bit of nutting out to do. Mostly my own denseness though, like wondering how to do bloke in 2 letters (d’oh), and taking an age to get LOI acoustic, and only then seeing (j)ustic(e).

    Nearly every clue of Arachne’s is a little gem that glows, even those with solutions like abettal (erk!). And nothing like the occasional roo to make the antipodeans feel at home!

    An absolute pleasure, many thanks Arachne and Andrew.

  2. Thanks Andrew, needed your help to parse SKITTISH and INSULAR (didn’t see the truncated words).

    There’s a small error in your comment on 1d – the second ‘O’ is ‘love’.

    Thanks also to Arachne for a very nice puzzle with no faults that I could see.

  3. I enjoyed this. I have a slight beef about 23ac as Trump has an upper case T and therefore is a proper noun and not a synonym for FART. However this seems common practice and accepted in Grauniad crossword land so I’ll not moan about it again. Also I think we should constantly remind ourselves that any Trump is a fart.

  5. Luvverly stuff from the spider lady and Andrew on return. Like Grant the long downers got me off to a flying start plus the only mnemonic I can remember for 21d.

    Held up by searching for another slang term for pot (after the munchies last week) and realising I have always spelt acoustic with a double c – where’s the justice in that?

  6. Good to have you back, Andrew. Sounds like a lovely holiday.

    Given Arachne’s alter ego is Rosa Klebb, perhaps it’s no surprise that she included TROTSKY at 24a, but what a coincidence to have this today and “Trotskyist” yesterday, as quenbarrow@4 says.

    Colonel Rosa Klebb is a fictional character and the main antagonist from the James Bond 1957 novel and 1963 film From Russia with Love. She was played by Lotte Lenya in the film version. Her name is a pun on the popular Soviet phrase for women’s rights, khleb i rozy (Cyrillic: ???? ? ????), which in turn was a direct Russian translation of the internationally used labour union slogan “bread and roses“. (Wikipedia)

    Ticks for 17a STOMACH, 1d OPTICAL ILLUSION, 6d SUPEREGO, 17d SKITTISH (“pot” was a clever diversion here) and 25d ORAL. (Regarding the latter, you Brits are so lucky to have a PM with a name that lends itself so well to cryptic clueing! Not sure how we could ever get ScoMo to fit, though it may not be a problem for long. Indeed we may have another PM here before too long, with the revolving door here making us a bit of a laughing stock. I am a bit consoled though by the fact that it may not be quite as embarrassing as the FART’S UN appearance.)

    One slight niggle – I thought the surface for 4d FIRE DOOR was a bit clumsy, but I could be just being a bit picky?

    I loved this and feel lucky to have had two of my favourite setters on consecutive days. Thanks to Arachne and of course to Andrew.

  7. Wonderful as always from Arachne – her clueing is so amusing and inventive. I thought SHILLY-SHALLYING, ABETTAL, SUPEREGO and ACOUSTIC were all brilliant, among others! Many thanks to A & A.

  9. [We crossed, BlueCanary@5, but I was also searching through my lexicon of marijuana slang for “pot” before I solved 17d SKITTISH by considering the letter combo of “nervous SIS” and “H”.]

  11. Trump the euphemism took me back to pre-school childhood family life when we cousins giggled about such things, and I don’t think I’ve heard it since!

  12. I wondered if AR is an accepted abbreviation for Arab because “short” meaning “1 letter off this, 2 off that” seemed a bit weak to me?

    I also have issues with “declining years” meaning “age” (as opposed to some version of old age).

    Thought 13 was particularly neat, thanks to Arachne and Andrew.

  13. I had a late start this morning, so it’s all been said, really. As usual, I agree with all JinA has said, particularly about the little gem at 25dn – perhaps my favourite of all today. Our PM and the POTUS have indeed been rich pickings for our setters – and they’ve certainly made the most of it.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Andrew and Arachne – I loved it.

  14. Nice one Arachne – ingenious, thoughtful, and lacking in tiresome chestnuts, despite the season! More answers than I’d dare admit went in unparsed (or ‘biffed’ as I believe our antipodean pals say). More down to my laziness than any clueing deficiencies, so the blog was handy to confirm my guesses. Thank you Andrew.

