Guardian 28,256 / Vulcan

83 comments on “Guardian 28,256 / Vulcan”

1. Very quick today but fun all the way. 6d was a guffaw.  FOI 1a, LOI 14d but just the way the Jenga tumbled…

   Thanks Vulcan and Eileen!

2. I thought there were lots of really excellent clues in this – a perfect example of the ‘doesn’t have to be hard to be enjoyable’ adage. MUMBLED, NORTH POLE, SUSHI, DOGMA… too many to list them all. MOONSHINE was just one of the lovely surface/anagram clues. And then the linked DISMISSAL, RESIGNS, RETIRED, EVICT grouping – really excellent crossie. Thanks heaps, Vulcan – and Eileen, though I didn’t need any parsing help today.

3. Thought the anagrams for MOONSHINE, MICROWAVE and APPLIANCE very smoothly clued. A nice gentle Monday solve. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

4. Like Eileen I enjoyed this a lot. I found it a lot more challenging than the usual Monday puzzles. I liked the ‘warm voice’ anagram for MICROWAVE, and like TassieTim@2 I thought MOONSHINE was great. LOI was QUEENED, which took a bit of thought. Many thanks to V & E.

5. [[Friends, solvers, fellow posters

   What a difference a day makes.  I had planned, this morning, to retire my pseudonym.  Well, the problem is it’s not a pseudonym which has led to confusion on several occasions in recent times and even the gentlest and most kindly put suggestion that assuming a first name as my nomme de guerre might expose me to accusations of egocentricity.  So, it appeared Mark had to go.

   Then, yesterday, Gaufrid opened a thoughtful thread in General Discussions and his observations and several of the comments caused me to reflect on my own contributions to the “bloated mess these Guardian blogs have become” to coin a phrase.  I am a wordy contributor, a multiple poster and I certainly join, and occasionally encourage, departures from the puzzle of the day.  But then I love language, I enjoy interaction with others and I adore flights of fancy.  That’s me.  I’m the polar opposite of those who desire a straightforward academic analysis of wordplay, grammar and definitive accuracy.  So, I’ve decided to stand down from the blog, at least for some time, and reflect on whether I want to and, if so, how I might change my style.  If I do return it will be under another name and with a different approach so this is the Mark I’ve enjoyed being over the last couple of years acknowledging his appreciation for Gaufrid’s phenomenal work and for the contribution of setters, bloggers and posters, especially those with whom I’ve engaged.  So long, and thanks for all the fish.]]

   (Apologies for “going off on one” here, rather than in General Discussion.  It won’t happen again. :D)

    

6. I’m not keen on the idea that 11ac treats down and South as the same thing.  I know we do say ‘down South’ so perhaps I’m being overly pedantic and have spent too much time being baffled by flat earth YouTubers.

   Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle, quickly completed.

7. [Mark @5 that’s a real shame – I for one will miss your contributions. I thought most of the comments on the thread were pretty positive about the current state of affairs. You can’t please all the people all the time …]

8. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

   WB @ 6: you may be overthinking. If you’re at the North Pole you’re at the top of the world, so any direction you head in will be going down from it.

9. Mark @5 I haven’t read that thread, but I think this site will be poorer if it is to be devoid of all personality, and become a dry as dust academic discussion.

10. Fine puzzle to kick off the week, many thanks, Vulcan.

    Mark @5: I was saddened by this. I’ve enjoyed your wordy but thoughtful contributions here. Why change what you are? I, for one, hope you’ll stay, whatever name you enter under.

11. SS @ 8 – strictly speaking there is no ‘top’ to the world and down is towards the centre of the planet.  We just tend to draw maps with north at the top but that’s only a convention.  I’m not trying to make a big thing of this but it did annoy me a tad.

12. [Mark @5 – I’d hate to see you go.   I think we’re living in a world that needs MORE long-form banter and discussion, not less. Please re-consider?]

13. Simon S @8: I get the reasoning, but it’s only borealocentric(!) convention that has North at the top. I’d argue that a def this loose needs a question mark.

    This one could have been a Rufus offering, with the same level of fun, but I’d ideally like a little more precision from the cryptic defs, seeing that there’s no additional element of the clue to construct an answer from. 1d is a beauty, but 2d and 11a are open enough that I wasn’t confident until the crossers were in. It’s personal preference, but I don’t like the feeling of understanding exactly how a clue works, but being unable to prove that there isn’t another answer that fits. Or worse, coming up with several possible answers.

