Guardian 29,191 / Arachne

78 comments on “Guardian 29,191 / Arachne”

1. Reasonably straightforward solve with helpful anagrams such as ARCHETYPICAL, PALESTINE and ESCARPMENT. I smiled at RUDDERLESS, CORRUPT, STUN and OLD HAT. SPIRACLE and DAHOMEY were new. Very enjoyable.

   Ta Arachne & Eileen.

2. PICKLED, OLD HAT, RIPEST … lots to like here, but my favourite is LAST-DITCH for its ingenious construction and surface. Thanks to both.

3. It took me ages to get on the right wavelength, but then it all fell nicely into place.

4. I found this mostly a write-in, except the SW which took me much longer. I liked DAHOMEY and SPAGHETTI. I wonder if there are any here who live in a country that recognises PALESTINE as a state. Over a hundred countries now do so I believe, though not the UK, US or Australia, among others. I am not suggesting it should or should not be so recognised. Just interested to know. With thanks to Arachne and Eileen.

5. Exactly on my wavelength this morning. (Sorry Shirl@3!)
   Just didn’t last long enough!
   Thanks Arachne and Eileen.

6. Thanks Arachne and Eileen
   Although it’s lovely to see Arachne back, I didn’t think this was one of her very best – possibly influenced by my inability to parse 1d or 2d!
   Favourite RUDDERLESS.
   I wonder who she was thinking of in 3d?

7. Good old fashioned word in CHID and loved RUDDERLESS and CORRUPT. Eileen, in 2d, your underline goes a bit too far left and takes in the “A” – I.e. the “A” is required for the wordplay rather than the definition.

   Thank you Arachne and Eileen.

8. It was such a pleasure to solve this puzzle. So happy to see Arachne making more appearances lately and I hope it will continue. I really enjoy her puzzles and the surfaces of the clues always read so well.

   Favourites: RUDDERLESS, CREAM TEA, TETCHY, CLOTH, STUN, LAST DITCH, WRETCHEDNESS, SPAGHETTI, CORRUPT (loi).

   New for me: SPIRACLE.

   Thanks, both.

9. Very enjoyable; lots of smiles. New to me: DAHOMEY & SPIRACLE.

   Thanks Arachne & Eileen.

10. Thanks Flea @7 – careless error, fixed now.

11. Lovely – in particular WRETCHEDNESS, WANDER, CORRUPT, STUN, RUDDERLESS and LAST-DITCH.

    New for me: SPIRACLE and DAHOMEY. I was relieved not to bung in AWAKE at 9a – I did wonder if there was some old military campaign called the Wak Campaign before putting myself out of my misery.

    Thanks Arachne & Eileen.

12. Classy. I loved how “chinese leader” wasn’t C and “in charge” wasn’t IC

    CHID just looked wrong but had to be right

    OLD HAT was cute

    Cheers A&E

13. Needed crossers for spiracle, a long time since that school botany module! Tried to stick to clue-order but could feel the pull of archetypical, which was juicily hanging up there having jumped straight in. All part of the fun, always a joy to see Arachne, and Eileen too!

14. I’m with Redrodney@ 2 for favourite is LAST-DITCH for its ingenious construction and surface , and OLD HAT, my LOI, one of the simpler wordplays, but I went down a lot of rabbit holes first.

    While the wordplay was clear, I needed to consult dictionaries (never doubting Arachne of course) before I convinced myself of ARCHETYPICAL vs archetypal, and OPTIMUM as both a noun and an adjective.

15. pdm @14, yes typal v typical did arch a brief eyebrow … bit of a linguist’s picnic that one …

16. Great to see Arachne again – with a relatively gentle offering but full of her characteristic wit. Just the thing to put me in a good mood at the start of the day.

    Good anagrams, but my favourites were RUDDERLESS, STUN, CORRUPT, CREAM TEA and the beautiful LAST DITCH – all of which raised a smile.

    Not all spiders have SPIRACLEs, but orb webs do, so the Spider Woman must be very familiar with them 🙂

    Many thanks to Arachne and Eileen

17. Thanks, Arachne and Eileen! Lovely puzzle and a great blog.

    My top faves:
    WRETCHEDNESS, CREAM TEA and LAST-DITCH.

18. Like others I really enjoyed this. Lots of clues that made me smile and like Michelle @ 8 I think the surfaces are so good.

