Guardian 29,736 / Ariel

78 comments on “Guardian 29,736 / Ariel”

1. Another themed ‘grid’, a subject which I’m not particularly au fait with, but that didn’t stop the enjoyment. Certainly topical with the new F1 film currently in a cinema near you. Some of the surfaces were clunky and I had no idea about parsing WHEELHOUSE, which was a lucky guess from the crossers. I thought SERVANTS was clever and I also liked CAMBER, CHICANES, FERRARI and SALOON.

   Ta Ariel & Eileen.

2. Liked FERRARI, SERVANTS, CAMSHAFT, TEACUP, AUSTRIAN and SALOON.
   Thanks Ariel and Eileen.

3. Doesn’t the bridge include the wheelhouse and not vice versa?

4. Thanks Ariel and Eileen
   I’m surprised that this wasn’t published next Friday or Saturday, when the Silverstone Grand Prix will be in action.
   I enjoyed it. I thought the use of “es chew” to indicate the hidden in CHICANES was neat. I also particularly liked SERVANTS and AUSTRIAN
   I saw the definition for WHEELHOUSE but not the significance of “bridge”. Not sure that “arch” defines CAMBER.

5. Hmmm… found this all little lacklustre I’m afraid. I’m sure it’s just me having woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something.

   Needed Eileen’s excellent blog for AUSTRIAN & WHEELHOUSE otherwise all OK.

   Thanks, both.

6. Thanks Eileen – like you, I twigged the theme early on and didn’t expect to get much pleasure from it, but in fact I ended up enjoying the ride. In 15ac, I think ERR is clued only by ‘cockup’ (as a verb), otherwise ‘make’ is doing double duty as def and wordplay. One minor quibble for Ariel – 6ac doesn’t seem to have a hidden answer indicator, unless it’s ‘of’, which hardly seems sufficient. But it didn’t stop me solving, so it’s hardly a big issue. Many thanks to Ariel and welcome, if this is indeed your first tour of the track.
   [Edit: I see Muffin @4 has offered one possible indicator for 6ac. Thank you, but I’m still not sure I quite get it]

7. Thanks, miserableoldhack @6 – that was a really careless typo. I’ll amend it now.

8. moh@6
   CHICANES
   I think ‘of’ is used as a hidden indicator by many setters. Opinions may vary, but I find ‘of’
   good enough a hidden indicator.

   FERRARI
   Should we take cockup as ‘cock up’ and clueing ERR? This will avoid double duty of ‘make’.

   OCCLUDES
   quantity of engine: Is this phrase a proper one?

   SOHO
   Collins (online) has the abbreviation SO for significant other

9. I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy this much. Once the theme had emerged it became too easy, even with my limited knowledge of present-day F1, to guess the solutions. I too found some of the surfaces clunky. And as I’ve said before, using ‘woman’ to indicate that I have to choose from countless available names makes for a lazy clue.

10. Seem to be a few dubious clues here. DECLUTCH surely means to disconnect the power. Like Ravenrider@3 I don’t think the bridge is part of the WHEELHOUSE. In OCCLUDES, ‘cc’ in an automotive context isn’t the ‘quantity of engine’ – its the capacity; but maybe close enough in crosswordland.

    I liked UPSLOPE, SERVANTS, SILVERSTONE and some others, but the whole thing seemed a little clunky to me – I’d be a bit surprised if the possibility suggested in Eileen’s first sentence is in fact the case.

    Thanks Eileen and Ariel.

11. I solved WHEELHOUSE from the reference to a (ship’s) bridge, but have never met the slang wheelhouse=bailiwick=area of expertise.

12. I enjoyed this puzzle, and, like Eileen, dredged up a lot of stuff, accumulated over the years, from the back of my head, heavens knows how.
    We had Half Christmas last week and today is the Middle Day of the year, so now it’s all downhill to Christmas.

13. This was my quickest solve for a while, clocking in at around quarter F1 race time (Grand Prix are supposedly 200 miles or two hours; whichever comes first). I had the theme almost straight away and this one suits me, but I don’t think it helped me as much as yesterday’s spiders.

    It was also a thorough parse for me. On a gentle day, I was lulled into not thinking to split barmaid into its component parts but the solution became obvious. I had similar reactions to others with the bailiwick thing.

    SERVANTS was a pleasing clue.

