Guardian Cryptic N° 26,103 by Arachne

by

The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26103.

This did not take me quite as long as the last Arachne that I blogged, but still gave me plenty of exercise. The clues seemed even better on writing up the blog than when solving. Ta indeed, Arachne.

Across
9. Lively former queen? (9)
EXUBERANT A charade (I suppose that is how to describe it) of EX-ÜBER-ANT (‘former queen’ of an ant colony). What a delightful way to start a puzzle!
10. Reportedly drove squirrel away (5)
HOARD A homophone (‘reportedly’) of HORDE (‘drove’, as in “they came in droves”). 
11. We watch them endlessly recount untruths (7)
TELLIES A charade of TEL[l] (‘endlessly recount’) plus LIES (‘untruths’).
12. Deny being close to manager O’Neill after reversal (7)
RENEGUE A charade of R (‘close to manageR‘) plus EUGENE (O’Neill’) ‘after reversal’.
13. Conspicuous poverty traps (5)
OVERT A hidden answer (‘traps’) in ‘pOVERTy’. 
14. Stop man at newspaper being fumigated (9)
SULPHURED I think this must be SULPHUR (‘S’, chemical symbol) plus ED (‘top man at newspaper’). 
16. Top man of high calibre? (5,10)
HUMAN CANNONBALL Cryptic definition – ‘top’ referring to the Big Top. 
19. I bet voles, when excited, show signs of arousal (9)
LOVEBITES An anagram (‘when excited’) of ‘I bet voles’.
21. Sadly, Hibs wingers dismissed as “unprepared” (2-3)
AD-LIB ‘[s]ADL[y] [h]IB[s]’ without the first and last letters of each word (‘wingers dismissed’). 
22. Answer needles terribly rude man in tights (7)
DANSEUR An envelope (‘needles’) of ANS (‘answer’) in REUD, an anagram (‘terribly’) of ‘rude’. 
23. Perhaps top deck is better upholstered (7)
BUSTIER Double definition, the first being the article of clothing. 
24. Beats Mo by seconds (5)
TICKS A charade of TICK (‘Mo’ment) plus S (‘second’). 
25. He’s rotund rustic with jutting jaw (9)
UNDERSHOT An anagram (‘rustic’) of ‘hes rotund’. 
…
Down
1. Work occupies troublesome Luther in cell (10)
NEUTROPHIL An envelope (‘occupies’) of OP (‘work’) in NEUTRHIL, an anagram (‘troublesome’) of ‘Luther in’.
2. Nine months packed with tension and hesitation (4,4)
FULL TERM A charade of FULL (‘packed’) plus T (‘tension’) plus ERM (‘hesitation’ – which generally calls for just ER, but this fits just as well).
3. Describe being free of fearsome old Scottish people? (6)
DEPICT A playful reading as DE-PICT (‘free of fearsome old Scottish people’). 
4. Regularly praises exam success (4)
PASS Alternate letters (‘regularly’) of P[r]A[i]S[e]S.
5. Conservative succession secured by Nazi police plots (10)
STORYLINES An envelope (‘secured by’) of TORY (‘Conservative’) plus LINE (‘succession’) in SS (‘Nazi police’). 
6. Go up to the bar twice for Skol (4-4)
CHIN-CHIN Another misleading capitalization: skol is the toast, not the contents of the glass raised, and the ‘bar’ is for chinning.
7. Lancaster House? (6)
HANGAR Cryptic definition: where you might find a Lancaster, the WWII bomber plane. 
8. Vain creep needing no introduction (4)
IDLE A subtraction [s]IDLE (‘creep’) without its first letter (‘needing no introduction’). 
14. With which to shoot gnu? (10)
SCATTERGUN An reverse anagram SCATTER GUN to get ‘gnu’.
15. Careful doctor reeled a bit (10)
DELIBERATE An anagram (‘doctor’) of ‘reeled a bit’.
17. Guillotined European aristocrats (8)
NOBLESSE A charade of NOB-LESS (‘guillotined’, NOB being the head) plus E (‘European’).
18. None left, you can be sure of that (3,5)
ALL RIGHT Definition and literal interpretation.
20. City which is very pleasant after end of June (6)
VENICE A charade of V (‘very’) plus E (‘end of JunE‘) plus NICE (‘pleasant’).
21. Group travel document with two pages missing (6)
ASSORT [p]ASS[p]ORT without PP (‘two pages missing’). 
22. May I, perhaps, go out? (4)
DATE Double definition – May the first.
23. Northumbrian monk hiding drug in obvious place (4)
BEDE A little puzzling: it would seem to parse BED E, but ‘hiding’ suggests an envelope, and ‘obvious place’ is rather loose for BED. Any better ideas?

  1. Thanks PeterO and Arachne. My reading of 23D was E (drug) under BED (as in hide under the bed, which is probably a pretty obvious place).

  2. Thanks Arachne and PeterO,

    This was great fun. There were some easy starters, before a fairly accessible middle section and then, for me, a hold up before the top right eventually succumbed.

    The whole of the clue for BUSTIER may be read as an extended definition as well.