    Favourites were: RUDDERLESS, CORRUPT, WRETCHEDNESS, AXIOM, WANDER, OLD HAT, and CHILD (because it’s lovely to see CHID).

    Thanks Arachne and Eileen

19. Always in awe of this setter. Reminds me of the much-missed Klingsor/Alberich with beautifully constructed surfaces.

    I once visited a zoo and all it had was a solitary dog. It was a “shit zoo”. An old joke, but I couldn’t resist it after 5d.

20. I thought of that one, too, Hovis. 😉

21. Great to have Arachne back. She was my favourite for a long time.

    Today she was gentle on us but plenty of fun and ever-so-smooth surfaces.

    I liked it all but RUDDERLESS was my favourite.

    Thanks Arachne and Eileen

22. Arachne’s seeming effortlessness belies her brilliance.
    Thanks to her and Eileen

23. Very nice. Not entirely convinced that OLD HAT = ‘square’ but I suppose it’s close enough.

24. A lovely treat. Favorite was 14D. NHO of DAHOMEY but it was inevitable from the crossers and the parsing.

25. A lovely treat indeed

    Many thanks to Arachne and lucky Eileen

26. I looked up CHID to check and there it was CHIDE, Past tense chid, example She chided him for being naughty. Well, it tickled me.
    Shouldn’t inebriate have a d on the end to mean PICKLED? It feels like a typo to me.
    Lovely puzzle, I laughed out loud at OLD HAT and chuckled at several others.
    Thanks both for the web and the blog.

27. Any news anywhere on where the Quiptic went?

28. Lovely thank you as always

29. nicbach @26

    Inebriate can be a noun or an adjective, as well as a verb. As an adjective, as here, it always makes me think of this classic Play for Today, from the 70s:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna,_the_Inebriate_Woman

30. Very elegant and smooth with some lovely surface reads to disguise what were often deceptively simple constructions. Just what I like. Some of my faves were amongst the easier offerings – ARCHETYPICAL, RUDDERLESS, ESCARPMENT, CLOTH, WANDER and LAST DITCH for example

    nicbach @26: ‘inebriate’ is rarely used adjectivally but it’s there in Chambers.

    Thanks Arachne and lucky Eileen

31. [Chide, chid, chidden – a good old English strong verb that has faded in favour of the weak chide, chided, chided. That’s the usual fate of irregular verbs that are only rarely used. Strange that the original ‘dived’ and ‘sneaked’ have become ‘dove’ and ‘snuck’ in the US]

32. It’s always a pleasure to solve an Arachne crossword.

    I particularly liked quite a few: R UDDERLESS; the surfaces of CORRUPT, WRETCHED, WANDER and RIPEST; the wordplays in LAST DITCH, OLD HAT, ABASHEDLY and CREAM TEA; and the scoff in SPAGHETTI.

    Thanks to Arachne and Eileen.

33. Happiness is a puzzle by Arachne, blogged by Eileen. Perfect start to the day.

34. @13, oops, was mixing my stomata with my spiracles … too many decades since school science.

35. Enjoyed this greatly, the long across anagrams helping to busy me along the way. CLOTH made me smile. Thought TOP HAT pick of today’s clues. DAHOMEY was a new one for me. Thought ARCHETYPICAL an excellently conceived anagram. Many thanks Arachne and Eileen…

36. Lovely to have our spider lady back after so long away. As always she is on top form. Loved old hat! Ta A and E

37. I had some of the same experiences as others regarding a couple of unfamiliar words, but I love learning all the time. Thanks to Arachne for the pleasure I experienced as this grid unfolded, and to Eileen for her usual exemplary blog. Good to read others’ responses too.

38. Amazingly WRETCHEDNESS just popped into my head when I saw the D of CHILD. Dahomey was lurking in the back of my mind, I had a quick Google to check my GK was still OK. A nice solve, thanks A & E

39. Funny: DAHOMEY was my FOI – I had certainly heard of the country, but needed to check what it is now called (Benin). They are very simple, but I was ticked by TOP HAT and VERMIN. Very pleasant solve. Thanks, Arachne and Eileen.

40. I liked a lot of the surfaces, including the giant shih-tzus, the sly nod to the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories , and of course the “far from brilliant husband material.”

    I had heard of Dahomey. When I was a teenager I was a big fan of outdated maps, and I had a pretty good collection going. It shows that for every obscurity in a puzzle, there’s someone who knows it.