14. Mark @5. Sorry you feel like this. I’ve enjoyed many of your posts, and the conversations that have ensued.

    Re: the crossword – I think Vulcan is steadily developing an entertaining and increasingly tricksy style, with smooth and engagingly written clues. Thanks to them and, as always, Eileen.

15. Thank you Eileen – I only needed you (nice to feel wanted eh?) for 21A today.

     

    I Thought very vigorous gave the two V’s , or the V sign in certain districts, so NOT I was responsible for ALE. I for Vulcan, I was expecting him to live in a part of the country where Vulcan ale is well known :O)

     

    Thank you Eileen – this practice of using a whole word for one letter still gets me!  very vigorous was quite clever with hindsight, but why not vv?

16. Mark@5

    Sorry to see a fan of The Lewis Trilogy and Enzo series go. I agree with bodycheetah@7 that most of the comments on the threads were positive about the varied posts made here. I enjoy reading many of them and if the subject doesn’t interest me I just skip over it.

    When I first started doing cryptic crosswords a few months ago I found 225 invaluable. I started reading the blogs after a while and enjoyed seeing what others thought. And then I started to contribute – so I am one of the increase in contributors resulting from the lockdown etc. I didn’t know there were any rules.

    All the best and like others above I hope you reconsider.

    On today’s puzzle – I really liked it especially 18d.

    Needed help with parsing quite a few that I guessed without seeing how to get them from the wordplay – but most turned out to  be cryptic.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen

17. Going through your blog, Eileen,  DOGMA needed your explanation too.

    I thought the first half merely hinted at religious doctrine or dogma.

    I’m still learning to consider the whole clue.

    NOT I is common to both of my blind spots, the eyes have them!

     

18. [Mark @ 5 – please don’t go. Simon S @8 – making the North Pole the top of the world is pure convention (as Wayne @11 says). I once sent a world map made in Australia, with south at the top, to a Pommy geography teacher friend. Nearly caused a riot, he told me, when he hung it in his classroom.]

19. I wasn’t that keen on 1a QUANTUM, which seemed rather obvious and not very cryptic.  After that however everything improved dramatically and it was a very good Monday puzzle.  I particularly liked 5a MUMBLED and 23a BOOMERANG.

    [Mark @5: like others above, I’ve always enjoyed your comments and would be sad to see you go.  I hope that all those who appreciate the variety and range of comments on here do add our voices to the “Increase in comments” thread.]

20. All those referring to whether North is up (sorry, too many to reference) might like Terry Pratchett’s book “Nation”.

21. [Mark @5 I would certainly echo what others have expressed above, that it would be sad to see you go. You love language and enjoy interaction with others, so you should be here. Yes, you’re probably up towards the top of the word count league, but so what? Somebody has to be and if some people don’t want to read a longer post, they can skip to the next short one. We’re all different; some like forensic analysis of the clues, others enjoy an off-piste excursion. I enjoy both. It’s the UNESCO International Day for Tolerance next month.]

    Today’s puzzle was an enjoyable diversion. Asparagus Next Left? Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

22. I agree with the posters above, please review the situation Mark. We need you here to pick a pocket two.

    Our short exchange the other day was so valuable to me.

     

    As to the up down North South debate – I have never seen a compass where the magnetic north needle is not at the top!

23. This was fun mostly. I too esp liked MOONSHINE. I thought ASPARAGUS was barely cryptic. I agree with those commenting re NORTH POLE; yes I know it is the convention but it did warrant at least a question mark. I personally am fond of maps with south at the top ( and the Pacific ocean in the middle, regardless of whether N or S is at the top (and the Peters projection)).

    Mark, I also enjoy your contributions.

    Thanks to Vulcan for the fun and Eileen for the blog

24. I’m assuming akaRebornBeginner’s comment at 22 is tongue in cheek.  A compass that pointed up would be useless.  If you mean a printed compass that’s just a result of the convention already mentioned.

25. I agree with some others that Vulcan is finding his feet in the Monday slot, and I really enjoyed it.

    I had a couple of doh! moments at the beginning – where is the number one in NO-BRAINER? And I was looking for ‘tine’ as a part of the fork; silly me!

