Guardian Cryptic 29,142 by Nutmeg and Arachne

97 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,142 by Nutmeg and Arachne”

1. Great puzzle! Lots of wit from my two favourite (alas, one late) setters. Quite tricky in parts, but a gem. Many thanks to Arachne & loonapick.

2. Haven’t seen Frozen, so that’s the only clue I didn’t parse. Everything else was hunky dory, and produced a good number of smiles. I wasn’t sure whether “deter” and “check” were one and the same, but I guess they are.

   Thanks Arachne & loonapick, and Nutmeg if you can hear me.

3. Thanks for the blog, loonapick, but there is an error in your parsing of 7d. The northbound main road is the A1 ( not M1). Lovely to see this collaboration from 2 excellent setters.

4. Excellent puzzle, very high quality and fun clueing and wordplay. I liked the touch of two clues being the same — not sure I’ve seen that before. Thanks to Arachne and the much-missed Nutmeg, and loonapick for blogging.

5. Thanks to both setters and loonapick. Sorry about the 9 to 5.
   Found this tougher than the usual Monday fare. Somebody had to say it.

6. Like everyone else I was delighted to see this puzzle. I’m another to whom ‘Frozen’ is an unknown area, but the solution could be deduced. Nutmeg is sorely missed, but it was very good to see Arachne making another appearance.

7. CW@4. Funnily enough, when I put the answer in, I parsed it as M1, so loonapick is not alone in getting it wrong.

8. Lucky you loonapick. Thank you for the blog.
   GDU@2. Haven’t seen Frozen either. But I’ve certainly heard this too many times.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk

   I think Arachne and Nutmeg may have been having a dig here. Release/Let it go. Yes please. What an earworm.
   Or on a more thoughtful note, Arachne may have been inviting us to join with her in releasing her friend and collaborator, Nutmeg, to another realm, I really liked that one.

9. I wasn’t sure about SIC as “making no mistake here”. I would have thought the opposite. I thought BEDEVIL was good for the “base, base” and smiled at BRAVERY for the “booby trap”. The two “trim dealers” were also enjoyable.

10. Delightful combination, in every respect. I particularly liked the two long identical clues and had pencilled in HABERDASHER for the wrong one, inevitably, until crossers made it clear it had to be 3d. It must have been a real pleasure to discover that opportunity. And the Spoonerism is one of the most delightful I have seen. SWARM, AITCHES, SPORT, JACKPOT, AMIABLE, TATTIER and FOE were my other big ticks.

    Thanks to Both setters and to loonapick for the blog

11. Thanks to the setters and loonapick!

    Tim C@9
    SIC -my reading:
    ‘quoting someone else verbatim (without even correcting any mistakes in the original statement)’ i.e.
    ‘making no (new) mistake here’

12. This was a grand puzzle. Lots of wit in solutions such as RIDING HABIT and BRAVERY.

    AITCHES reminded me of my coaching of my kids never to be h-adding when pronouncing this word. I am very much “haitches” averse.

    We all had quite a discussion on HABERDASHER on March 6 – Capathian

    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/03/06/guardian-cryptic-29010-by-carpathian/

    The Frozen tune earworm will stick in the brain all day – so here’s a secondary offering

    https://youtu.be/gj0Rz-uP4Mk

    Must go to watch the SPORT – England v Nigeria – eighth final.

    Thank you Arachne, RIP Nutmeg, thank you loonapick.

13. Thanks Arachne (and Nutmeg), and loonapick
    I don’t usually like Spoonerisms, but I laughed at RIDING HABIT. Also a laugh for “booby trap”.

14. Drofle @1 sums up my thoughts on this crossword exactly

    Thanks to Arachne, Nutmeg (RIP) and Loonapick

15. Prettiest much a write-in apart from the guessed ANDAMAN ISLANDS. Bit confused by MIGHTNT being a 7 letter word, without the apostrophe, but a minor quibble. Nice Spoonerism and BRAVERY made my smile. Lovely collaboration.

    Ta Nutmeg, Arachne & loonapick.

16. Prettiest! [Flea @12: strangely, the pronunciation of (h)aitch indicated whether you were Roman Catholic or Protestant in NI, the former using the ‘h’].