41. Oh, also wanted to mention that it’s nice to have “Chinese leader” have its literal meaning for a change.

    [As an aside, back when they were assigning Greek letters to Covid variants, they skipped both nu (because for many it’s a homophone of “new,”) and xi (because calling a Covid variant “the Xi virus” might sound like an anti-Chinese slur). So, we got omicron instead.]

42. I have often credited here my old O-level studies for help with obscurish facts, but today DAHOMEY was helped by stamp-collecting as a kid; the political map of Africa was very different then. Rhodesia and Nyasaland and all the rest.

    Nice puzzle, btw. Was tempted by ARCHETYPICAL just like gif@13, but resisted, and it was worth it.

43. Really enjoyed this stylish and intelligent offering from Arachne.

44. Thanks Eileen especially for answering Nicbach@26 as I had the same thought, now looking forward to using this in the wild. I loved this, CLOTH in particular despite it hitting a bit too close to home, and RIPEST for the nicely misleading cleavage (these days nice cleavage can often be misleading of course, and there’s the change in pronunciation too). Thanks Arachne for a blast.

45. As far as I can ascertain “mum” is an adverb not a noun.

46. jeceris @45

    I did look up “mum” and found
    Chambers: adj silent; n silence;
    Collins: adj: silent; n ‘mum’s the word – silence or secrecy is to be kept’

47. I had AWAKE for 9ac and the couldn’t parse it. Now I see why.

    Doesn’t MUM in 12ac mean “silent” rather than “silence”?

    Like Nuntius@4, I found this mostly a write-in. At the beginning of a puzzle I read all the clues without writing anything in and put a check mark on the grid next to the ones I’ve figured out. With a difficult puzzle I have only two or three check marks, with many I have four or five, but with this one I had eleven! But there were also quite a few among the not-checked that I couldn’t parse, so thanks to Eileen.

    In 21dn, OLD HAT, I wonder how many of us are old enough to remember when “square” was a thing.

    “Inebriate” as a noun makes me think of Emily Dickinson:
    “Inebriate of air am I and debauchee of dew.”

    mrpenney@40 What was the Epstein reference?

    Thanks to Arachne (so glad to see you back!) and Eileen.

48. Valentine @47 – we crossed re MUM.

49. Knew DAHOMEY was Benin and that the equivalent of a GB car sticker is still DY there. I must have learnt that from crosswords.
    I checked the 15^2 archives and found that one setter has clued it identically three times as “Old country house secured in 24 hours (7)”.
    It’s the obvious wordplay for DA(HOME)Y – no suggestion of plagiary.

50. Valentine@47…not being able to parse either I had a toss up between AWARE and Awake as my last one in. Plumped for AWARE, and needed Eileen as ever to explain the parsing. Quite obvious now…

51. Thanks both and a total Goldilocks (including an alpha-trawl to get RIPEST) for me. I needed the crossers to get STUN (so vivid was the picture conjured by the surface) but it was pleasant when the tea-tray dropped.

    I’m sure that a=”atomic” but can anyone give a cross-reference? Other than as a component of the acronym for some organisation…

52. Thanks Arachne. I found this on the gentle side but that did not detract from my enjoyment because the clues were so beautifully and succinctly written. No surprise, I had a large number of favourites including PALESTINE, STUN, CORRUPT, SPAGHETTI, WRETCHEDNESS, CREAM TEA, YELLOW SEA, IN SITU, WANDER, LAST-DITCH, and OLD HAT. Thanks Eileen for the blog. I was glad it was you because I know you’re such a big fan of the “spider lady”.

53. Alphalpha @51

    Well, Chambers has simply ‘atomic’, which is not very satisfactory but I also found, in Collins, ‘(in combination) atomic; an A-bomb; an A-plant‘, which, I suppose, is what you meant.

    Tony Santucci @52 – I’m glad it was me, too but I don’t think I’m the only member of the fan club. 😉

54. Valentine @47: Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, by all accounts a suicide by hanging. The conspiracy theory is that he was actually killed to prevent him from blabbing on the witness stand about the complicity of his well-placed associates (including, e.g., the Duke of York). Hence, the clue ” Most advantageous silence over Epstein, oddly offed beforehand (7)” is certainly meant to be allusive.

55. Loved it thanks Arachne, I’m a fan

    Liked Palestine for the the politics, rudderless for humour, stun for surface, cloth for brilliant surface,last ditch for the melencholy. All wonderful

56. Great puzzle. Good to see the spider-woman.

    As for Palestine, I’ve just begun watching Union on the iPlayer, which inter alia briefly describes the so-called Plantation of Ulster. Not quite interchangeable, but close.

