Guardian 29,575 – Arachne

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A Boxing Day treat to see a puzzle from Arachne – a fairly gentle one, to suit anyone who may have overindulged yesterday, but beautifully constructed as ever. Thanks to Arachne, and Merry Christmas to all.

 
Across
1 DOWNGRADE Belittle fine hair, reportedly grizzled (9)
DOWN (fine hair) + “greyed” (grizzled)
6 BLOOM Liberal dons prosper and flourish (5)
L in BOOM (to prosper)
9 AORTA Vessel of canoers that oddly disappeared (5)
The even letters of cAnOeRs ThAt
10 VAPIDNESS Vacuity of Victor, annoying in spades (9)
V[ictor] + (IN SPADES)*
11 LEFTWINGER Radical female sib enthralled by French painter (10)
F[emale) TWIN (sibling) in [Fernamd] LEGER. Chambers has this as a hyphenated word, but other sources may differ
12 OSSA Bones huge as boomerangs (4)
OS (outsize, huge) + reverse of AS
14 WRANGLE Argue with Republican point of view (7)
W + R + ANGLE (point of view)
15 STUDIED Virile chap, explosive and well practised (7)
STUD + IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
17 ABELARD President pursued by fat lover (7)
ABE (Abraham Lincoln) + LARD, giving the mediaeval French lover of Héloïse
19 MILEAGE United relegated from league after midfielder’s first international benefit (7)
M[idfielder] I[nternational) + LEAGUE less U. Benefit as in “you won’t get much mileage out of that”
20 KALE Heartily necking beer and cabbage (4)
The “heart” of necKing + ALE
22 BRASSED OFF Fed up of bad serfs running amok (7,3)
(OF BAD SERFS)*
25 ESOTERICA Secrets of earl and girl behind boozer (9)
E[arl] + SOT + ERICA
26 SCANT Limited name-dropping is entertaining (5)
After removing the misleading hyphgen we get N[ame] “entertained by” SCAT (animal’s dropping)
27 DOYEN Fulfil desire to be master (5)
DO + YEN
28 GREENLAND New Englander in Danish territory (9)
ENGLANDER*
Down
1 DRAWL Slowly speak of attraction, and pull at last (5)
DRAW (attacrion) + [pul]L
2 WIREFRAME Computer model of firearm we designed (9)
(FIREARM WE)*
3 GLASWEGIAN Scot sawing a leg off (10)
(SAWING A LEG)*
4 ADVANCE Start to adjust ball bearing very early (7)
A[djust] + V[ery] in DANCE (ball)
5 EMPRESS Completely timeless vamp is supremely powerful woman (7)
TEMPTRESS (vamp) less both Ts
6 BADE Asked criminal to cover me, heading off (4)
BAD (criminal) + [m]E
7 OBEYS Complies with order, knocking stuffing out of yobs (5)
OBE (order) + Y[ob]S
8 MISHANDLE Badly manage squeamish and lethargic nurses (9)
Hidden in (“nursed by”) squeaMISH AND LEthargic
13 FULL NELSON Stuffed admiral in hold (4,6)
FULL + NELSON
14 WEAK-KNEED Timid setters have to entertain a couple of kings (4-5)
A K K in WE (setters) NEED
16 INAMORATA Lover wearing scent picked up at counter (9)
IN (wearing) + reverse (“picked up”) of AROMA + reverse (counter) of AT
18 DARLING Sweetie left in bottle (7)
L in DARING (courage, bottle)
19 MISTAKE Recalling one’s bet is bad move (7)
Reverse of I’M (one’s) + STAKE
21 LOOPY Can probably empty potty (5)
LOO (can, toilet) + P[robabl]Y
23 FATED Thick journalist is doomed (5)
FAT + ED[itor]
24 SEEN Observed articulate contretemps (4)
Sounds like “scene” (an argument, contretemps)

69 comments on “Guardian 29,575 – Arachne”

  1. Lovely to see Arachne again.

    Lots to like including: ABELARD, ESOTERICA, EMPRESS, WEAK-KNEED, OBEYS, DOWNGRADE, OSSA

    And I thought MISHANDLE was well hidden

    Thanks Arachne and Andrew

  4. Super puzzle, just tricky enough to spark the neurons back into life after yesterday. Many thanks to Arachne and to Andrew

  5. Speechless. What a wonderful web she weaves. Too many juicy bits to mention. Even now, after some time, I can’t pick a favourite.