17. PostMark @10, I firmly entered (rather than pencilled in) HABERDASHER at 13 before noticing the identical clue for 3 and realising I’d put it in the wrong place and having to backtrack.

    Good puzzle. Thanks to Nutmeg, Arachne and loonapick.

18. That’s scary, AlanC. I loved the ‘long letters’ in AITCHES from a purely linguistic point of view.. So the (h)aitch was the forensic indicator? My father is/was second generation Irish/Australian. He converted to Anglican to marry my protestant mother.

19. Because of my habit of following the trail of crossers from my first successful answer, I arrived at 13d before looking at 3d, confidently entered HABERDASHER, and suffered the consequences. Oops. Interesting idea.

    Thank you to Nutmeg and Arachne for a stylish collaboration: I liked the base, base hound and the bemused Tory sheep, among many. I know it wasn’t the correct parsing, but I wanted the retired dude to cheer the sovereign with a vigorous “atta-King!” But then I couldn’t account for the C.

20. muffin@13. Booby trap in BRAVERY was a hoot .. er? (I didn’t say that, and neither did they.)

21. pm @20: 🙂

22. I mightn’t have got MIGHTNT were it not for the signal of “isn’t” which i thought was a nice touch.

    thanks!

23. Gladys@19 (atta-king!) and paddymelon@20!
    Punnistan and its pundits! Loving it all!

24. I’m in total sympathy with loonapick today. I’m away on a holiday for a few days and, when I saw the names on this puzzle, I had to solve it before the day’s activities began – but, like him, I’d have loved to have more time to savour the puzzle and to compose a response.

    I might have time to do that later today but, for now, I’ll simply thank him for the blog and applaud my two favourite crossword ladies for a lovely combined effort.

25. KVa @11, yes… but it doesn’t say (new)

26. Did anyone else have a problem with the usual print option not responding to a click? I had to use the pdf option instead. It did the job but I hate the layout.

27. That was a very nice surprise. Perhaps not the most difficult (though tougher than the usual Monday puzzle and MIGHTNT took me a while) but chock-full of wonderfully smooth constructions.
    Thanks to Arachne for the collaboration and to loonapick for the blog.

28. TImC@25, the use of SIC means ‘I know this quote has a mistake in it, which I’m not correcting’, or in other words ‘I haven’t made a mistake the person I’m quoting has’. I think the clue is correct. Like everyone else, enjoyed the poignancy of this crossword, and I liked BRAVERY and the 4 middle across clues, 14, 15, 16 and 19. Thanks to loonapick and to the ladies.

29. Tomsdad@28
    SIC
    Your explanation is better than mine@11 (though I intended to convey the same logic). Thanks.

30. I concur with Charles@7 – other than the parenthetical
    A great feeling to see the names of the setters; my expectations were so high, it was almost inevitable that I should find it a tad bathetic and over far too quickly! My bad; I was overexcited!

    But I do hope there are more hidden sprinklings of nutmeg in the spice cabinet – and more Arachne too….

    Thanks to loonapick; I sympathise ….. it doesn’t seem fair somehow…..

31. Yes, I understand Tomsdad @28 and KVa @29. It just seems a bit weak to me. If I see [sic] I immediately think “this is quoted as being incorrect” not “I am being correct here”. So thus.

32. I’m another who hastily entered HABERDASHER in the wrong place, given only the ‘H’, and my next answer HEY PRESTO I thought helped to confirm it! That excellent ‘trim dealer’ double was a highlight, and I see I wasn’t the only one to get it wrong at first.

    This was a gem of a puzzle from two consistently excellent setters – there was a lot to appreciate in the quality and variety of the clues.

    I didn’t know the Disney reference in LET IT GO. In the clue to AMIABLE, I would just point out that the A1 is southbound too, but the London-centric view of it is the one most often used to describe it.

    Finally, thanks to loonapick for the rapid blog (!).

33. Very entertaining. Struggled a bit with the enumeration of MIGHTNT, but the penny dropped eventually. I largely knew the ANDAMAN ISLANDS from “The Sign of Four” (it’s where the blowpipe-wielding Tonga comes from). A hint of Cromwell and the Ironsides in the surface of 25d? (Though they were of course on the same side so maybe not likely to be FOEs, but…).

