Guardian 26,766 / Arachne

by

A lovely late Christmas present – a puzzle from Arachne to blog, enjoyable as ever. As usual, I’ll leave you to name your own favourites. Many thanks to Arachne.

My last blog of the year, so many thanks and warmest wishes for 2016 to all setters, fellow-bloggers, commenters, lurkers who haven’t commented yet – and to Gaufrid, who keeps us all in order.

Across

1 Married nursing assistant had babies (7)
WHELPED
WED [married] round [nursing] HELP [assistant]

5 Introduction to Frinton, not just somewhere to enjoy yourself (7)
FUNFAIR
F[rinton] + UNFAIR [not just]

9 Keen on wife following close behind (2,3)
IN TOW
INTO [keen on] + W [wife]

10 Gadarene stampede to check p-pulse (6,3)
GARDEN PEA
Anagram [stampede] of GADARENE round P

11 I’m lost for words after recollecting swelling bosom in steamy novel (10)
BONKBUSTER
ER [I’m lost for words] after a reversal [recollecting] of KNOB [swelling] + BUST [bosom]

12 Alcohol-related trouble (3)
AIL
Sounds like [related] ‘ale’ [alcohol]

14 Unprofessional activities of Tories duly condemned (2-2-8)
DO-IT-YOURSELF
Anagram [condemned] of OF TORIES DULY

18 Pesters a Whig to change statement to the House (5,7)
STAGE WHISPER
Anagram [to change] of PESTERS A WHIG

21 Sound of indifference from pantomime horse (3)
MEH
Hidden in pantomiME Horse

22 Family member set off, seeming to lack answer (4-6)
STEP-PARENT
Anagram [off] of SET + [a]PPARENT [seeming, minus a [answer]

25 Tickle and excite it a little (9)
TITILLATE
Anagram [excite] of IT A LITTLE

26 Fine boomerangs, in the style of a native Australian (5)
KOALA
Reversal [boomerangs] of OK [fine] + À LA [in the style of]

27 Spouse and smallest offspring picked up pants (1-6)
Y-FRONTS
Sounds like [picked up] ‘wife’ [spouse] + ‘runts’ [smallest offspring]

28 Source of Vitamin C vital when suffering relapse (7)
SATSUMA
Reversal [suffering relapse] of A MUST [vital] + AS [when]

Down

1 Little lad drained of type of blood in scene from Dracula (6)
WHITBY
WHIT [little] + B[o]Y [lad minus o – type of blood] for the North Yorkshire birthplace of Dracula

2 Get in a flap at the table (6)
EATING
Anagram [flap] of GET IN A

3 Man smashed head of Russian moneylender (10)
PAWNBROKER
PAWN [man, in chess] + BROKE [smashed] + R[ussian]

4 Wise duke upset top drawer (5)
DÉGAS
Reversal [upset] of SAGE [wise] + D [duke]

5 Trimmings of hair down there, so short (9)
FURBELOWS
FUR [hair] + BELOW [down there] + S[o]

6 Chap is unfamiliar, but not very (4)
NOEL
NO[v]EL [unfamiliar]

7 Dove very softly into a quiet river (8)
APPEASER
PP [very softly] in A EASE [a quiet] R [river]: I do dislike that North American past tense – but it makes a great surface!

8 Actual, complete sentence (4,4)
REAL LIFE
REAL [complete] + LIFE [sentence]

13 Worry about extremely exploitative figure in capitalist system (4,6)
FREE MARKET
FRET [worry] round E[xploitativ]E + MARK [figure]

15 “What a hit!”, Ian shrieked, catching number from South Pacific (9)
TAHITIANS
Hidden in whaT A HIT IAN Shrieked

16 International judge supporting certain type of equality (8)
ISOMETRY
I [international] + TRY [judge] after [supporting, in a down clue] SOME [certain]