  8. Ideal for a day when traditionally we aren’t expected to exert ourselves. I vaguely knew WIREFRAME, had to think for a moment about definition for MILEAGE, and saw that DOWNGRADE was might be a mixture of a word for fine hair and a homonym of a word meaning ‘grizzled’, but still needed the crossers to get the answer. Liked all these and many more.
    Andrew – for LOOPY, the empty word is ‘ProbablY’
    Thanks both.

  9. Wonderful to see Arachne’s byline. I managed to fill the grid correctly despite having never encountered ‘wireframe’ and failing to parse ‘scant’ – it’s a long time since I came across ‘scat’ as animal droppings.
    Boxing Day best wishes to all.

  10. Thanks Arachne and Andrew
    I didn’t find this straightforward. I confidently entered FIRMWARE in 2d before running out of letters. I spent some time trying to parse LYSISTRATA for 11a (SIS as the sibling; I didn’t understand the actual parse). I didn’t parse OBEYS either. I thought BADE was a bit weak, especially for Arachne.
    Favourites BLOOM for the misleading “dons”, and the image of a Scotsman sawing off a leg for 3d.

  12. I had a quiet Christmas, but I didn’t need anything harder than this today. I love Arachne’s puzzles. I had a couple of different parsings, but I won’t bore you with them as they are obviously wrong.
    Thanks both.

  13. In 25a I figured out ESOTERICA from the definition and crossers but don’t understand the parsing. Where does ‘sot’ come from and is ‘Erica’ commonly used for ‘girl’? Oh, had a thought – is it ‘sot’ = ‘boozer’? I was thinking of a place not a person. I didn’t find this easy but there were a few good anagrams to get me started.

  14. Like George@9 I failed to parse SCANT, despite seeing it was N in SCAT, but only remembered scat as a form of jazz-singing. Otherwise, happy to join in the general praises for a pleasant puzzle for the slightly-befuddled boxing day state. And thanks to Andrew for the blog.

  15. A nice way to while away an hour of Boxing Day. New to me were the French painter, ABELARD, and the improvised explosive device. I still don’t think that outsize is huge, as I’ve mentioned before.

  17. Wonderful puzzle. I love Arachne’s clueing style, so precise and such enjoyably readable surfaces!

    I slowed down a bit in the SE corner.

    Favourites: ESOTERICA, LEFTWINGER, MISTAKE, MILEAGE (loi).

    Thanks, both.

  18. Falls within the scope of what I’d consider my ideal puzzle: it took a bit of time and thought but was entertaining and accessible. Missed two or three parsings including for LEFTWINGER, but had enough information to be sure of the answer in each case.

  19. A slow start (FOI 16D) and quite a slow finish, too. LOI Mileage; I thought it was a paid, HMRC-type benefit of 45p per mile.

  20. A thoroughly enjoyable crossword but I dislike fervently the use of ‘girl’ to indicate that I should select one of countless forenames.

  22. Great stuff. I entered MISHANDLE but failed to parse it, wondering how SH AND worked contained within IDLE … forgetting my own rule that when I can’t parse a clue it’s usually a run-on. I also mis-parsed my LoI, SCANT, thinking we had to think of SCAT (Cleo Lane style) as the entertainment that comes from dropping the N[ame] from SCANT; your parsing works much better. Loved EMPRESS, ABELARD and ESOTERICA among others. Thanks Arachne and Andrew.

  23. paddymelon @5: if you see my reply to your comment on the Guardian thread, know that my enjoyment of the puzzle was similar to yours 🙂

  25. Just the thing. Very smooth surfaces and some tricky parsing.

    GIF@3: I worked with some early computer graphics back in the day (and my youngest is now a lecturer in animation), so WIREFRAME was a write-in for me.

  26. I was another who failed on the animal dropping, but I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. I liked the image of Queen Victoria as a timeless temptress.

  27. After a really lovely multi-generational family day yesterday, I’m enjoying time to myself today – and what better company could there be than an Arachne crossword to settle down with? It’s sometimes good not to get all one’s presents at once.

