Guardian Cryptic 26,941 by Arachne

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A pleasant challenge from Arachne

Apart from 10ac, I eventually managed to parse this puzzle (see comments 1 & 2 below, however), which was made tougher by technical issues, which meant that it kept disappearing from my screen – also the reaso for the delay in getting the blog posted.

Thanks, Arachne.

Across
1 ABSOLVE Bachelor backing what you do, free of guilt (7)
<=B.A. + SOLVE (“what you do”)
5 BUSTLES Short, flat-chested old women’s figure enhancers (7)
BUSTLES(s)
9 TURIN Arachne breaking wind in Italian city (5)
I(“Arachne”) in TURN
10 ENLIGHTEN Educate Essex, not primarily with ease (9)
E(ssex) N (ot) + LIGHTEN
11 CHEQUE STUB Record of outgoing infant half-heartedly describing adventure (6,4)
QUEST (“adventure”) in CHE(r)UB (“infant” half-heartedly)
12 ARCH Knowing capitals of all regions and countries here (4)
“capitals of” All Regions and Countries Here
14 SOFT-HEARTED A bunch of pseuds of the art editor kind (4-7)
Hidden in “pseudS OF THE ART EDitor”, indicated by “a bunch of”
18 UNANIMOUSLY As one stressed, I’m a lousy nun (11)
*(im a lousy nun)
21 GOAT Attack ruminant (4)
GO AT
22 FLEA COLLAR All clear of rash — with this? (4,6)
*(all clear of)
25 TRICOLOUR Guardian’s oddly turgid column put forward as standard (9)
T(u)R(g)I(d) + col. + OUR (“Guardian’s”)
26 MITRE Mistress dropping three shillings in hat (5)
MI(s)TRE(ss)
27 NARRATE Was in charge of counter price in retail (7)
<+NAR + RATE
28   See 16
Down
1 ATTACK Vacuous art, stuff that’s tasteless and offensive (6)
A(r)T + TACK
2 SERVES Ministers to observe solar eclipse (6)
Hidden in “obSERVE Solar”, indicated by “eclipse”
3 LINGUISTIC Translate utilising large number of languages (10)
*(utilising) + C (“large number”)
4 EVENS Chance happenings, no precedent ultimately (5)
EVEN(t)S
5 BULRUSHES Sound of male flies in marsh plants (9)
Homophone of BULL + RUSHES
6 SAGA Decline and Fall’s second long narrative (4)
SAG + (f)A(ll)
7 LITERATE Reading and writing endless rubbish over time (8)
LITTE(r) “over” ERA
8 SUNSHADE Keep mum covered in Sudan, travelling with English parasol (8)
SH (“keep mum”) “covered in” *(sudan) + E
13 BABY BOOMER Joey, member of postwar generation (4,6)
Double definition, the first mildly cryptic

A joey is a baby kangaroo, and boomer is an Australian word for a male kangaroo, hence a joey is a “baby boomer”
15 FOOTLOOSE Able to travel distance over bog and empty steppe (9)
FOOT (“distance) + LOO (“bog”) + S(tepp)E
16, 28 TUNGSTEN CARBIDE Decent bar is shocked after language heard in WC (8,7)
*(decent bar is) “after” homophone of TONGUE

W is the symbol for tungsten and C for carbon, so presumably WC would be tungsten carbide.
17 CAVALIER Disdainful of fizzy wine and pork pie on end of bar (8)
CAVA (“fizzy wine”) + LIE(“pork pie”) + (ba)R
19 GLUTEI Individual overcome by Bond clenching tense buttocks (6)
GLUE “clenching” T(ense) “overcoming” 1
20 FREEZE Stabilise, liberate and evacuate Zaire (6)
FREE + Z(air)E
23 AURIC Conservationists forfeiting place in Aunt Erica’s heart of gold (5)
AU(nt) + (e)RIC(a)
24 COLA Fizzy drink in school bag on regular basis (4)
(s)C(h)O(o)L (b)A(g)

*anagram

35 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,941 by Arachne”

  2. I agree loonapick – a real delight from Arachne (and a great blog – many thanks!).

    With regards to 10 across, I read it as “E” for Essex and then “N” for the first letter of “not” (i.e. “not primarily”), followed by “lighten” (as you say).

    Best wishes,

    Rick.

  3. Thanks Arachne and loonapick

    I solved ABSOLVE as soon as I picked up the paper, but not much else in the top for ages. The bottom went in easily enough, but the top was much harder; in particular I was held up by not seeing the two brilliant “hiddens” for a long time.

    BABY BOOMER (second in) and FLEA COLLAR were my other favourites. I didn’t parse ENLIGHTEN either, or CHEQUE STUB.

  6. Thanks Arachne & loonapick.

    Lovely puzzle with great clues. I had to smile at ‘Arachne breaking wind…’ What a great ha for SOFT-HEARTED that I failed to spot. And what a super WC clue!

  8. Thanks to Arachne and loonapick. Enjoyable but tough going for me. I parsed NARRATE but did not see the “retail” connection and could not parse AURIC and BABY BOOMER. TUNGSTEN CARBIDE took a long time emerging (WC misled me) and last in was GLUTEI.

  9. Great stuff! Too many nice clues to list, but 9ac & 16, 28ac gave me a couple of really good laughs.

    Many thanks to Arachne & loonapick.

  10. Amazing as always from Arachne. Two tiny quibbles. BA for Bachelor of Arts was a bit weak. There are BScs and anyway the B is for Bachelor. And C for a large number. I know it’s often done but whether or not it is large depends on the context. Too vague to be entirely satisfying. But as for everything else: perfection. Thanks Loonapick too.