  15. Thanks to Arachne and Andrew. Great fun as usual from this setter. I needed help parsing BINARIES, and UMRAH was my LOI, largely because Mr for gent was new to me as was ABETTAL as a noun.

  16. I found this difficult and ground it out in the end. I gainsay nothing of the above, but it was just not on my wavelength.

    Thanks nonetheless to Arachne and to Andrew.

  17. Bullhassocks, Terra Australis has recently been deemed the origin of all songbirds, but the origin of ‘biff’? I think you overestimate us!

  18. Great crossword from Arachne, a bit more difficult than some of hers I felt.

    Thanks Andrew; I ‘just’ didn’t see JUSTICE in 18, thinking the ST was ‘magistrate disrobed’ and getting my cursing or cussing knickers in a twist.

    Most clues superb; I ticked STRAFED, BINARIES, ABETTAL and ORAL, although there were plenty more gems.

  19. This took me longer than it should have, but as always from Arachne a high class puzzle. Copmus @8 got in first with the coffee comment – I was imagining certain commenters’ reaction to that.

    Thanks to Arachne and Anxrew

  22. Thank you Arachne and Andrew.

    A lovely puzzle, my favourite clue was that for ORAL!

    The clue for OPTICAL ILLUSION reminded me of going through the Suez Canal as a girl and seeing some palm trees up in the air to the west in the early morning in winter, an adult said it was a superior mirage, usually only seen over ice, something to do with the upper air being hotter than the lower air ….

  23. Thanks to Arachne and Andrew. All good stuff and most has been said. Another who got the two long ones quite quickly and thought it was going to be a breeze. However, the last few seemed to take forever. Last two were umrah (never heard of it) and binaries (was not aware of the astronomical sense). I would add gestation to the other nice clues mentioned and thanks again to Arachne and Andrew.

  24. I would add OPTICAL ILLUSION for the wonderful anagram, and I’m sure at least a hundred Lilliputians would applaud it.

    Is offal rubbish?  I thought it was organ meat.

    Thanks to Arachne and to Andrew — I hope your stay in the Highlands was wonderful, and I hope I go there some day.

    Bullhassocks @14 — “biffed” means “bunged in from the definition,” and we all use it.  At least I do.  I don’t know which nationality it started with.

  26. I would like to add RAREFY to other clues mentioned – so short and neat! I used to think it was spelled RARIFY, because of the pronunciation I suppose. Many thanks Arachne and Andrew

  27. Hello Andrew and nice one Arachne. Some of these ingenious surfaces had the better of me. Notably abettal and binaries. Flying start, then my brain turned to offal and stopped spinning on its axis. Loved 8dn.

  28. Like Robert I didn’t like the uneven shortening of INSULt and ARab – I failed to parse that one. Didn’t know UMRAH as a thing or that there was such an ugly word as ABETTAL. But now that the quibbles are out of the way, wasn’t the rest great!

  31. Thanks Arachne and Andrew

    I looked at 1d first, as I usually do when it gives first letters, and saw nothing. Then after FOI AXIS 1d was obviously OPTICAL ILLUSION! (though I was short of an O on the anagram).

    One or two I needed your parsing for, Andrew – thanks.

    Favourites were SUPEREGO and ORAL for their surfaces, and the marvellous STRAFED, for which it took some time for the penny to drop!

  32. Rather ground this one out too, writing in some answers then confirming the cluing, rather than the more satisfying other way round. LOI was 2 down, looked at it for ages, then gave up and looked up the answer on here, too weary by now to persevere…

  34. Cookie @30. Same here (for ar = arabic) but as the parsing seemed off I assumed I was wrong, an (admittedly brief) online search didn’t come up with any justification for ar = arab either hence my query.

  35. Thank you Arachne – wonderful. Made my day, and a good day it is with Eccles and Julius/Baerchen elsewhere. To top it all off, my electric sunroof mysteriously started working again after 8 years.

    16d is a perfect cd. I find cd’s hard, this one is just so nice. My favourite is 25d. Loads more to like, though I had to look up UMRAH.

    Nothing wrong with false capitalisation, frankie@3. And martin@26: ha! Guess what, my puzzle contains RARIFY

    Many thanks Andrew

  36. Robi @33, my Collins, admittedly a compact edition, only has Ar. for Arabic and Aramaic – perhaps Eileen’s Collins gives more – I suppose Chambers lets Ar. off the hook?

