An enjoyable puzzle with clues with nice surfaces. One can’t go wrong with Arachne, to whom thanks. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 In arrears, welcoming one pound to cash in (9)
LIQUIDATE : LATE(in arrears/overdue) containing(welcoming) [ I(Roman numeral for “one”) + QUID(a pound/unit of English currencty).
Defn: … your investments, say.
8 Tea and scones at last, following tense conversations (5)
CHATS : CHA(tea, the drink) plus(and) [ last letter of(… at last) “scones” placed after(following) T(abbrev. for “tense”, in grammar) ].
9 Hollow black-framed spectacles suit groups of readers (4,5)
BOOK CLUBS : Inner letters deleted from(Hollow) “black” containing(framed) OO(representing spectacles, as in the emoticon “O-O” for one wearing glasses) + CLUBS(one of the four suits in a deck of playing cards).
10 More unusual female ducks feed on farm (5)
ODDER : “f”(abbrev. for “female”) deleted from(ducks) “fodder”(animal feed on a farm).
12 Stiff paper boxes that hurt chicken (6)
COWARD : CARD(a piece of stiff paper) containing(boxes)OW!(exclamation expressing “that hurt!/that was painful!”)
13 Liberal president, sensible too (8)
LIKEWISE : L(abbrev. for “Liberal”, a member of the Liberal Party) + IKE(nickname for the former president of the USA, Dwight D. Eisenhower) + WISE(sensible/sage).
Defn: …/also/in the same way.
14 Poor soul in refuge starts to overcome troubles (4-3)
HAVE-NOT : HAVEN(a place of refuge/safety) + 1st letters, respectively, of(starts to) “overcome troubles“.
17 Louche servicemen pout, perhaps (7)
RAFFISH : RAF(abbrev. for the Royal Air Force, and the men serving in it) + FISH(an example of which/perhaps is the eelpout/pout)
Defn: Slightly disreputable in an attractive way.
20 Seeing 8 across OK (8)
EYESIGHT : EIGHT(8) containing(across) YES(OK/expression of assent).
22 Long line for food store (6)
PANTRY : PANT(to long/yearn for, with tongue hanging out and breathing heavily?) + RY(abbrev. for “railway”, a part of which is a line, as in “the London to Manchester line”).
24 Perhaps arm Oman’s leader in uncertain situation (5)
LIMBO : LIMB(an example of which/perhaps is an arm) + 1st letter of(… leader) “Oman“.
Defn: … such as Britain is in now with Brexit.
25 Time to prepare ready-mix stuffing (9)
TAXIDERMY : T(abbrev. for “time”) + anagram of(to prepare) READY-MIX.
Defn: … of the skins of animals to form lifelike models.
26 Buyers’ representatives refuse to go into this hut (5)
CABIN : CA(abbrev. for “Consumers’ Association”/an organisation representing consumers/buyers and their rights) + BIN(something that refuse goes into).
27 Outside layers, inside then outside layers (9)
EGGSHELLS : Cryptic defn: … of eggs. These layers are first inside and then outside layers/hens, before and after, respectively, their eggs are laid.
Down
1 Japanese clobber North Korean, apropos of nothing (6)
KIMONO : KIM(a common surname among North – and South – Koreans, including its president) + ON(apropos of/with reference to) + O(letter signifying 0/nothing).
Defn: …/clothing.
2 After change of leaders plebs prepare to root out scandal (8)
MUCKRAKE : “ruck”(the mass of ordinary people/plebs, derogatorily) + “make”(to prepare, as in “to prepare dinner”) with 1st letters of “ruck” and “make” exchanging places( After change of leaders …). A Spoonerism, in fact.
3 Tot escorted off (6)
ADDLED : TOT(to add up to the total) + LED(escorted/ushered).
Defn: …/spoilt, as with sour milk).
4 Resistant to change, try ignoring case of piles (7)
STABILE : STAB(a try/an attempt at) + 1st and last letters deleted from(ignoring case of) “piles“.
5 Dog straying — how sad (6)
SHADOW : Anagram of(straying) HOW SAD.
6 Elders perhaps protect sisters after small hassles (8)
STRESSES : [ TREES(examples of which/perhaps are elders) containing(protect) SS(abbrev. for “sister” x 2 – as in “nursing sisters in a hospital”? I’m not sure of this. The abbrev. for a sister in a convent is “Sr”.) ] placed below(after, in a down clue) S(abbrev. for “small”).
11 Upset when ringing British bird (4)
SKUA : Reversal of(Upset, in a down clue) [ AS(when, as in “salute as you walk past”) containing(ringing) UK(abbrev. for the United Kingdom and things British) ].
