Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 29,530 by Arachne (2 November 2024)

63 comments on “Guardian Saturday Prize Crossword 29,530 by Arachne (2 November 2024)”

1. I would have written Kalends like this.
   Balfour [Thanks, in case you missed my late post yesterday.]

2. I found the left side easier than the right apart from CALENDS which I had never heard of – and I thought CA was the abbreviation for California.

   The NE in particular held me up though looking at it now I can’t see why.

   Liked: SET-UPS, TANNERY, AFOOT, TURING MACHINE.

   I did decide that 15ac had to be GIMP but I thought it meant someone with a gammy leg not a fetishist.

   Thanks Arachne and mc_rapper67

3. Many thanks for the entertaining preamble mc_rapper67. I’m not sure I’d agree it wasn’t ‘hard’ enough – it took me a few days to finally get there and I still couldn’t parse A SIGHT (much?) so I needed your help. So many to like but my favourites were INDULGENCE, TURING MACHINE and the marvellous EL GNAT🤣. I didn’t spot a theme or Nina either but rarely do. Many thanks to you and to Arachne.

4. I love this setter, with her concise, accurate and often witty clues. There were far too many great clues for me to list favourites, but like others I may have been most partial to TURING MACHINE.

   I had a similar experience to Fiona@3, and found the NE corner a bit of a nightmare. I needed a break for a couple of days before I finally understood the clues. ADULTERIES could also have been adulterise, and I needed a considerable time staring at Harry Potter before he told me the answer to both clues. GIMP was a complete guess not justified by my dictionary.

   All in all, a great crossword and a solid blog to boot. Thanks Arachne and mc_rapper67

5. Really enjoyed this, although with one speculative quiblet. I was thinking that scotching (plans) means prevent before they happen, or get worse, rather than undo after they happen. (Scotching rumours feels somewhere in the middle.) Several sources agree but there’s probably a dictionary that differs, as usual. Maybe majority rules.

   In case anyone is wondering what qualifies as a part of speech, the answer is it can depend on what you are using them for. I was told in primary school there are 8 (we knew about GERUNDs but they weren’t classified). More recently, the Penn Treebank (a resource used by NLP researchers for comparing parses) recognized 36 of them. VBG is the code for gerund there.

6. Fiona@2, although CA is the current official postal code for California, Cal was common before the two-letter rule, and it’s still used in, for example, Cal State University and NoCal vs. SoCal.

7. Thanks for a rare treat from the ever succinct Spiderwoman, and it was quite chewy enough for the aging ginf’s grey matter. And thanks rapper for your generous disquisition and your neat parsing.

8. Whenever I see the word gerund I can’t help thinking about Nigel Molesworth. Sorry, that’s just how it is 🙂

9. Pauline @3: it’s an idiomatic construction: “this puzzle was a sight harder than yesterday’s.” It might not fly in your dialect–it isn’t at all common in mine–but it’s out there.

   DrW @5: I wondered about gerunds as a part of speech too. I’m not sure what you’d call them in the version of grammar I learned–it’s a nounal form of a verb, so I guess as a part of speech it’s a noun? I think as a general category, they called infinitives, participles, and gerunds all “verbals” or something like that, without giving them a separate label.

10. If this is considered on the easy side for a Prize, I wonder what people will think of today’s Carpathian! I found the Arachne approachable but not trivial, and highly enjoyable.

11. Is there an unwritten rule that the Saturday prize should lean to the harder end? Perhaps the thinking is that an easier one occasionally gives the less experienced solvers a chance at the prize.

12. TimC @11: it is in general supposed to be harder than the usual run of weekday puzzles, but on the other hand not in the same category as the Azed or Genius. Still, the difficulty level does vary, and it’s actually harder than you might think for the editor to accurately judge how hard a given puzzle will be for the general public.

    I did once see the Prize puzzle described by someone here as “a raffle with a puzzle attached,” or words to that effect, which does seem incisive (though that’s even truer of the Everyman).