    Presents in abundance here, especially in the usual witty, story-telling surfaces, especially the president’s fat lover, the Scottish amputee, the viscerated yobs, our timid setters’ hospitality obligations and the aromatic lover at the perfume counter. I can never see INAMORATA (as we do quite often in crosswords) without thinking of the wonderful F and S Hippopotamus Song (glorious mud), with its ingenious rhymes:
    ‘…The fair Hippopotama he aimed to entice
    From her seat on that hilltop above
    As she hadn’t got a Ma to give her advice
    Came tiptoeing down to her love
    Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
    Of the song that they sang as they met
    His inamorata adjusted her garter
    And lifted her voice in duet …’

    Many more favourites, including VAPIDNESS, MILEAGE, BRASSED OFF, ESOTERICA, SCANT, EMPRESS and MISHANDLE.

    Many thanks to Arachne for the delightful present and to Andrew for a great blog.

  28. Another who failed to parse SCANT but apart from that, this was a real treat. I liked that ‘completely timeless’ removed any doubts about how many ts to remove in EMPRESS and I was also amused by the surface in GLASWEGIAN.

    Ta Arachne & Andrew.

  29. Lovely puzzle, thanks A.
    Just beaten by INAMORATA. It’s a NHO and I would probably have persevered more had it not been for a Boxing Day hangover.
    Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  30. Splendid gift for the Feast of Stephen. All the usual cleverness in construction, with amusing and cogent surfaces. Too many great clues from which to pick favourites.

    WIREFRAME was my LOI – I didn’t know the word, but the clue is solid.

    The clue for GREENLAND prompted a queasy recollection of the repeated proposal from the POTUS-elect (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) 🙁

    Many thanks to Arachne and Andrew

  31. Loved the GLASWEGIAN painfully removing a lower limb, and had the same thought as Gervase@30 about GREENLAND. Thoroughly enjoyed this in its entirety this morning…

  32. My favourite setter, but this one’s a bit “itsy-bitsy” for me.
    Or “etsy-ketsy”, as we say in Greece.
    GIRL= ERICA: I agree with ARhymerOinks & Muffin; it’s a bit of a cop-out when setters use this tired device.
    I found quite a few of the clues similarly pedestrian.
    I accept that I’m out of step, here. That’ll be the ” day after Christmas” effect. Apologies.

  33. Good stuff. 21D was my LOI, I was held up by emptying “potty” which gave me the misleadingly-correct PY, and left me baffled by the search for a three-letter word for “probably” and the definition as “can”.

    Eventually the penny dropped.

  35. Anna @34: ADVANCE can be an adjective. From Chambers:

    adjective
    Forward (of position)
    Made, given, etc ahead of time

    As in ‘the advance party’

  40. Beautiful Boxing Day gift from Arachne. I loved it all.
    Favourites include EMPRESS, ABELARD, LEFTWINGER, WEAK-KNEED,
    INAMORATA, SCANT.
    Eileen@27, with those lyrics, you have given me an earworm. 😊
    Thank you to Arachne for the delightful puzzle and to Andrew for the great blog.

  44. Very enjoyable puzzle! Like ARhymerOinks@20 I grumble at “girl” for a generic forename but at least this went in quickly with the crossers. Another who didn’t parse SCANT, and I particularly liked the clever use of “dons” for an envelope in BLOOM. Thanks Arachne and Andrew!

    About WIREFRAME, my hobby of reading about old video games helped me here, as some of the very first computer role-playing games like Wizardry had wire-frame graphics.

  45. matt w @44
    Do you remember the wireframe graphics in the original Elite? It was just about the only computer game I ever played. (I only got to “Deadly”, though!)

  46. Excellent puzzle, all but 10 clues completed over early morning coffees,. A short and chilly bike ride woke up the rest of the grey cells to be able to finish. Scant was the LOI, as I couldn’t parse.

  48. Thank you, Arachne, for Boxing Day fun, and to Andrew for the blog – I’m another who thought ‘I know scat singing is entertaining, but that doesn’t quite cut it …’

    Wishing you all a very happy festive season, and fingers crossed for 2025.

  49. Thanks Arachne for a wonderful Christmas present. I agree with Andrew’s assessment, ‘beautifully constructed as ever’. My favourites included VAPIDNESS, GREENLAND, EMPRESS, the nicely hidden MISHANDLE, and FATED. Thanks Andrew for filling in my parsing gaps.

  51. Eileen@27 So I’m not the only who can’t hear the word INAMORATA without drifting off into the wonderful world of F & S . 🦛😊
    Thanks to Arachne and Andrew for a Boxing Day treat.