  11. Thanks Arachne and loonapick.

    Enjoyable puzzle, with 5a my favourite. I too had trouble parsing 10a.

  12. Thanks, RR, for the blog and Arachne for another super puzzle. [We have a trio of delights today.]

    As always, not a dud clue in sight but SOFT-HEARTED is one of the best hidden answers I’ve seen.

  13. Could someone please explain how “Conservationists forfeiting place in Aunt…” leads to “au” (I see how “…Erica’s heart” leads to “ric”).

    Wait! I’ve just seen it. National Trust.

  14. Thank you Arachne and loonapick.

    Great fun, but I had to parse several answers post-solve. SOFT-HEARTED was really well hidden and I loved the clue for MITRE.

  15. Thanks to Arachne and loonapick.

    I actually found the top half easier than the bottom half.

    Had to come here to get the parsing of CHEQUE STUB 11a and the WC bit for TUNGSTEN CARBIDE 17d 28a (the latter was a totally uncertain guess bunged in from the crossers).

    I did like BUSTLES 5a and of course BABY BOOMER 13d.

  20. As always from Arachne, this was a treat, but quite challenging in places. Annoyingly GOAT was last in after the brilliant TUNGSTEN CARBIDE. Too many favourites to mention.

    Thanks to Arachne and loonapick

  21. Good puzzle from Arachne as always. Just a couple that held me up – must have been in the zone this morning. Usual wit and tongue-in-cheek stuff, with BUSTLES and TURIN my favourites.

    Logomachist, PDM is ‘penny drop moment’, the instant where having stared at a clue for a very long time, you suddenly get it. In my case, usually accompanied by an expletive (3,5,4). First word is FOR.

    Many thanks to loonapick for a fine blog.

  22. Many thanks Arachne for a superb puzzle. I think this is the first time ever I have needed a review to see the hidden clues, well done. Doh

    Many thanks loons pick for the review, which I decided to consult earlier than normal.

  23. Lovely stuff from Arachne with CHEQUE STUB holding out the longest.
    This is a new paragraph because the cookie notification WILL NOT CLOSE. HELP! Anyway,far too many favourites to list but SOFT HEARTED was a classic.
    I didn’t have time to do NUTMEG’s puzzle yesterday so I did the pair back to back on my return from the dentists. Both good but I found Nutmeg more difficult.
    Anyway, thanks both.

  24. I have to beg for help again. After several google searches and dictionary checks, I still can’t see the connection between retail and narrate. I want to say that “retell” is involved but I don’t see any homophone indicators. I’ll thank muffin and Simon S in advance since they are always so tolerant of my thick skull.

    Otherwise, this was a great puzzle with lots of guffaws. The engineer in me loved TUNGSTEN CARBIDE even though I couldn’t solve it.

  25. BleuDot @ 24

    You can retail a story, ie recount in detail. Not sure of the derivation, but (without reference to sources) it’s almost a version of regale, ie hold forth.

    Now over to muffin for something more accurate… 🙂

  26. Hi BleuDot and Simon
    Thanks for your (misplaced) confidence! I agree that “retailing a story” is a valid usage, but I don’t think “detail” comes into it – just trying to “sell” it?

  27. Challenging, but satisfying. Did the top half fairly quickly, then struggled a bit. Had to googfe tunngsten carbide to see how WC fitted. And we had to look up glutei to see where these muscles are. Lots of great clues . Thanks Arachne and Loonapick.

  28. Another classy puzzle from the spider lady.

    I thought the definition for 7D was “Reading and writing”. Makes the cluing much more succinct as we would expect from A.

  30. This went more quickly than I usually find with Arachne, at least until I spent ages on the last two clues. SERVES was my LOI. I don’t like “eclipse” much as a “hidden” indicator. There are plenty of very nice clues, though. Favourites include the well-hidden SOFT-HEARTED, UNANIMOUSLY, FLEA COLLAR, MITRE, BABY BOOMER and TUNGSTEN CARBIDE.

    Thanks, Arachne and loonapick.

  31. A lovely puzzle from Arachne, as expected, albeit straightforward by her standards. Good fun with some very nice constructions. Many thanks.
    Did anyone else notice the extraordinary oddity here. Not a letter P in site. In the thousands of cryptics I’ve solved down the years, decades, centuries, millennia even – I can’t recall meeting this amazing phenomenon before….. Has anyone ever encountered this? I can easily handle the absence here of J, W or X; these are not unusual. But no Ps! Will I sleep again? What madness lurks? Is Arachne shunning this letter for some private, personal reason? Or has the editor issued a specific edict on Ps today? It is all rather disturbing; there’s something egregious afoot I feel……

  33. Some great clues, particularly liked tungsten carbide which was a real ‘aha’ moment!

    I was quite surprised the word ‘attack’ appeared as an answer and also in a clue (‘attack ruminant’), I thought that was generally frowned upon.

  34. Thanks loonapick and Arachne.

    I’ve never seen E for Essex before so I too failed to parse the first two letters of 10ac. Is there a standard set of acronyms or initials for counties?

    Otherwise a good solid puzzle with a nice range of styles.

    SOFT-HEARTED as a hidden word was quite an achievement.

  35. Thanks Arachne and loonapick

    Did this one last Sunday as I travelled on a flight from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland – so a majority of the time without any electronic aids after the first quarter hour in the boarding lounge. After the two hour flight there were still a few to be mopped up (when help became available again) – TUNGSTEN (which I had worked out from the W) CARBIDE (that I had to check as the ‘carbon’ – C – suffix), correcting FLEA COLLAR from FLEA POWDER and completing the puzzle with GLUTEI (a toughie).

    Had also not fully parsed ENLIGHTEN before coming here. A tricky encounter that fully entertained me throughout the journey … and beyond !!

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