13. A delightful puzzle from Arachne – witty and concise clues, creative indicators and many misdirections. I was chuckling for ages about sportive sheep, paper clips, the shy setter’s son, the queen in hiding. I didn’t know that meaning of GIMP.
    I agree with others that TURING MACHINE was excellent.
    Other favourites: SET-UPS, AFOOT, TANGLE, TANNERY, SYMBOL.
    Lovely clear blog from mc_rapper67. Thanks to setter and blogger.

14. Liked A SIGHT, SYMBOL, TREETOP and TANNERY.
    Thanks Arachne and mc_rapper67.

15. Thanks Arachne for a most surprising and most satisfying appearance. When this crossword appeared I dropped everything else to solve it. I loved it with PISTOL, TANTALISE, INDULGENCE (COTD), SYMBOL, AFOOT, STARLET, TANNERY, and TANGLE being among my top picks. Thanks mc_rapper67 for the detailed blog.

16. How wonderful it was to see Arachne’s name at the top of this Prize puzzle. I enjoyed every minute! Arachne at her most droll.
    All of my favourites except 1a HOARSE have been mentioned in the preamble or by several other contributors. I have tallied up that sixteen clues out of twenty-nine have been deemed favourites already which is a very positive reflection on Arachne’s setting skills!
    Thanks to Arachne for bringing joy to my solving experience last weekend and to mc_rapper67, who as usual, has put together a most readable and interesting blog.

17. Is the prize harder than a weekday puzzle? My experience is the opposite, that the prize is generally more straightforward, given that there are less ‘cheating’ aids (e.g. no ‘check’ button) online. That being said, I agree with the common thread here of appreciation of a well-crafted and amusing puzzle, and nice to see TURING MACHINE feature. Surprised that GIMP as fetishist was unknown to people. I thought it was me that had led a sheltered life.
    Thanks to mc_rapper and the wonderful Arachne.

18. Monkey@10. Agree about today’s Carparthian. One does look forward to slightly more of a challenge, I’m afraid.

19. Perhaps discussion of today’s puzzle might wait until next week. While nothing specific is given away by a comment on the level of difficulty, it does impact on one’s mindset as the pen is picked up.

    As to last week, great fun. I had adulterise in at first, which held me up a little, but that was pure carelessness on my part.

20. Can people please not comment about today’s crossword?! It’s very off-putting for those of us yet to look at it.

21. Apologies for triggering the ‘hardness’ discussion, but please can people remember there is a convention on this site not to mention any ‘live’ prize puzzle until after its submission date. Even the most seemingly anodyne/indirect reference can spoil things for other people. Thank-you.

    Thanks for the (other!) comments so far – much appreciated, as usual.

    Zoot at #1 – Chambers has both CALENDS and KALENDS as equally valid (if not classically so).

    I’m heading out for Covid/Flu jabs then golf, so double suffering today!

22. TREETOPS was my penultimate one in. I came back to it and saw it would fit, but what about the plane? DOH!!!! That confirmed GIMP, which was kicking around in my memory, but I didn’t know the meaning of.
    A delightful puzzle, regardless of difficulty level. Thanks both

23. To start with, yes, can folk avoid commenting on today’s puzzle. Saturday is the only day I read the G blog before doing the G puzzle which seems reasonable given it was published at midnight. However, I am already feeling somewhat unexcited about Carpathian as a result.

    I’m not sure why we see so little of Arachne. She is clearly still compiling and her FT alter ego is associated with puzzles pretty much once a month. Absolutely one of the very best in terms of craft, originality, wit and accuracy of cluing. As JinA observes – and it’s another reason to look at the blog earlier than later – a wide range of clues have already been mentioned in dispatches which is evidence of a high quality puzzle. HOARSE, PISTOL, IMPUNITY, SYMBOL, AFOOT, TREETOP and TANGLE are the ones I’d tick but that list could easily be doubled in length,

    One small observation on the blog, MC. You have ‘amber’ doing double duty in NECTAR ; I don’t think there is anything (other than the adverts) that definitively associates the liquid with the colour so ‘liquid’ alone can do the job.

    Thanks Arachne and MC

24. What a lovely collection of Arachne’s witty surfaces! “Cryptic clue ending in gratification” probably sums it up, but I also enjoyed those for TANTALISE, AFOOT, Harry Potter taking Es at 30,000 feet, the STARLET realising she actually needs some talent… most of them, in fact.