This one is lifting its meal of baby penguin:
15 Unlike the rest, I play-act outrageously (8)
ATYPICAL : Anagram of(… outrageously) I PLAY-ACT.
16 Regularly do drugs before end of very wild party (4)
ORGY : 2nd, 4th and 6th letters of(Regularly) “do drugs” placed above(before, in a down clue) last letter of(end of) “very“.
18 Touched gender-fluid fellow setter, making advance (8)
FINGERED : Anagram of(…-fluid) GENDER placed below(…, making advance, in a down clue) [ F(abbrev. for “fellow”) + I(self-referential pronoun for this crossword setter) ].
19 Audiologist rang ENT nurses from elsewhere (7)
STRANGE : Hidden in(… nurses) “Audiologist rang ENT“.
21 Offer rickety tumbrils without sides (6)
SUBMIT : Anagram of(rickety) “tumbrils” minus(without) “r,l”(abbrev. for “right” and “left” sides, respectively).
22 Peers ultimately support minister (6)
PRIEST : PRIES(peers/looks with concentration into) + last letter of(ultimately) “support“.
23 Bottom with extremely loathsome wrinkle (6)
RUMPLE : RUMP(the bottom/rear end of a mammal’s body, as with a “rump steak”) plus(with) 1st and last letters of(extremely) “loathsome“.
What a treat – thank you Arachne and scchua
Lots of clues I could mention for favouritism but I’ll go for the extra splendid 27a
A plodding solve for me. And several answers I couldn’t parse.
EGGSHELLS – I had this as def outside layers. Inside is ‘egg’ and outside layers are the shells.
I think you are definitely right about the S’s in STRESSES: I also questioned this. Also the T for tense. In all my life dealing with foreign languages I have never come across T for tense. Usually we use something like ‘imperf’ for imperfect or imperfective but not IT. But I’m not saying it’s wrong.
Thanks to Arachne and to scchua.
Generally, what crypticsue said [with a laugh out loud for the ready-mix stuffing].
Anna, we do see T = tense a lot these days. Like you, I haven’t met it in real life but it’s in both Collins and Chambers.
I could not parse 26a – never heard of “Consumers’ Association”, but it was easy enough to guess the answer was ‘cabin’.
New for me: STABILE = stable / resistant to change.
My favourites were LIKEWISE, TAXIDERMY, SUBMIT.
Thanks Arachne and scchua.
Thanks Arachne and scchua
Some great clues. Favourites were EYESIGHT for the misdirection, and TAXIDERMY. I didn’t parse CABIN or STABILE, and I needed a wordsearch for the latter – not a word I’m familiar with.
I did parse MUCKRAKE. but didn’t like it much. Too complicated, and RUCK for “plebs” and MAKE for “prepare” were both rather loose.
SKUA reminded me of Bonxie (the Great Skua) – another of my favourite compilers who we don’t seem to have seen for too long.
Thanks scchua, love the pictures!
Super crossword, although I was a bit puzzled by the S = sister, which doesn’t seem to be supported in the dictionaries I looked at. Trademark smoothness in the clues from the spider lady.
I particularly liked EYESIGHT, PANTRY and ODDER.
Thanks Arachne and scchua.
Being from Ballyclare, the present Mrs FTC would take great exception to UK being clued “British”. It’s just wrong. Other than that a challenging solve. I agree with muffin about MUCKRAKE.
Well I gave up…ticking favourite clues that is! A slow and steady solve, with lots of clues needing a third or fourth look before seeing through the misdirection. I agree “muck rake” was a little forced, but nice to see a scandal that was not a “gate”. Good spot on “s” scchua – I had assumed it was a genealogical abbreviation but that should be Si or sis apparently, with ‘s’ reserved for son, survivor, spinster.
i read “eggshells” as outside (def’n) then “layers, inside” = egg then “outside layers” = shells. But I can see various other ways to do it. I do like clues which re-use words in different ways. One I came up with many years ago was “Turns, turns, turns. I love love” (10) –
Spoiler of the clue below
turns being a definition, anagrind and anagram content, love being both ‘o’ and anagram content. Hence “revolutions”
Was anyone else misled by the crossers into thinking GATE would have been part of 2D? Thanks to Arachne and scchua for an enjoyable puzzle and a helpful blog
Belter. Clever Spider-Lady.
Loved EGGSHELLS & TAXIDERMY but failed to parse CABIN or MUCKRAKE. I could see what was going on but didn’t spot ruck.
Can’t find S = sister or T = tense in Chambers but perhaps it’s elsewhere.