17 Tube of tortoiseshell perhaps not entirely straight (8)
CATHETER
CAT [tortoiseshell perhaps] + HETER[o] [straight]

19 Outsiders to decolonise Java and Vanuatu, strangely familiar phenomenon (4,2)
DÉJÀ VU
First and last letters of DecolonisE, JavA and VanatU

20 Federal capital to put up tall wall to exclude students (6)
OTTAWA
Reversal [to put up] of TO + TA[ll] WA[ll] [minus students]

21 Smooth journalists importune crowd (5)
PRESS
Quadruple definition

24 Plan polkaing periodically (4)
PLAN
This must surely be a[nother] editorial oversight: the clue appears in the same form both in the paper and online

45 comments on “Guardian 26,766 / Arachne”

  1. I liked this. First four or five answers in easily, then I reached an impasse before slowly solving the rest. I’m sure your explanation is the correct one, but I parsed 11a as KNOB, in colloq. sense of ‘moron’, reversed (I’m lost for words after recollecting) & BUSTER (swelling bosom) – a bit iffy, but sort of ‘more (swelling) bust’. Lots of really good clues, eg FURBELOWS and SATSUMA, but my favourite was PRESS, the first qd I’ve seen for a while.

    24 – no comment!

    Thank you to Arachne and Eileen – bast wishes for the New Year to you too.

  2. Great puzzle as usual but waiting to see what the real clue for 24 was-maybe “sketch polkaing regularly” or some such. Interested to see what happened there.

  3. A wonderful puzzle as always from Arachne – smooth surfaces and brilliant clues. Favourites were BONKBUSTER, DEGAS, Y-FRONTS and DO-IT-YOURSELF. A Happy New Year to all!

  4. Best wishes to you too Eileen, and thanks for all the blogs through the year.
    As always, I enjoyed Arachne’s puzzle, though I failed to parse ‘bonkbuster’ – perhaps it’s just as well that Paul wasn’t writing the clue ?.
    I did wonder whether 24d was a deliberate bluff, but I think not, it would be too clumsy for Arachne.

  5. Sorry, the question mark after the second paragraph @4 was meant to be a smiley emoticon but I presume the site doesn’t accept them.

  7. Not one of Arachne’s hardest, which suits me just fine because sometimes I find her a bit on the tricky side. Not that there isn’t plenty here to get the brain cells working, 24d the obvious exception.

    FUNFAIR my favourite, not least because Frinton-on-Sea is (unfairly?) held to be the dullest seaside resort in Britain.

  9. Great fun!

    Does anyone know why the printed version of the puzzle has the clue for 8dn in a larger font size than the others? Tried to work in “larger than life”, but can’t make it work.

    Thanks to Eileen and Arachne and best wishes to all

  10. Just a note on Dracula & Whitby – as far as I remember, Whitby is the place where Dracula lands in England (I don’t think it was his birthplace)
    Thanks to spider woman and eileen

  11. Hi cholecyst @9

    I solved the puzzle online before my paper came, so I hadn’t noticed that.

    Southofnonorth @10

    I was quoting from the Guardian article to which I gave the link: Bram Stoker wrote ‘Dracula’ in Whitby, so it’s the ‘birthplace’ of the book.

  13. Many thanks to Eileen for the blog, and to everyone for taking the trouble to comment not just on this, but on all puzzles through the year. Thanks, too, to the indefatigable Gaufrid for all his hard work.

    24dn – aargh. This was submitted as “Propose polkaing periodically”.

    Warmest wishes for 2016 to all of you, my friends.

    Love and hugs,

    Arachne

  14. Thanks Arachne & Eileen; Seasons Greetings to you both and all the other setters, bloggers and posters.

    I got a bit stuck in the NW corner, not knowing the Dracula reference. I did like WHELPED though after I had been through all the abbreviations for nursing assistants that I could think of! I also liked the ‘pants’ clue among others.

  15. Thank you Arachne and Eileen for all the fun throughout the year and best wishes for 2016.

    This was great, too many favourites to list, but I must mention SATSUMA, DEJA VU and OTTAWA!