    I had to look up CALENDS and the TURING MACHINE to confirm my guesses (and my spelling) and that meaning of GIMP was also new to me: perhaps it explains why those full-body fancy dress costumes are called “gimp suits”?

    A very welcome return for Arachne: thanks to her and to mc_rapper for the blog.

25. Super crossword from Arachne, as ever. I always liked seeing her crosswords coming up when they were more of a regularity and miss the frequency of those events from terri or three years ago.

    I had thought it was going to be easier than it turned out when the first clue, HOARSE, went straight in. Subsequently, though, it was a steady solve for me so I thought a good level for Saturday prize, with the last two, GIMP and TREETOP falling with a sudden realisation. As Tomsdad@17 said, the bonus with prize crosswords you don’t have the aids to rule things out – which I admit I occasionally do when solving on a device – with letter checks: with GIMP I was fixated on DR or MO for ‘doctor’ so appreciated the discipline of not having the check button. This forced me to look past my convictions which are so often the reason for not solving a clue for me.

    Anyway, as others have said, a lovely puzzle with the usual sprinkling of clever and witty surfaces. Thanks for the super blog, mc: hope you have a good round today.

    Happy weekends all round…

26. Gimp= fetishist – where? when?

27. Overall an excellent puzzle, BUT:

    I cannot accept that “afoot” is synonymous with “current”, nor “scotch” with “undo”.
    And I’m still feeling disappointed by 2d from Friday. I did actually get the answer,
    once I had all the crossers, but again, “uprooted” is by no means synonymous
    with “completely destroyed” – in fact they would be better described as antonyms!!

    Surely it is in the nature of a cryptic crossword that the clue should correctly define the
    answer, otherwise sooner or later sheer madness must result.

    But I don’t want to seem too ungrateful so let me say also: a big thank you to all
    the Guardian setters.

28. Apologies to all for thoughtlessly commenting on today’s prize. It was just an immediate reaction, and I feel suitably admonished and promise not to do it again.

29. I certainly wouldn’t call a TURING MACHINE ‘hypothetical’. It’s an entirely well-founded mathematical construct. There’s nothing speculative about it.

30. Croc @26. You and others declaring their ignorance of GIMP=fetishist have all clearly not seen Pulp Fiction, which surprises me,although other sources of the information are available.

31. The usual first-class construction from Arachne, and de-construction from mc_rapper67; many thanks to both.
    All favourites already mentioned by others.
    As-per Croc@26, I’ve never heard of ‘gimp’ as meaning fetishist. Mind you, I don’t recall ever having heard or used the word in any context with its other (more common?) meanings.

32. Well, at least there’s been one bit of good news this week – the return of Arachne! 🙂

    What a joy – all the hallmarks well in evidence. To PostMark’s list (‘craft, originality, wit and accuracy of cluing’) I’d add deft disguise of definitions, particularly in TREETOP and SYMBOL. It would be a futile task to try to whittle down the rest of my ticks.

    Re CALENDS, we always spelt it with a K at the top of our homework. See this from Wikipedia:
    “The Latin term is traditionally written with initial K: this is a relic of traditional Latin orthography, which wrote K (instead of C or Q) before the vowel A. Later, most Latin words adopted C, instead. It is sometimes claimed that the kalends was frequently used in formal or high-register contexts, and that that is why it retained its traditional spelling, but there seems to be no source for this.”

    Many thanks to Arachne – welcome back 😉 – for a super puzzle and to lucky, as you say, mc_rapper67, for the entertaining blog – I hope neither the jab nor the golf is too painful.

33. I found this much harder than our blogger did – though to be fair he did concede that difficulty is in the eye of the pen holder. I was another who wrote ADULTERISE, thinking of the practice of putting sawdust in bread, which would adulterise the loaf, but I quickly had second thoughts.

    I struggled like some others with ‘scotch’ defining UNDO and ‘current’ for AFOOT. Mind you, I never actually solved that one, eventually bunging in a clearly wrong ALOFT (in a balloon among the currents of the air?) just to fill the empty space. Afoot? Isn’t that a Sherlock Holmes expression? “The game is current, Watson. Make sure to bring your revolver.” Hmm.