    Many thanks Nutmeg, Arachne and loonapick.

34. Don’t know if I’ve seen this grid before. The central black/unchecked letters formed a cross.

35. Arachne still sets for the FT as Rosa Klebb, there was a puzzle on Saturday just gone . I am sure that people will find it, the blog is this coming Saturday . I would put a link but the internet is too primitive to interface with my Personal Electronic Notemaker.

36. Thanks for the blog, I thought that VICIOUS was clever and HEY PRESTO a nice anagram, TRISECT a very neat definition , I liked the double base for BEDEVIL . A Paddington stare for MIGHTNT , I think it was just a dead-end in the grid, usually happens in the bottom right corner.

37. Tough for a Monday but the combination of setters made it a treat. We’re going to miss Nutmeg. The NE proved a challenge for me and I ended up failing on MIGHTNT. Thanks to both setters and loonapick.

38. [ AlanC @15 , I will not mention the football , at least your optimism lasted nearly a minute. ]

39. AlanB@32 and others. Northbound is part of wordplay not definition, turning A1 to IA in a down clue.

40. What a lovely surprise it was to see who today’s setters were. Such a wonderful collaboration! My solve was particuarly nostalgic but joyful at the same time. With thanks to Arachne, and thinking of dear Nutmeg with great fondness and an ongoing sense of loss. Thanks also to loonapick for juggling work and blogging all at once. Your quick solve and posting of your blog were much appreciated.

41. Very enjoyable. I wish Mondays were always as good as this.
    One quibble: is JACKPOT the same as ‘stakes’? Surely one applies to the winnings and the other to the bets.

42. poc@41 I thought the same, but on reflection when playing cards the stakes go into the pot which becomes the jackpot, and sure enough jackpot is given as “the accumulation of stakes” in various dictionaries.

43. Poc@41 in some card games the JACKPOT is the kitty of all the stakes and keeps accumulating until someone wins in a certain way. The game NAP is commonly played in this fashion.

44. Yes, a great start to the week from two fine setters.

    I hadn’t even noticed the repetition of ‘trim dealer’, doh! I think Soup once compiled a crossword where all the (Across?) clues were repeated. I confidently put in ‘dissect’ at first (verbally challenged DISS), which I think works. I did like the Spoonerism, AITCHES, EXTINCT and JACKPOT for the surfaces (poc @41, I think all the stakes are held in the JACKPOT), and the booby trap (which must have been done before) in BRAVERY.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Arachne, and loonapick.

45. An excellent puzzle. JACKPOT and MIGHTNT were my favourites. I always get Andaman and Nadaman (famous Japanese restaurant confused) so needed the crossers for the islands. Thanks loonapick and thanks to the setters.

46. MikeB @39
    Many thanks for your correction. (I may well have seen that A1 was going north in the clue when I solved it but forgot about it when I commented!)

47. Roz@35
    Here it is:
    https://www.ft.com/content/524c567d-2e31-4e3d-b5e2-ca94b027f151

48. I think SIC works better if you think of the definition as “no mistake here”, i.e. “This isn’t a misprint” My favourite clues have all been pointed out.

49. I solve the crossword from the Guardian app on my smartphone. For some reason, the setter’s name is not usually given for the Monday puzzle. Consequently, I had no idea who was responsible until I came here. Interesting that so many of us found this straightforward – I found it trickier than any of last week’s, unaccountably.

    A lot of good clues – VICIOUS was the standout for me.

    AlanB @42: The A1 is ‘northbound’ because it is inserted as IA in a down clue. Nothing to do with being London-centric – you wouldn’t expect that from two North-Westerners!

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Arachne, and to loonapick for the blog

50. What a pleasant surprise from two of the best in the business. Great clues all around including ATTACKING, RIDING HABIT, TRISECT, AITCHES, MAINFRAME, JACKPOT, the laugh out loud BRAVERY, and FOE. Thanks to all.

51. Jackkt@26, yes, the Print link didn’t work for me, either, and I share your dislike of the PDF layout. Great puzzle, though. I’d like to think that M.I. is reading these comments from above us.