  16. Yes, a pretty good puzzle. This compiler is one who seems to ‘get’ the cryptic grammar thing very well and who is a good writer.

    It’s disappointing to see yet more evidence of editorial ineptitude here, but this is The Guardian unfortunately. For the puzzle, I found myself disappointed only by some of the anagram-indicator choices. in 10a I didn’t really like ‘stampede’, or ‘check’ really; in 11a ‘recollecting’, which is sometimes used as an anag-ind, I thought could have been replaced with ‘recalled’ or something; 14a had ‘condemned’ which only suggests word-smashing vis a circuitous route thru synonyms; 18a shows how it should be done, very simply, very good; 25a why could that not just be ‘excites’?; 17 as blogged, but I think it SPOILS the surface; 24 yes argh.

    HH

  17. Another excellent puzzle – shame the editing process seems to be so haphazard as the original 24d would have been fine. Liked DO-IT-YOURSELF, STAGE WHISPER, Y-FRONTS and many more. TAHITIANS was last in, but should have been obvious much earlier.

    Thanks to Eileen and Arachne

  18. For 2dn I had extend because to extend a table (as for Christmas lunch, if you remember that far back …) you get in a flap. works as well for me as EATING.

  19. I don’t think I can beat what Marienkaefer said @8.

    Thank you and happy New Year to both ladies and the rest of you too.

  20. I was flummoxed by PLAN but, remembering the editor, realized it must be cock-up. Perhaps an editor who actually edits might be an idea!
    Usual good stuff from Arachne. LOI DEGAS which I didn’t see at first.
    Thanks Arachne.

  21. Crossbencher @18, I also had EXTEND for 2d, but then realised it did not really work for me because it is a “leaf” we put into our dining room table, a flap is attached on one side… but just checked, the COED gives flap n 1… a table leaf. So it does work!

  22. I think I was perhaps too hasty there, the table flap being referred to is probably one that hangs from the side of a gate-leg table.

    n a piece of…wood…hinged or attached by one side only and often used to cover a gap, e.g. … a table leaf.

  23. Thanks to Arachne and Eileen. I finally got BONKBUSTER from the clues though the term was new to me and also Y-FRONTS (not a US usage) that had turned up in a previous puzzle (though I needed Eileen’s help for the Y-F as “wife”) but spent a lot of time staring at PLAN thinking I was missing something. Very enjoyable.

  24. Thanks Arachne and Eileen
    My favourite compiler, and many clues up to her usual level. Y-FRONTS and AIL were my favourites. However I did think that the clue for GARDEN PEA (p-pulse) was a bit clumsy by Arachne’s standards; also, although IN TOW is a valid expression, “following close behind” suggests ON TOW to me.

    I also wondered if 24d was a double bluff, but decided it was too easy, so probably simply an editing error.

    [25a reminded me of a riddle:
    How do you titillate an ocelot?
    Oscillate its tits a lot!]

  25. btw Arachne – I just read your nice post on the Guardian site. Just in case you drop in here too (as you sometimes do) I would have said that this was one of your easier ones, though no less enjoyable for that.

  27. I don’t normally look at the comments under the puzzle on the Guardian site, but see that Malcolm King is a supercharged version of Hoggy! So we get off quite lightly here.

  29. muffin @28
    Well, I’m glad you missed Arachne’s comment here as otherwise you might not have pointed us to her interesting comment on the Guardian site and then I would have missed that.

    drofle @27
    MK’s comments there seem to be on a completely different level of nastiness to hh’s nitpicking.

  30. A very nice puzzle with too many very nice clues to select favourites. I missed the parsing of -ER in 11a and the significance of “related” in 12a, but I am pleased to have parsed the rest given that I usually struggle with Arachne’s puzzles (that’s in no way a complaint, though).