Loved looking up STABILE (as opposed to mobile) which was new to me. There’s a good one just off the M5 near Bridgwater on the right heading south.
Nice week, all.
Thank you Arachne and Scchua.
Always a lift when I see Arachne. And for that matter Bonxie – not seen for a while as muffin @5 notes.
20, 25 and 27 across were all great clues among many. And I appreciated the absence of the Rev. W. A. Spooned in 2dn.
Took a while trying to work out an anagram of “umbril” at 21dn.
Thank you Arachne and Scchua.
Always a lift when I see Arachne. And for that matter Bonxie – not seen for a while as muffin @5 notes.
20, 25 and 27 across were all great clues among many. And I appreciated the absence of the Rev. W. A. Spooner in 2dn.
Took a while trying to work out an anagram of “umbril” at 21dn.
[Marienkaefer @12 – there’s a message for you at the end of Tuesday’s Brendan blog.]
My parsing for 2d was RUCK=plebs-change of leader making MUCK and “prepare to root out” =RAKE(shurely thats wot you do in the garden)
I thought it was rather cool not mentioning Spooner-then JPR may have got involved.
Great stuff and thanks for blog sccchua
Quick retraction re T = Tense. Just spotted it in Chambers lurking between temperature & ton(s).
You know you’re in for a challenging treat when Arachne’s name appears. It was a dnf for me today as I didn’t get HAVE NOT or CABIN (michelle@4 – it’s obvious now!). In addition to those clues mentioned I’d add PRIEST for the misdirected PEERS and STRANGE. Arachne does seem to excel at hidden words – her recent Rosa Klebb FT prize contained two brilliant examples. On the subject of hidden words yesterday’s FT by Chalmie did it in a way that was new to me and other commenters (25d) and I’d be interested to know if anyone has seen it before.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua for another great illustrated blog.
copmus @15 – I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with you before but MUCKRAKE means ‘to seek out and expose scandal’ [identically in Collins and Chambers] not just ‘scandal’, so I’m with scchua on this.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua. Very enjoyable puzzle which largely went in readily, however I did get a bit bogged down in the NW. Last ones were liquidate, have not and muckrake (needed your parsing on this scchua). I was another who spent far too long trying to work out an anagram of umbril for 21d. Lots of nice clues as you would expect, but I particularly liked taxidermy, eyesight and eggshells. Thanks again to Arachne and scchua.
In case it hasn’t been noticed: the Corrections slot in today’s Guardian, cenrtre page of Journal, acknowledges the two errors in the prize Crossword of 23 March, as discussed in and below Eileen’s blog of a week later. Better late than never. Evidently both MESOZOIC and MEZOZOIC were acceptable in picking winners. (I don’t enter these days, because of having bought the prize book on publication – just waiting for something different.) S
Meanwhile Arachne’s puzzle was indeed a pleasure (as usual), as was Schua’s pictorial blog (as usual). The only slight inelegance (perhaps) was the triple use of ‘perhaps’ in the cluing. Many thanks to both.
copmus@15. I too parsed 2d MUCKRAKE as you did. As for the def, ‘scandal’ – even if we accept it, ‘scandal’ is n. I would expect the answer to be ‘muckraking’, n. Isn’t ‘muckrake’, a v.? As a n., it is an agricultural implement.
When we write some 26 to 32 clues concentrating on word breakup and handling the components, we may not notice the repetition of something like anagrind or letter ind.
We might miss the repeats even while we ‘review’ the clue set.
If we put the clue list through a ‘duplicate word [in file] detector/highlighter’, we will be surprised to see what we missed.
We could then take remedial measures.
Eileen @18 I would never want to disagree with you-but maybe “root out” is doing double duty.
She is very cunning as we all know!
There is an interesting survey of muckraking here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker
Thanks to Arachne and scchua. I did not know CA or ruck=plebs or the eelpout but that did not detract from the enjoyment of a delightful puzzle.
Frankie the cat @ 8, British is perfectly acceptable and long established as meaning ‘of the UK’ (and knowing Ballyclare I would imagine anyone objecting to its use there would be in a very small minority).
Copmus @ 23 I parsed it as scchua but you’re parsing would work with rake = prepare (I was taught that raking is the right way to prepare a surface for seed).
Thanks Arachne and scchua.
Top class stuff as always from Arachne. MUCKRAKE was last in by a distance. Loved EYESIGHT, among others.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua
As said, typically elegant arachnid surfaces with few quibbles. Can’t remember if I remember stabile from Chem 100, many decades ago. And liked the multiply topical 18d. And 20a and 21d were cunning. Ticks for coherence next to nearly every clue. Thanks Arachne and Scchua.