52. Huge thanks to Arachne, (RIP Nutmeg), and thanks to loonapick for the blog.
    A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, with some special moments. eg:
    3d HABERDASHERY
    13d HAIRDRESSER
    16a AITCHES
    19d BRAVERY
    20d VICIOUS

53. An entertaining morning, I thought, with the Quick Crossword today quite cryptic to begin with. (My daily routine is always a warm up with the Guardian Sudoku, followed by the Quick Crossword, followed by the Cryptic, a bit of OCD on my part, perhaps).
    Anyway, the joint effort went down a treat, though with an H in place I did consider Hedgefunder for a while for 13d. And biffed in ANDAMAN at 16ac instead of 16d at first, so that slowed things down a bit. Loved the RIDING HABIT.
    Thanks Loonapick for the excellent blog, if rushed…

54. Oill give it foive!

55. Huge thanks to Arachne for this lovely collaboration with the much lamented Nutmeg. Delightful start to the week with many favourites – VICIOUS was particularly good; and thanks to loonapick for the blog.

56. Delightful stuff. Nutmeg often included a clue or two with a religious theme. As a consequence I spent far too long on 1A trying to make Jair fit. Oh well. Once the penny dropped I found the puzzle fairly straighforward, though by no means a write- in. I was just held up in the NE. I just couldn’t see MIGHTNT. I always get caught out by answers where the punctuation mark is missing. With thanks to Nutmeg (RIP), Arachne, and loonapick.

57. How nice to have memories of our late lamented Nutmeg and her friendship with the spider lady. I suspect the central cross was deliberate in choosing the grid. Super puzzle for a Monday and one full if wit. Thanks to the lovely ladies for such a treat.

58. Wonderful puzzle, thanks, Arachne and Nutmeg – and of course Loonapick for the super blog.

    Alan B @32 – the problem with taking the A1 southbound is that you’re liable to end up in that London… why would anyone want to do that, eh? 😉

59. I have a pedantic quibble about 5D. In color theory, “tint” and “shade” are not synonyms but antonyms, in a sense. For a painter, a tint is a mixture of a color with white, while a shade is a mixture with black. The former makes the color lighter, the latter darker. And for completeness, if both white and black are mixed with a color, that is called a “tone”. Still, knowing this was a common confusion I was able to solve it.

    Other than that, I take my hat off to those who found this straightforward. I struggled with the top half, and failed on 8D despite having every letter but the N!

60. Am I the only one who thinks ‘Jackpot’ isn’t the stake, rather, it’s the (possible) return? 1dn

61. Priscilla@60: Roz@43 offers a way that this works..

62. Well done Shirley@47 , I am sure that people will like it.

63. Total pleasure. Thanks to Nutmeg, Arachne and loonapick.

64. J@59 Words can have many meanings and a specialist one is no more valid than the others. Chambers has “A colour, shade” as the first def for TINT

    All very pleasant – I rather liked MIGHTNT for taking advantage of the Guardian’s policy of not indicating apostrophes – even with all the crossers it took a while for the penny to drop

    The aforementioned Rosa Klebb puzzle is definitely worth doing

    Cheers N&A&L

65. {Flea@12 – In several county dialects, certainly Sussex and Exmoor (the ones I am most familiar with) it is, or at least was, normal to drop an “h” if it was present, while one was hadded hif the word began with a vowel. This was usual when speaking formally, and especially when singing traditional songs. Some field recordings are startling. There’s one of a hunting song by a singer from thr Lewes area about “The hechoing ‘orn”]

66. I’m a haitch hater too! The word is aitch, without an aitch.
    Lovely crossword!

67. [Goujeers @65
    I was at a quiz in a Yorkshire pub where the question master asked:
    What sort of animal lives in a olt?
    Answer:
    A hotter lives in a olt!]

68. loonapick, I was wondering what you could possibly have against the CELEB-EXTINCT till I realized you literally meant a 9 to 5 job!

    About “sic” I think it can be even more direct; although it is usually used to point out someone else’s mistake, it can also be used for something that looks like a mistake but isn’t.

    Bittersweet to see one last (?) Nutmeg puzzle. RIP, and thanks to Arachne and loonapick.