    Thanks Ariel and Eileen

14. Beaulieu @10: I wondered about this too. Those of us old enough to remember gearboxes without synchromesh will remember having to double declutch to match the engine revs to the vehicle speed when changing down. It seems therefore to declutch is to release the clutch pedal and reengage the drive train. (Odd that we don’t seem to use the positive “clutch” as a verb in the motoring context).

15. Thanks to Eileen for the link to the WHEELHOUSE definition as synonymous with bailiwick. Judging by comments so far, it doesn’t seem in common usage at least on this side of the Atlantic. Like others, it seems, I solved that clue from the crossers. Definitely one for the petrolheads today; remembered the name of Nikki Lauda but didn’t know he was Austrian, nor know that the Austrian GP has just happened and Silverstone about to happen. Not too difficult a solve, though Liked FERRARI and ALTER EGO. Thanks to Ariel and Eileen.

16. KVa@8 – I agree, ‘quantity of engine’ makes no sense. Capacity is the word.

17. Heartsink for me, too, when I realised the theme. But not too much special GP knowledge needed, apart from 25, where I needed to consult Professor Google (I wondered if there was a driver called Redda).

18. Very tough puzzle. I gave up on 3d.

    I needed some online help for the car racing GK – like Eileen, my lack of interest in motor racing is total.

    New for me: SILVERSTONE = track; CAMBER = arch; DECLUTCH (the only thing I remember in this regard from driving a manual car was double-clutch to jump start a car), CHICANE = sharp double bend.

    I couldn’t parse 15ac or 16d but guessed it was an anagram of AIR in something – actually I watched about 10 minutes of the first Austin Powers movie years ago and gave up on it as I didn’t find it funny.

19. This was an absolute delight. 24a is tremendous, although I can’t have been the only one to have just a leading S and thought the solution must be STEWARDS. Now, that would be spicy…

    Inspired by 25a, you may enjoy some modern dance music that really leans into that pun: Wie Heisst die Mutter von Niki Lauda?

    Thank you Ariel and Eileen!

20. [An elderly friend of mine went to a school right next door to the Silverstone circuit (the school closed and was demolished ages ago). He claims to still hold the U14 bicycle record for a circuit of the racetrack!]

21. Bailiwick wasn’t an nho for me, but it was an hbf, heard but forgotten. I reckon hbf’s are much more common than nho’s, and the subconscious can do its magic on them given time and coffee. This puzzle brought back memories of the Kite masterpiece. Thank you Ariel and Eileen!

22. CAMBER
    Chambers
    intransitive verb
    to arch slightly

    Arch defining CAMBER seems all right (Within the ‘tolerance limits’ specified in the Crossword Standards)

    FERRARI
    Apologies to moh@6
    I repeated what you had already said.

23. I assume from the NINA at the top that this is Ariel’s second puzzle?

24. Theme became obvious quite early, even to one normally blind to these things. I had trouble with a few of these but not particularly from a lack of GK.

25. On every school report I got my headmaster would write “I look forward to his progress with interest” and I think that sums up my feelings about Ariel

    This did at least have the distinction of getting a rare zero ticks from me

    I’m not sure what the collective noun for themes is but we do seem to be getting a lot of them at the moment

    Cheers A&E

26. What? No homophone police on “Nikki Louder” yet?

    I’m reserving my judgement on this new? setter.

27. Despite an uncongenial theme I enjoyed this: I couldn’t quite match DECLUTCH to its definition but happily put it down to mechanical ignorance.

    In Nikki Lauda’s heyday, was anyone else subjected to a leg-pull that goes something like this:

    Tormentor: Who won the Grand Prix? Nikki … er …
    Helpful victim: Lauda?
    Tormentor (ff) WHO WON THE GRAND PRIX?
    Victim: Lauda?
    Tormentor (fff) WHO WON THE GRAND PRIX?
    …and so on until the victim realises what’s going on. After that, 25a was a doddle.

28. Muffin I had money (well extra biscuits at elevensies) on you quibbling about best friend/alter ego 🙂

    And after a stewards enquiry I’ve awarded a tick to SERVANTS

29. This was in my wheelhouse, so a good few filled without parsing.

    @6 beaulieu Declutch: “to release the clutch (of a motor vehicle)” (Chambers). Declutching reconnects the power of engine to wheels. The clutch is situated between engine flywheel and gearbox. When “clutching” power from engine is disconnected.