  52. Nice puzzle. I thought the hyphen in 26 across was a bit misleading. ‘name-dropping’ is one word, but the solver is required to treat the two elements separately. I’m not sure that’s playing by the rules. I was looking for a word which with ‘n’ removed supplied the answer. I think the setter should either have used a full dash, not a hyphen, or better still nothing at all between the words. Otherwise good stuff.

  53. Smashing as always from Arachne. Here’s hoping for more in the New Year.

    I get the grumbles about girl being one of potentially thousands, but I think it’s fine when the clue is so well put together. If “girl” was your only way in it looks hopeless. But for me the solve was the opposite. I’d got E and SOT and just needed the girl, and then I felt smart when I got it (didn’t need crossers).

    I believe this level of detail is not accidental with top level setters. If the rest had been harder we’d have probably seen Heather instead. But my guess is she was deemed unnecessary here.

  54. I also wrote in the first six letters of FIRMWARE at 2 before having to rub them all out (does anyone else use a pencil and paper still?).
    I enjoyed AORTA and FULL NELSON.
    Nice gentle puzzle and thanks Andrew for the blog on this Boxing Day Bank Holiday.

  56. Delightful puzzle!

    Thanks to Arachne and to Andrew for the blog. And especially for the INAMORATA parse – I somehow missed ‘scent’ altogether while solving the clue and couldn’t make it make… scents.

  57. I agree with Mark@53. My only crosser before solving 25a was the initial E, which the clue gives anyway, and when pub, bar and inn didn’t seem very likely, I thought of SOT, whereupon ERICA appeared without invitation. No need to invoke heather at all.

    I wish 26a had been equally forthcoming. Failing to parse it meant that I had to try to think of any other possible entries apart from SCANT, and finally I gave up and wrote it in. If only I had thought of scat singing as being entertaining rather than just irritating, I would have saved half an hour’s useless endeavour. (Yes, I know that’s not the correct parsing anyway, but at this stage anything would have done.)

    Thanks to Arachne and Andrew.

  58. Oh this was such good fun!
    As always with Arachne: a host of elegant witty clues – my faves being Lincoln’s tubby lover, the stuffed admiral and the completely timeless vamp, the sweetie in the bottle and the loopy loo.
    (Wasn’t there a song, “Here We Go Loopy-Lou”?)
    Thank you Arachne for the brilliance, Andrew for the blog, and Eileen for reminding me of F&S’ hippo.
    (I’m now trying to remember that joke about the female judge, punchline being: m’lud m’lud, Gloria’s m’lud….
    Excess of brandy butter must cause brain-fog!)

  59. Eileen@55 oh, absolutely. It’s wonderful, and I don’t think I’ve heard that particular preamble before. 😀

  61. Old Quacksalver @52: You’re right that this isn’t allowed by strict Ximenean conventions – so you wouldn’t find it in a Times puzzle – but Guardian setters are allowed to bend the rules. This device is used quite a lot here, and many of us enjoy it a lot.

  63. Lovely entertainment and thanks to both. All has been said.

    [A Happy Christmas (only 11 more days to go….) to every one.]

    [Eileen@60: I’m not sure that that is the link you intended?]

    [Steffen@50: I hope you’ll forgive my saying so but on that evidence you seem to be stuck in anagrams. Perhaps in the new year you might care to think about a course in cryptic solving (I know there are those among us who offer suchlike (I think)). Or the quick cryptic for a while (perhaps you’ve already done that…?]

  65. Pleasantly surprised to see Arachne, some good stuff but also it seemed a bit contrived compared to other Arachne puzzles which at their best are nutmegesque.

  66. Thanks to Arachne for this beautifully constructed puzzle. Favourites were MISHANDLED; ABELARD; MILAGE; ESOTERICA; MISHANDLED;
    Thanks also to Andrew for the blog.

  69. Completed this wonderful puzzle, except for mis-parsing SCANT. Good difficulty level for me — a lot of challenges that were very satisfying to overcome

    Great to see commenters referring to some of the delightful imagery created by the surfaces. For me, a good witty surface is an important part of the joy of doing these puzzles

    Eileen@27 thanks for invoking the Hippopotamus Song — that’s exactly where my mind went, too! I’m currently sitting with my 98-year-old Dad in the hospital emergency ward, and we just sang the chorus together, for a nice lift

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