57. [Eileen: True, you’re not the only member of the Arachne fan club but you certainly are on its governing board!]

58. Does that mean I can collect membership subscriptions?

59. What Mandarin@33 said – Arachne and Eileen, a perfect pairing.

    When Arachne went on hiatus she created a vacancy at the top of my favourite setters list, which was eventually filled by Brendan. Now that she is back, I am blessed with twin peaks. Long may they reign.

    You can see from my favourites that I am partial to meaningful and witty surfaces, and imaginative grid-fills. (I’m just a superficial person.)

    Alphalpha makes an excellent point @51, addressing 15a STUN. A witty and evocative surface can itself be an effective misdirection.

    Incidentally, there’s another puzzle with great surfaces from Bradman in the FT today. For those who don’t do the FTs, it is well worth the visit.

60. As Eileen said: a certain elegance in a lot of clues. But very quickly done given a high number of easy anagrams. So more of a Monday feeling.
    Thanks both

61. [Eileen @58: You can certainly try! Cellomaniac @59: I concur that Bradman (Pasquale) in FT is worthwhile.]

62. Thanks Eileen for putting me straight, I have always read it as ” Edna the Inebriated Woman”. Just shows that we really see what we want to.

63. Great stuff! I bet Philistine wishes he’d thought of 10ac!

    Eileen, A-bomb isn’t an acronym and I believe it makes fair play of A=atomic. I believe Alphalpha @51 was thinking more of true acronyms like IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).

64. An absolute delight – the clueing of OPTIMUM made me actually catch my breath, PALESTINE a wry chuckle, and I’m afraid RIPEST and CLOTH were right on my wavelength!

    Thanks Arachne!

65. This was such a delight that I actually rationed myself to do no more than half an hour at a time – in order to make the pleasure last longer.
    Oh Arachne, you’ve been much missed! So many clever and beautifully written clues, such a lightness of touch. All my faves have already been mentioned and praised: I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this.
    I also agree with those who said an Arachne puzzle and an Eileen blog is a perfect combination. Many thanks to you both.

66. Adding to all the previously acknowledged witty surfaces, I would like to note that the reason that a tender emu’s wings never quiver is that it is a flightless bird, not because of an infestation of lice.

    Also, RAYS are different from most fish in that they have no gills to breathe with. Instead they use a SPIRACLE.

67. A-bomb eh? Next we’ll be expected to see ‘hydrogen’ and think ‘H’. Where will it all N?

68. An enjoyable solve, so thanks, Arachne. Thank you too, Eileen, for explaining the parsing of LAST-DITCH and CREAM TEA. I entered ARCHETYPICAL without considering that the word I knew is ARCHETYPAL, and only realised it was not the word I’m used to when I came to this forum.

69. An easier than average one today that I completed fairly quickly but thoroughly enjoyable. I particularly liked PALESTINE for the political sentiment behind it and IN SITU because I own a shih-tzu and the idea that it could possibly be giant is rather comical!

70. What Tony said @52. And what most other people have said – wonderful surfaces and lots of smiles.

    Thanks Eileen and thanks Arachne.

71. Alphalpha@67 – nice!
    I agree with Auriga@3, michelle@8, Arklark@21, nametab@22 and, of course, Mandarin@33!
    (though sadly I also echo timthetoffee@60 and first phrase of nuntius@4)

    Many thanks to Arachne, Eileen and commenters

    …..always seems to be a lot of love around, rightly, whenever Arachne happens by…..

72. This was art!
    Coltrane had a track called Dahomey Dance so that was familiar
    Lovely to see Arachne again

73. Alphalpha@67, H is a bit different, as H is the chemist’s symbol for hydrogen. Maybe we should consider, though, whether ‘the F-bomb’ can justify using a word for Fwhich probably has no place in respectable cryptics, in fact?

74. 15a – NUTS….out to lunch? I don’t understand this.

75. mad – a sandwich short of a picnic, etc. not very PC!

76. I really enjoyed this! Thanks Arache and Eileen.

77. So, was I the only one who had never in my 60 years heard ‘scoff’ to mean ‘food’? Apart from that (and cricketing terms and Order of Merit) it was all clear and all delightful.

78. Took me a while, but I;m glad I persisted. A delight.

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