30. I laughed at ALTEREGO. It always reminds me of Professor Afferbeck Lauder’s books which were illustrated by Al Terego. 😉

31. I completed more of this than I expected to as I spotted the theme quickly and could draw on my rusty knowledge of F1 which I followed devotedly for a while. I couldn’t parse everything but was pleased just to find answers. Lately I’ve found the cryptics very challenging and too big a leap from the Quick Cryptics/Quiptics for a relative beginner.

32. All is revealed: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2025/jul/02/crossword-editors-update-meet-the-setter-ariel-aka-angela-barnes

33. Ariel AKA Angela Barnes

34. Great puzzle and spotted the theme early. Not an F1 fan but I knew all the references and for things like SILVERSTONE and LOUDER it actually helped.

    Some tricky parsing in there. I have my suspicions it’s a setter’s ALTEREGO but the style isn’t familiar (maybe that’s the point?).

    Didn’t understand WHEELHOUSE which I fluked by trying to think of something F1 related with HOUSE at the end.

    Liked UPSLOPE amongst others.

    Does TWO NSN have any F1 meaning? It’s spelt out in the top and bottom rows and the grid immediately made me think there would be a Nina.

    Cheers Ariel and Eileen

35. RobT@32 thanks for this link. I love Angela Barnes, the first person to win all five days on Richard Osman’s House of Games (Jay Rayner has now joined her).

36. Yes, this felt a bit flat to me (realised afterwards that a pitstop halfway might have helped to get new rubbers on), but maybe it’s something to do with both new setter and solver rather finding their way at first. There were several in the category – the answer had to be that, but not exactly sure why – FERRARI, WHEELHOUSE, SALOON and AUSTRIAN, and as usual with me I was dimwitted enough not to realize there was a motoring Grand Prix going on today…

37. Re 2 down
    Bailiwick / Wheelhouse conundrum.
    In baseball the ‘wheelhouse’ is the small area where the batter thinks he can his the pitched ball the hardest. This is based on his knowledge and experience.
    Bailiwick is a similar definition, so I assume this is why Arial is making the connection in the clue/answer.

38. ronald @36
    As I said @4, it’s not today. The whole circus doesn’t start until Friday.

39. Kenny@29: I think you are getting clutching and declutching mixed up. A manual transmission vehicle needs a means of temporarily disconnecting the engine from the gearbox to allow smooth gear changes. That is the role of the clutch. It consists of two friction plates. In normal use these are held together by powerful springs so they grip together (i.e. they ‘clutch’ – it does what it say’s on the tin). When you put your foot on the clutch pedal, levers pull these plates apart, thereby disconnecting the transmission (‘dis-clutching’). By default the vehicle is clutched, it becomes declutched when you have your foot on the pedal.

40. Re. WHEELHOUSE and bailiwick, I had no issue with this, so I suspect that wheelhouse is commonplace in the US (where I have long lived) and bailiwick the more British expression?

    As for DECLUTCH, in my experience that is indeed the correct usage. To “clutch” or “put the clutch in” disconnects the power, and to “declutch” or “let the clutch out” reconnects it.

    My first car was a Fiat 500 that did not have syncromesh on first gear, so on changing down one had to double-declutch, i.e. clutch in; shift from second to neutral; clutch out [declutch]; match revs; clutch in; shift from neutral to first; clutch out again. It was typically easier simply to come to a stop in second, then change down to first ready to pull away.

41. ARhymerOinks@9

    AMBER Rudd served as Home Secretary in the last Conservative government so partly &lit.

42. Re DECLUTCH: I did say I’d no idea how cars worked.

43. ayeaye@41 Fair point. I would perhaps have been a tad more gentle had I realised it was a brand new setter. Onwards and upwards!

44. My ignorance of auto racing must be even more encyclopedic than Eileen’s, because I didn’t even spot the theme. Lauda, who he? But then I rarely do, though I did spot the spiders yesterday. But most of the clues wee gettable anyway.

    Thanks and welcome to Ariel, and grateful thanks to Eileen.

45. Thank you to Arial. This is slightly beyond my abilities (I engaged some DRS for assistance) but I enjoyed it anyway, especially Verstappen without protective gear. And thank you to Eileen for explaining the parsing I missed.

    Opposite to gladys@11 and others, I got WHEELHOUSE from its meaning of area of interest, but I didn’t know that it was part of a ship.