    I particularly enjoyed the clues for SUSHI, DISMISSAL and QUEENED.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

26. Robi @ 25 – it’s just one as in a ‘a person who’.

27. Wayne @25; thanks, I realised that later – and the explanations also given in Eileen’s blog.

28. An excellent and accessible puzzle that pulls off the difficult trick of satisfying solvers both new and experienced. Not something I said about Vulcan when he started in this slot. I like to think he’s benefitted from reading Fifteen Squared!
    Although one who dislikes and cannot always solve cds, I won’t grumble about ASPARAGUS. My fave though was APPLIANCE, though whether it would have been if I was wearing one I don’t know. But yes, a touch of geographical laxity with NORTH POLE.

29. … explanation’s

30. I’ve noticed the improvement in the quality of Vulcan’s puzzles over the last several months, but I still feel a bit let down when I see his name. I’ve come to realize that it’s because I’m just not very good at clues with no wordplay, surely my shortcoming and not his. Today I needed all the crossers to get NORTH POLE and ELBOW and stared for a long time at the intersecting QUANTUM and QUEENED before revealing one in order to get the other. Some of his other clues (e.g., DOGMA and MUMBLED today) are quite good, so I should probably resolve to find enjoyment where I can. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

    Mark, I’ll just add my voice to the chorus in asking you to stay. I understand the desire to keep the discussion focused primarily on the day’s puzzle, but I for one have enjoyed and learned from the digressions and don’t feel that they’ve gotten out of hand.

31. We occasionally discuss here words that are their own opposite, like RAVEL the other day, and it seems to me that QUANTUM (leap) falls in that category too.  Eileen said, and Vulcan sort of implied, it refers to a large change, which is not wrong from a descriptivist point of view because it is commonly used that way, and some dictionaries even have it.  But when used in a scientific context, it means the smallest possible change.  Funny, that.

32. Thanks both,
    The contributors who’ve remarked that Vulcan is finding his feet are right, I think. But does anyone else find it increases the overall difficulty if one dosn’t know whether a clue will be properly cryptic or some awful cd or dd? For example my marginal comment against 2d was ‘ugh’. OTOH, I did start when I was waiting for a tyre repair at a garage and one is always a bit tense wondering what the final bill will be.
    Mark @2, I’ve appreciated your positive and welcoming way with other contributors, but confess I have sometimes thought your comments were too long and that limiting yourself to one or two a day might be a good thing. Please come back soon in a new, more laconic guise. I wonder if we will be able to spot you under your new nom de blog.

33. [Re: “Increase in comments” – it is not in General Discussion as stated by Mark. Perhaps it has been moved. I found it by doing a site search, and having read it, found this in a blue box underneath: This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2020 and is filed under Announcements.]

34. An enjoyable Monday challenge, not too easy, not too difficult.

    I did not parse NO-BRAINER apart from the no.

    Liked DOGMA, VALVE, LASTS.

    Thanks, B+S

35. I’m another who’s sometimes guilty of tangents. My attitude is not going to change. The tangents add to the enjoyment of the crosswords, more often than not. And I don’t think the people who dislike them should be pandered to. So Mark, don’t go.

    Anyhow, I’m another who raised an eyebrow at north=up, but it works juat about okay if you think of it being the North Pole on a standard globe rather than the physical Earth.

    The other one that made me double-take, which hasn’t been commented on yet, is SUSHI being defined as “foreign food.” That seems breathtakingly provincial to me. I had sushi just last night. It was probably made by an American, from ingredients caught or grown in America, and delivered by another American. The recipes and probably the people involved were Japanese in origin a generation or two back, but “foreign”?

36. Lovely crossword, thanks Vulcan and Eileen for the hints.
    I thought 1d was very clever and today’s winner. While I understand the comments about the North Pole, we all knew what the setter meant, so, works for me.

37. [sh @33: the “Increase in comments” thread is in fact on the site’s home page.  If however, like me, you have the Guardian page saved as a favourite, and usually access the site via that, it is easy to miss it.  It is also under Categories > Announcements.]