Thanks Arachne for a very enjoyable crossword. Somehow I managed to fluke all the solutions having a few educated guesses towards the end (am not always so lucky) – there remained several that I could not parse, and for explanation and discussion of these I thank scchua and all the other commenters here.
I don’t always have time/opportunity for regular solving and this website (plus the Guardian weekly column) has been extremely useful in educating me on the many devious techniques employed. So a broader thank-you to all the bloggers and community!
I share the distaste of some for these obscure one or two letter abbreviations which are buried somewhere in a dictionary but rarely see the light of day outside crosswords – but then remind myself that it’s always good to learn new things and these very rarely get in the way of solving a good clue. And there were plenty of good clues here.
Thanks to Arachne and scchua.
Well, I enjoyed this up to a point (that frisson of anticipation at the sight of Arachne’s name)(the savoury surfaces) but a dnf with vacancies in the NW which, when revealed, left a vague feeling of vacuity: “poor soul” seems to me to over-egg the HAVE-NOT pudding – why “soul”?; with the best will in the world I can’t tick MUCK-RAKE – I “got” that there was a concealed Spoonerism but wasn’t going to crack this one; STABILE is just obscure (too obscure for words? – not too obscure for a cryptic crossword, granted).
But I should have got LIQUIDATE, my bad. And lots to enjoy with ADDLED and TAXIDERMY taking prizes.
Like many it seems, I had trouble understanding MUCKRAKE. My favourite is TAXIDERMY.
I knew STABILE well from seeing an exhibition of Alexander Calder’s work that included both mobiles and stabiles.
Thank you, scchua and Arachne!
Typical Arachne with great surfaces as usual. Her style is so unique that you could tell it’s hers without her pseudonyms. FOI ORGY, LOI MUCKRAKE. COD the naughty 23d.
Delighted to see the name of my favorite setter today, and finished an Arachne for the first time. Took me forever to enter my LOI, STRANGE (followed by a head slap), and I spent a long time looking at 13a before I noticed “too” sitting innocently at the end of the clue. Lots to like as noted above. Thanks to Arachne and Scchua.
I’m a fan of this setter but I was disappointed in this as I don’t usually struggle as much as I did today. I ended up guessing far more than I like to do. MUCKRAKE,SKUA,STRANGE and STABILE were all examples. However, I’m clearly in the smallest minority so it’s probably me!
Thanks Arachne.
[I’ve looked at the archives here and at the Guardian. We haven’t had a Bonxie puzzle since June 2017. I hope that he’s OK.]
I enjoyed this, especially EYESIGHT for the clever use of 8 across, but, although not posting often, I like to check in here to get others’ opinions. Which is how I noticed 22 across was PANTRY. I guessed ‘long’ as being ‘pine’, and looked up PINERY, which is a pine house, or a house for growing pineapples. So I suppose I sort of finished it. Thanks to Arachne.
Belated thanks to Eileen @12 for alerting me to yesterday’s message.
And belated apologies for the double posting. I thought I had rescued “Spooned” for “Spooner” – but I hadn’t.
muffin @35 – the last Bonxie I saw was in Orkney in June last year.
Indeed, a lovely puzzle (but what else can you expect?)
We particularly liked PRIEST (22d), ADDLED (3d) and LIKEWISE (13ac).
[and the rest 🙂 ]
muffin @5, I missed your objections to the use of “in” as a link word. Arachne did it twice today, in 14ac and 24ac. And although she is part of The Holy Trinity, she’s not above the law, is she?
Many thanks to scchua & Arachne.
Sil @38
I (mistakenly) took the “in” in 14 as an inclusion indicator. In 24 I had “in” as part of the definition (although scchua didn’t).
Always a joy to see an arachnidic (!) offering, clues always so lateral. Today though too lateral, and a DNF. NW holding out (on top of night out, so late to comment), Ms_Ch completed with electronic assistance/check to show the way after further effort. 3d addle favourite, just for its simplicity and hook onto tot as person. Think that ‘tot up’ would be more usual translation of add, but plainly valid.
With Pete@34, laterality just too much today.
Thanks spider lady and sschua, look forward to the next one!
How nice to have a ‘puzzle’ from Arachne. I’ve found her recent offerings far less challenging they used to be – so a great relief to find this one not a write-in.
Accordingly, reasonably enjoyable.
…ooops. Should’ve added my thanks to Arachne. And to sschua for his kind efforts.
Very nice indeed. Didn’t like peers=pries, but that was the only quibble
So many lifetimes later, and from the depths of covid-isolation, I have to note SKUA as a name-check for our esteemed blogger.