46. Tim C @30 I had those Strine books.
    ” Sarns calmer nairt”.
    “Spewful climb a treely.’

47. The spoiler police put me off the other comments section (“I haven’t solved this yet. I’m just going to look at the comments anyway, but boy will I be fuming if anyone gives me a clue.”) but I posted a positive comment over there just now for balance. This seemed a perfectly decent crossword to me and I enjoyed it. It’s a good idea to have another comedian and enthusiast contributing. It’s a proactive way to raise awareness and interest, especially as this was way less savage than Fed can be.

    (One of the comments was literally “I hate the theme, so I’m not doing it.” Stick with Sudoku, poppet, you’ll be safe there.)

48. @39 The act of pressing the clutch is “clutching”, Chambers has this as an Americanism, “clutching” disconnects power. So declutch is to reconnect power.

49. DECLUTCH – Chambers defines this as “to release the clutch”. When you release the clutch, you reconnect the power. The setter is correct according to how the word is used, whatever is going on from a mechanical viewpoint.

50. Great effort for a debut. Is there something about the comic’s world view that makes them natural setters? Ariel has joined Fed and Emu in those ranks.
    Looking forward to future Ariels.

51. Nice of the editor to give Ariel a chance to have a crossword published, but I suspect (and hope) that if this had been submitted by someone unknown to him he would have asked for further work to be done to deem it publishable. Far better than anything I could manage for sure, but that doesn’t mean that it is par for the standard of a national newspaper.

52. I hadn’t connected ‘wheelhouse’ to a ship’s bridge — I was thinking of weirs with water wheels/mills built into the structures, which are bridges with wheels, and I figured some part of that would be the wheel house…

    ‘L’ for ‘novice’ in #12 has baffled me — what’s the connection there?

53. Well despite my pretty sketchy knowledge of the F1 I thought it was actually a very good puzzle and an enjoyable distraction from other things going on in my life right now. I will certainly welcome Ariel’s future offerings. And I do hope those to whom this might not have been their cup of tea* today will remain open-minded. Thanks to Ariel for the pleasurable puzzle and of course to Eileen for her usual informative blog – always helpful for the ones I couldn’t parse fully. I also value her fidelity to reading our solvers’ posts. I liked the simple 1d TEACUP, while my other favourites have already been mentioned.

54. Liz@52 – L for learner

55. Thanks for the Ariel reveal. Wow.

    I liked the trick in TEACUP.

    The DECLUTCHing discussion reminded me that language can be funny this way: a cat that is a mouser is really a de-mouser. There are probably other better examples.

56. Like Eileen and others, F1 leaves me cold, but I do read the sports pages (for baseball, hockey and curling news) and some F1 stuff seeps in by osmosis. And Peter Ustinov’s Grand Prix of Gibraltar remains etched in my memory.

    Given the setter’s pseudonym, while solving I was imagining an avant-garde theatre director setting a production of The Tempest in Silverstone or Le Mans.
    (There are no racetracks in Bermuda, alas.)

    As with others,I especially liked 24a SERVANTS.

    This was a nice first effort, so welcome to the club, Ariel. And thanks, Eileen, for your engaging blog.

57. As ever, finished a couple short, mainly those whose parsing escapes me..2d, 15a…
    Lots to like from this new setter.
    I never look for a theme, I’m far too unobserved, but even I can see if now.
    I thought DECLUTCH detached the transmission from the engine losing power?
    Thanks Eileen in advance and to Ariel.

58. Just read the comments re DECLUTCH, that’s why I’m in the RAC…

59. Not that this lends anything to the debate today about F1, but I do remember some time in early 1960’s being given a lift back from work on the back of a colleague’s Ariel 250 motorbike…

60. Hoofit@58. I’m another technophobe as far as cars are concerned, but even Eileen solved the clue 😁.

    My problem with 15a that you mention is that I saw ‘make cockup’ for ERR, so I was left wondering where the definition was. (Oops!) Add this to ‘miles’ (or is it ‘miles to reach’?) for FAR, and ‘assuming’ as a containment indicator – ERR is ‘assuming’ (as in taking on as an identity or a cloak?) FAR before reaching I – this seems an extraordinarily sophisticated clue for a first time solver. Or perhaps I’m a bit slow today, having not slept well. 🤔

    Thanks to Ariel and Eileen.

61. I’m surprised no-one has raised an eyebrow over the use of ‘barmaid’ in 19d (with ‘bar’ as the definition and ‘maid’ as part of the wordplay). So I’ll belatedly raise one now.