38. Overall i enjoyed this.  Like ngaiolaurenson @23, I was not sure that the clue for ASPARAGUS was really a cryptic clue at all; surely any vegetable can be a plant speared on my fork?  But I got it so I suppose I can’t complain.  I also agree with those who find the North = up convention annoying, but as HoofitYouDonkey @36 says, again we knew what was being got at. I had not fully parsed DOGMA: I saw it was AM GOD reversed but hadn’t grasped the subtle addiiton of “I” to make the claim.  Many thanks to Eileen and to Vulcan.

39. Reminds me of a large roadsign in the middle of Kendal which proclaimed in large letters The North and The South with arrows both pointing in the same direction!

40. Really nice Monday crossword, that one.

    As a Midlander I’d definitely say I’m going down to London, or up to Scotland. I’d also use the phrase “north of 100 quid” to mean a higher value, and wouldn’t think twice about doing likewise with “south of” if it felt like the right phrase for the job.

    Also I’ll add to the calls for my namesake to reconsider. Take a break if you need one, of course, but do come back. You’d be missed.

41. Planet Earth is actually a squashed sphere, flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. Thus if measuring from the centre of the earth, from both poles the only way is up, baby.

42. [I haven’t actually done this crossword – just came here via a link on the “Increase in Comments” page, which seems to be causing an even larger increase in comments!]

    Re 16d: BOILER = “chicken perhaps”?  I’ve heard of a “broiler chicken”, but not a “boiler chicken” – indeed when I google for the phrase it says “did you mean broiler chicken”?

43. Following Mark’s posting and reading the thread on posting in general I realise that I am probably guilty of all the misdemeanours that have been raised. As such I think like Mark that I shall refrain from posting and just use the site now for help in parsing and solving things I can’t.
    I only started posting quite recently and didn’t realise that there was quite so much etiquette involved.
    Enjoyed today’s offering. Vulcan seems to be getting more to my taste and thus thanks to him and Eileen as always.

44. Mark @ 5 I can’t imagine why you feel you should leave, but I can’t find Gaufrid’s post on GD which you refer to and which prompted your change of heart.  I have been on GD this morning and I can find nothing!!  Why should that be?

    I have stopped posting because I felt that one particular member of the community was very disrespectful, but I have not noticed that this has happened to you.  As to the length of your posts that is your style and heaven forfend if we should all be asked to contribute in the same way.  If Gaufrid, who I have immense respect for, has indicated a style we should stick to then fine but unless this is the case please carry on posting in your own inimitable way.

    This was a fine puzzle which I much enjoyed and the blog was, of course, up to Eileen usual high standard.

45. Gaufrid, can you please direct me to your post referred to my Mark @5 and the subsequent discussion?  I just cannot find it which is frustrating!! Many thanks!!

46. MarkN @40, the convention of “up” for north and “down” for south is certainly used casually here too, without anyone ever giving it a second thought.  Upstate New York.  Downstate Illinois.  The Devil Went Down to Georgia. The Upper Peninsula (of Michigan) (which is hillier than the lower peninsula, but that’s not what the name means at all).

47. SPanza @45. Please see mine @33 or Lord Jim @37.

48. SPanza@45, the thread in question, entitled “The Increase in Comments,” is pinned as the first thread at the moment.  If you go to the home page, it should be right at the top; if not, hit refresh and it should be there.

49. [Munromad @43 – NO!!!!!!  Please NO!!]

50. Thanks Vulcan, that was fun. TITCH was new to me but easy to guess. Favourites included CONFORMER for its compact cluing, RETIRED for its apt surface, and INVADER. Like Tassie Tim @2 I didn’t need help with parsing today, a rarity for me, but thanks to Eileen nonetheless.

51. I completed this today with only a little help from Morewords : )

    I just didn’t parse 1d properly – I forgot ‘man’ often returns to chess, thanks Eileen.

    Guy (42) well spotted! I skipped over this one and didn’t spot the missing ‘r’. If you override google you discover a boiler chicken is an elderly hen whose egg-laying days are over. I wonder if Vulcan, being more knowledgeable than I, already knew this, or if he just made the slip that I (and others?) made of confusing ‘broiler’ with ‘boiler’.

52. mrpenney @35 – I suspect your shocked response to sushi being seen as foreign food is due to the fact you are Stateside. While sushi is becoming far more common here in the UK, it’s nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is in the USA. Perhaps a bit like the way Indian food was seen as a bit exotic in America a few years back (much less so now of course). It might stem from the fact that you have higher numbers of people with East Asian heritage (and, specifically, Japanese) than we do. So calling sushi foreign doesn’t raise the hackles of us Brits.