69. Some excellent and witty misdirection all over the grid. Yes, SIC indicates there has been a mistake by the original writer or speaker, so ‘making no mistake here’ is accurate but misleading.

    The expression ‘part on equal terms’ doesn’t seem like it would be about sharing a pizza with two others, but that’s what TRISECT implies. ‘Foul and sticky ‘ was well conceived, and as Lord Jim@33 points out, the surface of FOE is either misleading or funny or both. Perhaps it should have been ‘Oliver’s ironclad opponent (sic)’?

    ‘Stakes’ for JACKPOT is as tight a definition as you could hope to see (unlike ‘booby trap’ for BRA. 🙂 ). For those who don’t get it, where do you think the money came from if not from the stakes of previous competitors?

    Thanks to Arachne for completing Nutmeg’s effort. It would be great if there are more like this to look forward to. And thanks to loonapick for dashing off the blog before doing your 9 to 5.

70. Another labour of love from Arachne, to finish off a crossword for her friend, the much-loved Nutmeg, as Philistine did for his friend, Araucaria, a year after his death.
    https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2014/nov/25/unexpected-treat-fans-araucaria-guardian-crossword-setter

    The shared sense of humour is evident in 28ac HEY PRESTO and the mischievous 19dn BRAVERY and there are typically carefully-honed constructions and surfaces throughout. I particularly enjoyed 7dn AMIABLE: I’m away in the Yorkshire Dales at the moment and, as we drove up on Saturday, my friend and I shared fond memories of the days when the A1 appeared on signposts as ‘The Great North Road’.

    Other favourites were 16ac AITCHES, 4dn UNAIDED, 8dn MIGHTN’T,19d BEDEVIL, 20dn VICIOUS, 6dn SIC and, another little one, 25dn FOE (I thought of the Ironsides, too, Lord Jim).

    As one who generally dislikes Spoonerisms in crosswords, I have to commend RIDING HABIT: Arachne and Nutmeg are among the very few setters who, for me, have consistently produced meaningful ones.

    Grateful thanks to Arachne, with fond memories of Nutmeg and renewed thanks to loonapick.

71. Lovely puzzle, I love the way N&A write such elegant clues.

    I could not parse 16ac.

    Thanks, all.

72. Many thanks to loonapick for the blog, and to all for the kind comments.

    For the last year of her life Nutmeg was too ill to work, but she was determined that her remaining unpublished puzzles should see the light of day and so passed them to me for checking and completion. I very much didn’t want my name on these puzzles, as the credit rightfully belonged to her; this was fine whilst Margaret was alive, but apparently the Guardian can’t publish work under the name of a deceased person alone so mine had to be appended to this one (and will have to be to the next, which will be her last). It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to have been so intimately involved with her consistently brilliant work. The fees for these two last puzzles will be donated to Margaret’s beloved WaterAid charity, to which it’s still possible to contribute: https://nutmeg.muchloved.com/

    RIP Nutmeg. We miss you.

    Arachne

73. Arachne – Bless you. How lovely to have carried out such a mission; and for the secrecy (for most of us, at least)
    It is a dark cloud that has taken Nutmeg from us but the silver lining is knowing you’ve a little time freed up now to delight Guardian solvers! ?

74. Echo William F P @73.

75. [Roz @38: it lasted a while 36 seconds! ]

76. [AlanC I am wearing my Breton top , with a black armband, it looks very prettiest . ]

77. I have never posted on here or indeed on the Guardian before. I do the cryptic every day as my father did before me. I really wondered about the mechanics of the collaboration of these two wonderful setters and so I scrolled down and down hoping there would be a comment from Arachne…and there it was. It really moved me.

78. It is not London-centrism to call the A1 the Great North Road. That is its actual name

79. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic
    ‘The Latin adverb sic …”thus”, “just as”; in full: sic erat scriptum, “thus was it written” inserted after a quoted word or passage indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous, archaic, or otherwise nonstandard spelling, punctuation, or grammar. It also applies to any surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might be interpreted as an error of transcription.’
    I can’t help noticing that the”C” of “SIC” has a an adjacent “K” to the right of it making “SICK” and that there are various words, in both clues and solutions, to do with illness and decline. It made for a “poignant” solve, apart from the lovely “booby trap” gag, making up for 50+ years of lazy “BRA = support(er)” clues.
    It took two women to do it. They each deserve a trophy. Perhaps a pair of cups.