62. sheffield hatter @60 – my problem with 15a was MAKE = FERRARI. Presumably you were supposed to have cracked the theme to home in on a make of F1 car. I hadn’t, so MAKE could have been a make of car, aeroplane, saucepan, cooker, guitar etc. etc.

63. Hector@61. This is quite a common device in some Guardian cryptics. It’s based on the understanding or convention that punctuation is not necessarily accurate, so missing out a space between those two words is a legitimate deception. Even though I’m used to it, and I was looking at words beginning with SAL___, it still took me ages to see ‘bar’ as the definition.

64. Hector @61.
    Yes, I raised an eyebrow. But in the context of the “libertarian” Guardian, it seems fine to me, so no complaints.

65. HYD @ 62.
    I had a different problem.
    Although I have no interest in motor racing, I spotted the theme quite early. From that, it was fairly easy to see that “make” might be the definition; i had i at the end, so Ferrari came to mind, but never worked out how to parse it (needed Eileen’s help). I was trying to think of a brand with m or mm (miles) in it.

66. @65
    In fact, my mistake was to think that “assuming” meant “taking in” (inclusion indicator) rather than “taking on the outside”.

67. I ‘m sure that when Eileen suggested that Ariel might be the alter ego of another setter she didn’t mean “best mate” .

68. Or even “best friend”.

69. The literal meaning (and first dictionary definition) of ‘alter ego’ is ‘second self’ – but it wasn’t a serious suggestion.

70. Sorry, Eileen. I was just trying to say that I didn’t think that “alter ego” could mean “best friend” as I only knew the “second self” definition. It crops up often here referring to Pasquale/Quixote, Arachne/Rosa Klebb, Paul/Mudd etc. I really should check in Chambers before commenting as the second meaning there is “a trusted, intimate friend, a confidant”.

71. Ariel is one Angela Barnes! She posted it on her Facebook feed yesterday.

72. I have to quibble about the cryptic grammar of 4dn (CAMSHAFT). The instructions say to reverse a word that means “hits” and then remove “thousands”. So you start with SMACKS and reverse to get SKCAMS. But what has to be removed at that point is SK, which is not “thousands”. If the ordering of the instructions were the other way around (remove “thousands”, then reverse), it’d work.

    Unlike many of you, I only knew the metaphorical (“bailiwick”) meaning of WHEELHOUSE. I knew that the word must have a literal meaning from which the metaphorical usage arose, but I didn’t know that it referred to the command center of a ship. (If I’d had to guess, I think I would have gone for something like Liz @52: the structure housing a water wheel that powered something like a mill.) I am American, so that’s consistent with the hypothesis that the metaphorical usage is predominantly found on my side of the Atlantic.

    My ignorance of motor racing is virtually perfect, but I still managed to solve this puzzle.

73. Ted @72 – I wasn’t really wanting to revisit yesterday’s puzzle but, as blogger, I feel it incumbent on me to respond to late queries.

    I think you’ve answered your own question: if you reverse (the whole of) SMACKS, you get, as you say, SKCAMS, from which you have to remove KS (thousands).

74. Janice @71

    Thanks – that information was relayed here yesterday by Rob T @32.

75. Sorry, Eileen, but I don’t understand your comment @73. What you have to remove from SKCAMS is SK, not KS.

76. Sorry Ted @75 – I’d gone to bed before you posted your comment. (I’d been up for some time during the previous night, solving and blogging.)
    I’m afraid I can’t think of another way to explain. Remember you’re looking at the letters of the word SMACKS in reverse and need to take off the last two, KS. Hope that helps. 😉

77. Hmm. I guess we’re just stuck. To get from SKCAMS to CAMS, you remove SK. To get from SMACKS to SMAC, you’d remove KS, but that’s not what the clue is instructing you to do.

    It’s not that important. I can live with our simply being at an impasse over this one (and knowing deep in my heart that I’m right!).

78. Raced along nicely with this one, then ground to a halt with six remaining. Wasn’t so taken with the surfaces, and there seemed to be rather a lot of first letter indicators

    15a thought of FERRARI, but couldn’t figure the definition. I now see it’s make = brand

    Ted@72 etc., yes, you remove SK, which is a reversal of KS (thousands). So a reversal of SMAC[ks], as Eileen has in the blog. The order of operations doesn’t matter in this case

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