Guardian 27,020 / Arachne

45 comments on “Guardian 27,020 / Arachne”

1. Thanks Eileen and Arachne – lovely clueing as usual.
   We were slightly confused by the use of secular to mean profane in 26A – not sure they mean quite the same thing but it’s only a niggle. Loved 27A and 17D

2. I also found this Arachne puzzle a bit easier than usual, but it has her customary wit and style. Favourites were BLANDISHES, HENCOOP, LECHERY and MATHEMATICS (which took me some time to spot despite having all the crossers). Many thanks to A and E.

3. Nice to have a reference to Edmonton Green rather than the posh places most solvers seem to live in. Thanks Arachne.

4. Thanks Eileen and Arachne. Lovely puzzle and my third consecutive success!! I liked SECULAR.

5. Love-15! Btw there’s a minor typo: it’s R[ihann]A and not R[ihanna]S.
   After missing yesterday’s ghost theme, I couldn’t help wondering whether the henCOOP, NOSEs, NUN, and soldieR ON weren’t allusions to the Two Ronnies’ crossword sketch. Couldn’t find any more references, unless you take soldier on to be a (PC) synonym of plod.

6. Thanks Arachne and Eileen

   An excellent puzzle with Arachne’s usual wit shining through.

   Shirley @ 1: Chambers eThesaurus cross-references SECULAR and PROFANE in both directions and their dictionary gives SECULAR as the second definition of PROFANE.

7. Thanks, blaise – typo corrected.

   You could be right about the sketch – anyway, it’s a good excuse to provide the link, which I’ve done several times myself. 😉

   Shirley @1 – it was through crosswords that I discovered that profane does, indeed, in one sense mean secular: defined as ‘not sacred’, it’s in all my dictionaries. [See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred–profane_dichotomy ]

8. Sorry for the cross, Simon – I took too long to find the link.

9. About to board a flight to Japan. What a treat – Arachne blogged by Eileen. Thanks both in anticipation!

10. Bon voyage, Marienkaefer! 😉

11. Thanks Eileen. Yes, the usual bright surfaces and palpable sense of fun from this setter – but the answers beginning with 12 and 13 A all went straight in. Nice anagram for 1A, and last in KAYOS was satisfying.

12. Many thanks Arachne for a wonderful crossword and Eileen for the informative blog. I rattled through this in the early hours until I only had 10a and 8d and there I came to a halt. I finally twigged LECHERY and then wondered why I had not seen it at once. I now suspected I had entered something incorrect as I convinced myself there could be no English word K – Y – S. Greek perhaps? But no enlightenment until as so often happens, I left the puzzle for a while and when I came back I saw it and slapped my head so hard it still stings. Floors for KO’s wonderful misdirection and all totally legitimate, surely a candidate for clue of the year?!

    If I had to give my opinion of a perfect crossword for my taste and ability it would be this one. No stupid themes; (yesterday, types of pasta for Christ sake, who cares?), and a level of difficulty which allows one satisfaction for a job well done but does not tie one up all day long.

13. I’m not sure I would have recognised this as Arachne without being told. It felt more like a “Rufus tribute to Arachne”! Actually, that might be quite fun – to have a series where the setters are each asked to compile a crossword in the style of a different well-known (but undisclosed (to us)) setter.

    Anyway it was fun and straightforward to solve (if, as you say, slightly heavy on topping/tailing and evacuating). I liked the ‘Nice solvers’, particularly as both ‘Edmonton’ and ‘Edmonton Green’ have EN as the outside letters – so I was searching for a definition even after writing it in! ‘Discontented’ is lovely too; and she must have been pleased with ‘Stars and Stripes’.

    Thanks both.

14. Thanks Arachne and Eileen.

    As some others have said, a bit easier than some from the Spiderwoman but still highly entertaining.

    I got a little held up in the SE corner by HENCOOP etc. I liked the idealistic, bone idle male. Are we being told something?

15. Hi all, Thanks to Arachne and Eileen. I found this easier than previous Arachnes but maybe I am finally getting onto her wavelength.