  37. Well, I did have a slight quibble with BINARIES, my last one in. As a definition of binary stars, “stellar couples” is delightfully quaint. But my quibble is that, as far as I know, “binaries” by itself  doesn’t refer to binary stars. However, it does in phrases such as “eclipsing binaries”, which just about lets Arachne off, though I suspect not many solvers would be acquainted with the phrase.

     

    Thanks Arachne and Andrew

  38. Excellent crossword. I really liked STRAFED. Nice also that UMRAH could be solved confidently without knowing the word. Thanks Arachne and Andrew.

    [Valentine and Cookie
    I added a late post today on the Nutmeg blog with a possible solution for avoiding spaces in lines of verse.]

  39. Feeling very stupid (nothing new there!) but I really don’t get the coffee police, latte, trolling comments. I don’t want to stir anything up – trolling is a pretty bad thing – but what’s wrong with “latte” please?

  40. It’s always a joy to see that Arachne is the setter of the day, and today’s puzzle lived up to expectations.  Lots to enjoy, as always.  My favorites echo those of many other commenters above — including STOMACH, SUPEREGO, OPTICAL ILLUSION, and ORAL — but to that list I would add LARYNGITIS.  CotD for me had to be STRAFED.  I had forgotten about the UK (or at least portions of the UK) meaning of “trump”, so there was a nice PDM once I spotted the correct parsing of the answer, which I already had from the definition and crossers.  Suitably inspired, I played Nellie the Elephant (the Toy Dolls version) on YouTube and also looked up a website on word usage that indicated that people in the North of England have been snickering at the name “Ivana Trump” for decades.

    Many thanks to Arachne and Andrew and the other commenters.

  42. Re latte: it actually means “milk” in Italian, so if you ordered a “latte” in Italy, you might not get what you were expecting…

  43. Yes, I know what “latte means in Italian. I’ve also ordered a latte in a cafe in Rome and been given a white coffee. Italian people aren’t stupid and won’t think you want a mug of milk if you ask for a latte.
    Next time I should ask for a caffe latte. Bet I get given the same thing. Don’t spoil a nice crossword by trying to be over-clever.

  44. Great puzzle, as demonstrated by the number of contenders for COTD – to which I’d add 14ac, so cleverly misleading & perfectly constructed

  45. What’s not to like about a puzzle from Spiderwoman!

    Like others, I didn’t know UMRAH and struggled for the 2-letter man until WRITHE went in, then the penny dropped loudly.

    Impossible to name a favourite and certainly none that I didn’t appreciate.

    Many thanks to Arachne and to Andrew for the blog.   Also, thanks to Dutch for the heads up in another place!

  47. David Ellison @37 — As an astrophysicist, I can attest that “binaries” to mean “binary star systems” is common usage in astronomy. It’s true that this usage wouldn’t be known to lots of people, but that’s OK.

    Frankie the cat @3 — This sort of false capitalization seems fine to me. After all, at the beginning of a sentence, the word would be written “Trump” even if it were being used as a common noun. That is, “Trump” is equivalent to “Fart”.

    There are times when the lack of capitalization is unfair. If lower-case “trump” were found in a clue, and it were used to refer to the president, that would be cause for complaint.

  48. Sandy@43

    I’m a bit miffed at being accused of “Don’t spoil a nice crossword by trying to be over-clever.” when I was just trying to clarify the points that were being made. I think an apology is appropriate.

  49. I’m sorry, everyone, but I think Lattegate is my fault and I’ve made a bad joke out of a recurring gag which runs sporadically through these and indeed other threads.

    No harm intended.

  50. I’m a big fan of Arachne and whilst this had lots of lovely clues which have already been mentioned there were others which didn’t have the Arachne sparkle – like TROTSKY which didn’t have a misleading (pdm) definition and was one of those “chop, insert and add a bit” clues that don’t do much for me. Also LANDFILL didn’t seem up to her high standard – and it now seems churlish to be picking out a couple of iffy (imo) clues so I’ll end by restating my appreciation of Arachne as a setter and thanks to Andrew for the blog.

Comments are closed.