    Arachne, thank you for dropping in to explain 24a, and thank you for this and many other delightful puzzles. Thanks also to Eileen, again for this and also for her many previous blogs and helpful comments.

  31. Another quality puzzle this year from the Guardian team. I enjoyed this one because it was solvable without the need to look up reference sources for unknown words and suchlike. (I couldn’t have done that yesterday.)

    Thank you Arachne and Eileen.

  32. jennyk @ 29 – Yes, perhaps it’s unfair to make any comparison between MK’s comments and HH’s. I find it extraordinary that he (MK) could be so gratuitously unpleasant about Arachne’s offering today.

  33. drofle @ 32

    MK is gratuitously offensive about many setters, including recently telling one to ‘Bugger off’, for which the comment was removed…on other days there is effusive and repetitive praise for wildly different puzzles…then other commenters are branded sycophantic.

    MK is nowt but a troll

    [btw, thanks Arachne for another delight, and Eileen for the blog. Or am I being sycophantic?]

  34. drofle @32
    Yes, some extraordinary opinions expressed by MK, to some extent supported by some (one?) other. Arachne cannot surely be described as an “Emperor’s new clothes” compiler. (Apologies if this doesn’t make sense to those who haven’t alos been reading the Guradian thread.)

  35. I must say that I find the Guardian thread rather odd because posters exercise such amazing self-restraint: it seems to be the rule that you can’t say anything that might give a hint as to the answers to the clues. I suppose it has a strange fascination for some.

  37. drofle
    There is a difference, in that the solutions are explicitly given here. I know that the “Cheat” button on the Guardian site would also give them, but I expect that most solvers prefer not to use that.

    I remember that the first time I was advised to come here for an explanation for a clue, I was somehwat disconcerted to find all the answers given!

  38. ………….although I am eternally grateful to whoever it was – I ca’t remember – who suggested cominbg here.

  40. Yes, I rarely post there, as I find it distasteful how rude they seem to be to each other. There is very little of that here.

  41. Late to the party after a busy family day, but just wanted to say that this was a delight (sorry to be a sycophant) although I did find it pretty difficult, especially 24dn …

    Arachne’s puzzles always put a smile on my face, which is what I think cryptic crosswords should be about.

    Thanks to Eileen for all her blogs this year and to Spiderwoman for the puzzles. Good to see her back in harness.

  42. Another excellent puzzle from Arachne.

    I’d never heard of furbelows so I failed on that one.

    24D was so obviously “PLAN” and equally obviously not the clue submitted by Arachne.

    This is surely the final nail in our eternally holidaying illustrious ed’s coffin. It’s been obvious for the last year or so that he is more and more often AWOL.

    Surely he must respond somehow?

    Thanks to Eileen and Arachne

  44. Thanks Arachne and Eileen.

    Really enjoyed STEP PARENT, BONKBUSTER and the cleverly hidden TAHITIANS.

    Such a shame about 24dn. These things happen.

  45. Thanks Arachne and Eileen

    A back pile one on a rainy Mother’s Day down here … and what a delight this was!

    Couldn’t parse the BONK-ER part of 11a, so thanks for that – also had not heard of the BONKBUSTER term before either ! Parsed AIL as an ‘alcohol ignition lock’ which is a device used in Australia for people who have a drink drive conviction that forces them to do a breath test which will then allow the engine of their car to start (if they have a zero reading that is). Expensive to fit and remove and you pay a monthly fee for the pleasure of using it !!! I had a friend who had one fitted !

    Had parsed 7d slightly differently as well – went with PEASE = P’s = PP (very softly) in A P(quiet) R (river) – a bit out there, but it ticked it off for me.

    Finished in the NW corner with that BONKBUSTER, DEGAS (which WAS top drawer when I twigged to it) and WHITBY (which I had to google to connect to Dracula which I still haven’t read as yet).

    Hope you are having a Happy New Year, Eileen – I do enjoy your blogs a lot … even 4+ months on !!! 🙂

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