    Now, if Vulcan had dared say curry was foreign food, well that’s fightin’ talk…

53. Guy @42 and Katherine @52 – re ‘boiler’.

    I’ve  always understood that ‘broil(er)’ was a North American term for ‘grill’, which. of course, is different from boiling. I remember when I lived in Northern Ireland, decades ago, buying a ‘boiling chicken’, as it was called (as described by Katherine) – very economical: boiling with vegetables produced broth for soup and the meat, tenderised by the boiling, could be used for pies, fricassée, curry, etc. I don’t remember seeing it here, though.

     

54. keyser soze @52 – I hadn’t seen your comment re curry: I agree, of course. 😉

55. Christ. I hope Vulcan hasn’t been offered his P45, looking at some of the words in here. 🙁

56. Eileen @54: In the US a “boiler” may be called a stewing fowl or simply a soup chicken. A broiler would be younger and might be called a roasting chicken. The youngest are sometimes called fryers.

57. Yup, north/south are conventions… but then much (most? all?) of culture, language, even science/technology, are ‘by convention’ (e.g. why does ‘up’ mean up?… only because we generally agree on it). For me it’s more about whether a convention has enough broad and/or established use to be understood… here I think yes.

    Or for the purists, see adverb defn 3 of ‘down’ in Chambers online: towards or in a more southerly place

58. Tony @56- thanks for that.

59. Katherine @51, Eileen @53: “broiler chicken” is a term for any chicken raised for meat – originally North American but now also used in the UK.

    However, looking up the meaning of “boiler” I see it’s also a British term for “a chicken suitable for cooking only by boiling”.  Not for the first time, the American dominance of the internet threw me off the scent!

     

     

     

60. I guess only one who tried to use “nob” for head  in parsing 17d, and then wondered what I was supposed to do with “rainer.”

61. Short but sweet, thanks V & E.  Never had a MICROWAVE but liked the clue.

    Re NORTH POLE – does anyone object to ‘down’ clues in crosswords?  If you’re solving with pen and paper on a table-top, then strictly speaking they should be the ‘towards you’ clues.

    [mrpenney @46, many thanks for The Devil Went Down to Georgia; I wonder if he bumped into Gladys on the way?]

    [Mark @5 and munromad @43:  I too very much hope those aren’t The Last Posts – though in Mark’s case, I would of course understand if the demands of parenthood in later life were to prove distracting for a while… 😉 ]

62. I have only been posting since Covid. I very much value this community and the variety of comments. Would be very sad if Mark and MunroMad stop posting and hope SPanza is back. Many thanks to Vulcan and Eileen. Lots of great clues today but MICROWAVE was the favourite.

63. Eileen @53 and Guy @59

    My mum used to buy a boiling fowl every week. She would simmer it in water with a handful of rice till cooked then remove the chicken and add grated carrot and sliced leek to the broth. Who the eggiest were cooked we would have the soup first and then the chicken would be carved and served with potatoes and veg. Lovely.

64. I meant

    When the veggies were cooked  (Oh and the soup would have the rice in it – it went all fluffy after the long cooking.)

65. I think it’s agreed, then, that Vulcan did know what s/he (we still have no official confirmation) was talking about with ‘broiler’.

66. I meant to say many thanks to Fiona Anne – and for all your contributions: delighted to welcome you and to know that you’ve made such great progress.

    And I also, of course, meant ‘boiler’ @65.

67. @Beobachterin ( no idea of the number,) asparagus comes in spears!

68. … as I said in the blog. 😉

69. Well done me! First Guardian cryptic completed with no searches or other help. Thanks Vulcan – most enjoyable.

     

70. PS: that was a wry comment on my post @45 on the ‘ Increase in comments’ thread.

    I’ve reread Beobachterin’s comment @50 there and want to apologise. I work on a laptop and didn’t fully appreciate the constraints of working on a phone.

71. Mark@5. Please reconsider

72. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen for their time and effort to bring me my lunchtime amusement and explanation, although that was not needed here. As a matter of interest in the North up line, have a look at the United Nations logo. From my point of view I do not mind being on top, but am I on the north of the logo?

73. Smot @69, congrats!  And nice to see Tom’s back.

    Mystogre @72: gosh that’s an elongated Oz! I never really looked at the logo properly before, so thanks.