    I thought (12a) “summer activity” would have been a better clue for “addition” or even “arithmetic”, which was my first attempt. However, arithmetic is one branch of mathematics and addition is a subset of arithmetic. And there is a question mark! So all is forgiven.

    Never seen kayos (KOs) spelled out as a word before.

16. Jewel-studded.

17. William @15 from yesterday, perhaps we will not need to meet at the coat rack today (tonight where I am).

18. Thank you Arachne and Eileen.

    A lovely puzzle. The STARS AND STRIPES was so well hidden (the current 50 star American flag was designed by Robert G. Heft, he was 17 years old at the time and created the flag design in 1958 as a high school class project, he received a B?!).

19. What a nice way to come back, after a week with no Guardians in mid-Wales. My first-ever Arachne write-in, but no complaints with clueing as fluent and witty as this. Enough to detract from my current surroundings, Toddington services on the M1.

20. I wrote in Stars and Stripes assuming it must be an anagram but not bothering to check. Great hide and an enjoyable solve all round

21. Most enjoyable, many thanks, Eileen.

    Limeni @13 What a splendid idea. It’ll be like a crossword version of Victor Borge!

22. Kevin @17 Ha-ha! OK, see you there tomorrow perhaps.

23. @18, that should be B-, the French keyboard keeps changing to English, such a bore.

    I confess that, like bodycheetah @20, I assumed 28a was an anagram and did not bother to check!

24. Cookie @23 That keyboard thing happens to me a lot because I use the same computer for Sibelius (music-writing software) and I’ve just discovered that one of the short cuts I use is very close to the Windows key + SPACE BAR, and that is the short cut to change the keyboard language.

    Apologies if you knew this already.

25. A lovely treat for a day off when I have lots of time to enjoy an Arachne crossword properly.

    Thanks to her and Lucky Eileen for their parts in my entertainment.

26. When I saw the compiler’s name today, I had to stop everything and do this puzzle. I enjoyed it immensely, too many wonderful clues to mention

    I had clued MATHEMATICS in exactly the same way for Dave Tilley’s collaborative puzzle (1a in Rookie puzzle 98, BigDave’s website – this was on the occasion of the website anniversary party last January). How extremely flattering that Arachne should arrive at and choose to use the same clue – made my day.

    Many thanks Arachne

    and thank you Eileen

27. 19d & 28d were first ones in, after which time a satisfyingly large number soon fell into place.
    However, I was help up by:
    – misdirection of 1A – eccentric seemed so clearly an anagram indicator that when there was no collection of letters outside of it that would fit, i assumed it would not be an anagram after all.

    – putting Corked Hat (a homophonic Hawked Cat spoonerism that was arguably a stretch without a ‘soundalike?’ addition to the clue)

    – by not having heard of 17D or ever knowing KOs could be spelled out as a word…

    – missing the groanworthy 12A pun

28. Unusually straightforward for Arachne, but none the worse for that. Too many favourites to list. BLANDISHES was last in.

    Thanks to Arachne and Eileen

29. Yes, much easier than usual but very well crafted. LOI was HENCOOP, and I banged STARS AND STRIPES in without checking. Lots of favourites but COCKED HAT and BIND OVER amused me. Good fun.
    Thanks Arachne.

30. Thanks to Arachne and Eileen. Great fun as usual from this setter. I got the COL for COLLEGIAN but took a while before seeing the legion-legian from “picked up,” had to check TIC-TAC on Google, and did not parse the PT = port for EGYPT. Last in was KAYOS thanks to the neat misdirection from “floors.”

31. Good fun and not too difficult. Blandishes gave us bind over as last in. Thanks to everyone.

32. Thanks Arachne and Eileen

    Great puzzle, as ever from Arachne, but a bit misplaced, I thought. Apart from the trickier SE, this would have made a perfect Quiptic – lots of different techniques on show, but not too obscurely concealed. I admit that I wouldn’t have got KAYOS without the crossers, but it was easy enough with them. (This is in no way intended as a criticism of the puzzle.)

    I generally don’t like Spoonerisms (and I expected Eileen to say the same), but 1d was my FOI and I loved the picture of a “hocked cat”!