    Thanks to Archie and mc_.

34. Eileen @32, I suspect Latin prefers K because it’s easier to carve than a C, like V versus U.

    Balfour @30, I haven’t seen Pulp Fiction, but I do still have knowledge of GIMP suits. The software I was swearing at as I photo processed last night is, oh so funnily, the GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP, which has started some conversations.

    So nice to see Arachne here because her surfaces are amazing.

    mc_rapper – good luck with the double jab, (also known as being Prescotted), last year I was fine, this year it knocked me out for most of a week, and I’m hearing the same from others.

35. Arachne is out-and-away my favourite setter – and it does seem that we encounter her far too rarely in the Guardian these days, which is a shame.
    As always, tackling her precise and clever clues was a delight, INDULGENCE, A SIGHT and SET-UPS being my faves – and HOARSE made me grin.
    I wholeheartedly agree with Jaydee @8 regarding GERUNDIAL: as any fule kno, gerunds are long-nosed creatures with horns. Hem-hem.
    Many thanks Arachne and mc_rapper67

36. Sorry about the autocorrect “Archie”.

    Thanks to Arachne!

37. mrpenney@9 very many thanks for the explanation. It was really bugging me but now makes perfect sense. Balfour@30, yes the very memorable scene from Pulp Fiction was my first thought too, but I think Tarantino films are not everyone everyone’s cup of cha, as one might say in crosswordland. It’s lovely to see so much appreciation for a great setter – more Arachne please Mr editor!

38. Shanne @34

    Yes – and I versus J, too.

    [I had a similar experience with this year’s double jab 🙁 .]

39. mc_rapper67@21 Re KALENDS. I am aware of the alternative. I was just expressing a preference.

40. What a super treat. I’ll just echo what Eileen @32 said. I managed to piece this together, despite my Covid brain fog. I enjoyed it immensely.

    Thanks Arachne and mcr.

41. What a joy to receive the Kiss of the Spider Woman after having had to wait almost to the end of the kalendar! 🙂

    All of the usual splendid surfaces and witty constructions. My favourites, of which there were many, have all been flagged up already.

    GERUNDIAL is a useful word when describing English grammar, as the gerund has evolved to have the same form as the present participle – so it serves to distinguish the usage. Such adjectival labels are better than ‘parts of speech’ since words in English can have different functions in a sentence.

    [BTW I suffered no after effects from my double jab, fortunately – not even a sore deltoid]

    Many thanks to Arachne and mc

42. My first Arachne, which I very much enjoyed. Great when leather terms feature. I knew straight off that it was TANNERY though parsing took me ages as I had the wrong queen.

    I thought SYMBOL had a super clue. The non-essential “lying” made all the difference.

    My only blackmark was against 2D, which I wasn’t keen on. I ought to have delved further, as I had ALOFT as the solution. AFOOT seems absolutely fine e.g. “The hunt is afoot”. Must try to remember that “loves” can sometimes indicate OO. Clever.

43. So concise and fluent – another masterpiece from Arachne! For any (younger?) one wondering what Jaydee@8 and Wellbeck@35 are talking about, here is a link. If Molesworth was bored in Latin he would ask “What is a gerund,Sir?”. This, he says, “will cause the master (who has no idea) to stutter, clutch the desk and flip his way surreptitiously underneath it through the pages of Kennedy’s Shortbread Eating Primer until he finds the relevant bit, giving the class at least a couple of minutes off….”. If only St Custard’s had employed Eileen.

44. Adrian @43 Molesworth’s speling seme to hav got beter since I was at skool. 🙂

45. Wow, very tough – I had more success in the lower half but had to take a break after solving less than half the puzzle. Lately I have been doing Arachne’s puzzles in the archive, as well as Orlando’s – they are two of my favourite setters.

    Couldn’t finish. I had most trouble in the SE corner – failed to solve 1ac 11ac 13ac (guessed HERMITAGE but couldn’t parse it) 1d 2d 3d.