74. More or less a write-in, but so enjoyable and more importantly, not a single clue that felt even faintly unfair! QUANTUM and QUEENED were my last two in – for some reason those two took me almost as long as the rest of the puzzle…

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen!

75. Posterntoo @60. Rain is what falls=hits you on your head! So, no – you weren’t the only one with NOB for head. (Soon got back on track, though.) It’s been a fun day, all told, hasn’t it.

76. HoofitYouDonkey @67 and Eileen @68: Yes, I realise that asparagus comes in spears.  But many other veggies could be speared on a fork, and I thought it might be one of those clues where you think oh it must be asparagus, and it turns out to be parsnip or cauliflower…

    And Eileen @ 70, no apology needed.  It just struck me today thinking about the other thread how different the experience on the two versions of the platforms works.

    (Apologies if a similar response comes up twice: I thought I had posted it but it has not appeared.)

77. [essecboy re: The Devil Went Down to Georgia: I remember during the ’96 Atlanta Olympics when a gymnast from Georgia (the Tbilisi one, not the Atlanta one) did her floor routine to that song. The crowd LOVED it, of course.]

78. Mark:

    It is true that the blog is getting very long, so I often skip to the commenters that I really enjoy. and the first name I look for is Mark.

    My preference would be for people who have nothing interesting to say to refrain from posting, and for people who have interesting and fun things to say, to write blogs that are as wordy as necessary to make their points. I’ll be leaving some names out, but if you, sheffield hatter, essexboy, and others of your ilk were to leave, then I would probably stop reading the comments. If all I want is parsing help, I need read no further than the official blog-of-the-day. It’s the rest of it that keeps me coming back to the comments.

    So please don’t go, and please don’t change your style.

79. Many years ago “old boiler” was a very disrespectful way of describing a lady who was “no spring chicken”.
    I also seem to remember that in the days when chicken was a rare treat “boiler” or “boiling fowl” described what a hen that had stopped laying became.

80. A likeble puzzle from Vulcan today. 23a BOOMERANG was clever. The other clues I enjoyed solving have already been mentioned above. Thank you to Vulcan, Eileen and Gaufrid, and to all contributors. I value this Guardian 15² community very much and feel sad when people withdraw from it for whatever reason.

81. [Sorry, just saw that Lord Jim@19 had cited BOOMERANG already, so really I had nothing to add other than my gratitude.]

82. I know everyone’s probably moved on from this Monday cryptic, but I just got internet and wanted to note that having a well-regarded newspaper treat “microwave” as a synonym for “cook” is hilarious for anyone who’s seen this argument about soup: https://crowswarm.tumblr.com/post/613339727686516736/my-friend-and-i-were-arguing-about-soup (For those wary of links: it goes to a video on someone’s tumblr page, where they set the text of their argument to footage of two Ace Attorney characters. Features some abrupt audio and a bit of bad language. Oh, and videos on tumblr loop, jsyk)

    Re: the north-up south-down debate: I remember thinking this over a while back and concluding that “down”, being a result of gravitational attraction, should naturally be the direction of the strongest gravity well – for Earth, that would be the sun. Therefore, “down” should correlate with either east or west. We already say that the sun ‘rises’ in the east and ‘sets’ in the west, so therefore east should be up and west should be down.

    *bows and curtsies* Thank you, thank you. Glad I could solve cartography. I don’t need a prize, just let me know when you’ve reoriented (hey-oh!) all the maps /jk

83. “Re: the north-up south-down debate: I remember thinking this over a while back and concluding that “down”, being a result of gravitational attraction, should naturally be the direction of the strongest gravity well – for Earth, that would be the sun.”

    That is an easy mistake to make.

    The (solid) earth is in free-fall relative to the sun as it orbits the sun so the sun’s gravity is not felt – the earth is weightless just as the space station is weightless orbiting the earth.

    Water feels the sun’s gravity because it is fluid and the gravitational strength on the near and far sides of the earth relative to the sun are different – it is called a “tidal effect”.

    If you think we should be able to feel the sun’s gravity then consider the Space Station. It orbits at an altitude of about 300 miles where the earth’s gravity is about 87% as strong as on the earth surface. The astronauts do not feel this gravity – they are weightless – because they are in free fall.

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