33. Dang. I got SOLDIER ON but couldn’t parse it because, for some perverse reason that I can’t even remember now, I was trying to fit I into SOLDER ON. I’m seriously baffled as to why I was doing that!

34. Yes, I also found it easier than A’s usual, but enjoyable nonetheless.

    I made it eight clues involving tops and tails (9, 11, 15, 23, 27ac; 3, 8, 24d); Arachne must have been making a thing of it.

    I did the same as bodycheetah @ 20 re stars and stripes.

    Wasn’t happy about mathematics being yet again equated with addition; why can’t we have “covariant derivative” or “selenographic colongitude” for a change.

35. [William @24, thanks, have written that down – I once managed to change the language back, but did not register how I did it, today had to turn the computer off then on again.]

36. Dave, I was going to say that about mathematics too, then I remembered all Sigma and Integral signs and wasn’t so certain.

37. I just ran into KAYO as a solution in the Wednesday, N.Y. Times puzzle. The clue was “Put down for the count.”

38. I meant to say how surprised I was to find KAYOS in both Collins and Chambers. It looks so wrong – or, perhaps, like an alternative spelling for yesterday’s setter.

    12ac reminded me of the story I heard when I lived, many years ago, in Northern Ireland, of a proud grandma announcing that her grandson had just gone [up] to Queen’s, Belfast to do a BA [pronounced Bee Ah] in Sums.

39. I sometimes get frustrated at the nit-picking comments on here so here’s my contribution: my Chambers app and the BRB give “hen-coop” so 21d should be (3-4) not (7) which is my excuse for taking so long to get the answer … or is that nitpicking?

40. When I saw Arachne’s name I thought I was in for a treat.

    Unfortunately I was disappointed as despite being meticulously clued it was just too damned easy.

    Far too many clues were transparent both in wordplay and definition.

    The whole puzzle was a near write-in and so I’m afraid I can’t really enthuse about it. Apparently everybody else loved it! 🙂

41. I really enjoyed having the elegant clueing of an Arachne in a puzzle that didn’t stretch my mind to its limit after a tiring day. I wouldn’t want all of hers to be at this level (it is good to be stretched too), but it was very nice to have for a change.

    Derek Lazenby @33, if it is any consolation, I also mis-parsed SOLDIER ON as SOLD(I)ER ON, getting the I as the symbol for electric current and therefore for a form of “energy”. No, I don’t why SOLDER ON seemed to make sense at the time, except that ironmongers sell solder.

    Favourites included CONFIDENCE TRICK, STARS AND STRIPES and ARSONISTS.

    Thanks, Arachne and Eileen.

42. Come to think of it, I worked from SOLDER ON too, and didn’t even register that it made no sense. Thanks for yet another intimation of fallibility. (Not a scarce commodity for me.)

43. Another SOLDER ON here, but at least I parsed it right when an almost identical clue turned up in today’s Times Jumbo!

44. Yet another one who went down the SOLDER ON wrong path – never heard of TIC-TAC here in the US which compensates for the easy familiarity with KAYOS.
    I didn’t parse COLLEGIAN at all, but fenerally I was happy with a puzzle pitched to my nascent level of solving expertise. Thank you Eileen & Arachne.

45. I’m sorry (very sorry) to demur from the general fulsomeness on display here. I agree with BNTO; whilst the clue surfaces were typically witty in places, the puzzle itself was disappointing. I know some hold great store by the ‘story telling’ in the clues; for me this is an admirable nicety but I prefer a puzzle to be, well, a puzzle! I was particularly saddened because 1) Arachne has been a firm favourite, 2) this was published on a Thursday which empiricism has shown usually serves up the more challenging offerings and 3) for these reasons I had saved to enjoy at the weekend. This was over before my coffee was cool enough to sip and, though I know little of quiptics (I once solved one on muffin’s recommendation, but never before or since), I agree this might have been better served up thus.
    And 12ac is simply wrong. In my opinion – I snatch a trivial example to make a serious point – to equate astrology and astronomy would be a lesser error than to describe a mathematician as a “summer”!
    Thanks to B and S

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