    Favourite: IMPUNITY.

    New for me: CALENDS; GIMP = a sexual fetishist.

46. [so Michelle@45, you’re another one who could follow Balfour@30’s recommendation to watch Pulp Fiction which is a Tarantino classic. Not everyone’s tasse de thé but if you don’t mind the blood and gore it has lots
    of other attributes]

47. I wonder too about this week’s Carpathian monkey@10. A veritable fill-in!

48. Jaydee@47 – Which bit about not commenting on this week’s puzzle did you not understand?

49. An outstanding puzzle with very well crafted clues. I started with TURING MACHINE, and the puzzle developed in ideal fashion from there, with some challenging as well as some less challenging clues. I noted some top favourites at the time, which have been mentioned a few times already (!).

    Many thanks to Arachne, and to mc_rapper for the blog.

50. [Ed @46 – It has been my experience that those who declare that Tarantino films are not for them have never watched one. Rather, they base their view on the needlessly (IMHO) fearsome reputation of Reservoir Dogs, or rather, on that of a particular scene which is played out to ‘Stuck in the Middle’ by Stealer’s Wheel. R.Dogs is in fact a masterful film which, apart from the brief opening scene, observes the Aristotelian Unities of place, time and action, as later does The Hateful Eight besides the one flashback sequence.]

51. [Re Tarantino (and many other films): there is so much nastiness in the world. Why on earth would I want to watch some for “entertainment”?]

52. Thank you mc_rapper67 for your excellent blog, and hope you’re successfully dodging flying golf balls.

    NECTAR I’d have thought the definition is liquid as amber is in the wordplay. However it’s nicely doing double duty. (Apologies if I’ve missed a comment. I did read them, I promise, but brain and eyesight not reliable these days.)

    There’s always a shout of joy in this household when I see Arachne’s name, seconded by my husband. Happy wife, happy life.

    Wellbeck@35 says it best for me: Arachne is out-and-away my favourite setter – and it does seem that we encounter her far too rarely in the Guardian these days, which is a shame. As always, tackling her precise and clever clues was a delight

    Regarding posters coming in without having taken note of previous comments, I suspect that some people regularly, and others occasionally, don’t read them. I usually solve on a laptop, but when I’ve used my tiny ”smart” phone the scrolling is a bit daunting. I love the way most 15squarers engage with each other, and enjoy the comments and the lively and friendly discussions.

53. On a personal note, I loved Pulp Fiction but have not watched it for so many years that the GIMP references mean nothing to me. It must be time to reacquaint myself with the movie

54. Delightful puzzle.

    News to me that GIMP = fetishist. I’m with Fiona@2.

    Anybody else try to doctor “spurned” in 25a instead of “turned”? Or try MOORG for the rising stable worker? Fortunately years of reading Dick Francis reminded me that “lad’ is a job description, not a personal one. (One of his novels has a woman head lad.)

    Thanks and thanks and thanks again to Arachne, and please come back more. And thanks of course to mc_rapper too.

55. Sorry crispy@48 I didn’t spot that. It won’t happen again I promise

56. Jaydee @45. Apologies for my grumpiness. The moral for me is not to add comments when England lose in the last minute (again!)

57. Thank you and welcome back Arachne! You have been missed by many. The last time we spoke, at the funeral of your dear friend Nutmeg, I wondered when you would set regularly for us again. I hope this puzzle marks the start of a monthly slot.

    Thanks for the excellent blog mc_rapper67

58. 9ac. Fame at last

59. Several people have commented on whether the degree of difficulty of this puzzle was suitable for a prize puzzle. My dictionary says that one meaning of the word ‘prize’ is ‘excellent of its kind; outstanding’ and (as a verb) ‘to value something extremely highly’. Since that describes this puzzle, it’s justification enough for including this puzzle in the prize slot.

60. I don t understand afoot. Why is that current?

61. And what does a sight mean. What’s it to do with much. There’s hidden and there’s concealed beyond all reasonable hope.

62. There hidden and then concealed beyond hope. Even withh 225 I don’t get them.

63. Kirsty — see mrpenney@9. It’s good to read the comments before you make yours.

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