80. Callereal@77 – a hearty welcome to you! The folk here are very friendly (and widespread) with varying experience/ability of/at solving. Like you, I blame my parents for my addiction.
    I do hope you’ll feel moved to comment again. The scrolling, like Arachne’s nymphomaniac, is relentless (one after the Other!) …….

81. Sarah is my favorite setter. Have her with Nutmeg was like egg nog at Christmas.

82. In what usage of “pour” is it a synonym for SWARM? Verb or noun?

83. Andrew @82
    I thought verb, but it’s a bit loose:
    the crowd poured out of the stadium
    the crowd swarmed out of the stadium?

    Thanks for dropping in and explaining the background, Arachne. Hope to see more of your creations soon.

84. Andrew@82 to pour = to swarm (the crowd poured/swarmed in), so verb

85. Andrew@82. Yes, I wondered about that – possibly ‘they swarmed out of the club’; they ‘poured out of the club’ but I’m not convinced.

86. poured works well with ‘over’: invaders/ants poured/swarmed over the walls/doorstep

87. Toby@4 I have seen the use of the same clue twice before at least once if not twice. It is a long time ago, and I think Araucaria was one setter, and they were consecutive clues, but different length answers, if I remember correctly. I don’t know if any one can confirm this.

88. polyphone@85 I was.

89. Post Mark @86 thnx. The addition of “over” is persuasive

90. Very good puzzle. Funny, I have always taken “sic” to indicate that “there is a mistake in this quote, but it is in the original; i didn’t make it”. So “sic” implies the exact opposite of “no mistake here”.

91. GregfromOz. This is what I referred to in mine @69. The writer indicates that
    they
    have not made a mistake, it was made by the original writer or speaker being quoted. So it’s ‘no mistake [by me] here’.

    Misleading but accurate.

92. RIP Nutmeg
    Chapeau Arachne
    Beautiful start to the week

93. Fell down in the NE corner. Didn’t think much of MIGHTN’T, but BRAVERY and VICIOUS were brilliant.

94. Jackpot isn’t a stake.
    Pin does not mean fix.
    Swarm does not mean pour.
    Other than that…

95. I think I learnt about this puzzle by seeing the header to this post and, of course, couldn’t resist. I solved most, but got stuck in the upper right. Today, I realised that I wanted the last letter of ‘delicious’, not the first and finished pretty quickly. MIGHTNT was LOI, but I biffed it and didn’t bother spending time to parse it, but came straight here.

    13dn, I had just the initial H and confidently wrote in HAIRDRESSER, oblivious to its twin. Later, looking at the clue for 3dn, I thought I’d entered it in the wrong place.

    19dn, BRAVERY: “Booby trap” is very funny.

    7dn, as Cat’s Whiskers rightly says @3, the road is the A1, not the M1. However, although the A1 is the (non-motorway) main northbound road, I believe “northbound” here is the reversal indicator (in a down clue)… as I now see Mike B@39 has pointed out. Alan B@32, if I’m right, your point is redundant, but perhaps worth pointing out that (as I believe) the Romans built the road northbound from Londinium and it’s popularly known as ‘the Great North Road’.

    TimC@9&31, further to Kva’s explanation @11 (and others), sic is Latin for ‘so, thus’. I think it’s used as an abbreviation for sic inscripsit, meaning (loosely) ‘that’s how it was written’. (I see FrankieG@79 has given the — presumably — correct Latin for the full phrase.

    Flea@12, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/haitch-or-aitch-pronunciation-letter-h-old-english-a8393766.html

96. JohnB, JACKPOT isn’t ‘a stake’, but in some games is ‘the stakes’ (see above, e.g., Roz)

    Write that down and pin it to your desk. Hopefully, it won’t come loose.

    Postmark (above) gives the best example of when pour means SWARM.

    You really should read the other comments before complaining.

97. Point(s) taken. I in the future. Just annoyed at my own ability to finish this one. On me.

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