    I parsed BEDE as per AndrewC.

  3. Thanks Peter. Took about an hour for this, delayed trying to get NEUTROPHIL due to the deft inclusion of ‘in’ in the fodder. Didn’t like the ‘in’ instead of ‘under’ in 23D. Loved the Uber-ant. Thanks for explaining horde=drove; I toyed with ‘whored’ as a sounds-like. I guess you’re right on the baffling s-top in 14a. Thanks Arachne.

  4. I don’t often comment any more but just had to say how much I enjoyed this. 9ac was my favourite but so many others raised smiles or laughs. S Top man, under the bed, depict etc. This is why I do crosswords – sheer pleasure. Many thanks to Arachne and PeterO.

  5. Thanks PeterO (and Arachne, of course.) Delightful though less intricate than last time – but then that puzzle was obviously a labour of love.

    Not sure I understand your parsing of the first definition of BUSTIER. Isn’t it a reference to double-decker buses?

  6. Thanks, PeterO, for the blog.

    Ants, squirrels, voles, gnus … an intriguing round-up.

    I agree that this was slightly less taxing than Arachne’s puzzles can be but no less enjoyable for that and lots to smile at, as usual.

    I loved the economy of 10ac – perhaps my favourite – and was impressed by ‘manager O’Neill’. 22dn is very neat, too.

    I was slightly puzzled by 23ac. Like PeterO, I thought that one definition must be ‘top’, but couldn’t really see what ‘deck’ was doing. Now I agree with NeilW [as I usually do!] that it’s BUS TIER [perhaps top deck].

    Many thanks, as ever, Arachne, for the fun.

  7. Thanks PeterO and Arachne
    A bit odd. Much of this was quite easy, though entertaining as ever (EXUBERANT and DATE were great). Some completely baffled me in the parsing – unfortunately two seem to have worried PeterO as well (SULPHURED and BEDE, though AndrewC’s explanation of the latter looks good).
    I must make special mention of the wonderful TELLIES – “endlessly” almost belongs in the definition as well as the wordplay!

  9. Thanks PeterO for explaining the parsing of SULPHURED. I had managed to work out most of the others including the top of the bus and under the bed, both of which made me smile. There were lots of other lovely clues. Thanks Arachne! I will even forgive being misdirected for ages in 12ac by manager MON, who along with Roy Keane, has just taken over at Ireland. Fantastic!

  10. Thanks, PeterO.

    Unlike most other posters, I found this a bit trickier than usual for Arachne. Great fun as ever, with lots of clever devices and splendid surface readings. I couldn’t parse BUSTIER or BEDE, but I’m in full agreement with the explanations offered here.

    Favourites, for construction, surface, or both: EXUBERANT, HOARD, RENEGUE, FULL TERM, ASSORT, DATE. Though the grammar for the last one doesn’t quite work for me: DATE when transitive is ‘go out WITH’; the verb can be used intransitively, but ‘going out’ is not equivalent to ‘dating’, is it?

    Another winner, Arachne.

  11. I think that other contributors have more or less described the parsing of ‘sulphured’, but, for completeness, I parsed the ‘s’ by splitting ‘stop’ giving the letter ‘s’ as the top (first letter) of the word. As already mentioned, this gives the chemical symbol for sulphur.
    Many thanks to AndrewC for the explanation of ‘Bede’ that eluded me, and also to NeilW for the double-decker bus explanation of ‘bustier’ that also passed me by.
    Another wonderful puzzle by a super setter.

  12. Forgot to mention, although I think it has been touched on here before, that SULFUR is now the accepted spelling for Chemists of the chemical element (RSC 1992 and QCA 2000). It was like a friend changing their name (very difficult to get used to) and I frequently found myself writing the PH version.

  13. Sorry, I also meant to comment on NEUTROPHIL, which is a favourite of mine. Some of you will recognise it from Biology lessons as the type of white blood cell that acts as a phagocyte, engulfing bacteria and other pathogens in an amoeboid fashion. (There’s some amazing YouTube videos of them in action).

  15. I haven’t been able to stop smiling at the thought of the Venerable Bede hiding drugs under his bed – but I’m so exasperated at myself for not seeing it [thanks, AndrewC @1].

    I knew that clue rang a bell and, after a bit of research, I’ve found that in my blog of the last Arachne puzzle [less than two weeks ago – aren’t we lucky?!] I missed ‘under par’ in the clue for PARDON. Grrh!

  16. too many clues which were enjoyable for recently I dont think I have smiled as much for a long time. anybody else experiencing inter net explorer collapsing frequently using windows 8.1

  18. 23a is very straightforward and it has nothing to do with buses. In (rather course ) slang, a woman’s bust can be referred to as her ‘top deck’ – ‘”better upholstered” gives Bustier

  19. Thanks PeterO and Arachne

    I had trouble parsing 14a so many thanks for that. I also had to check 1d and 25a.

    I agreed with NeilW et al. re bus-tier.

    I enjoyed the typical robust humour as in 17d. I ticked 9a, 16a, 19a, 3d, 21d, 22d and 23d.

    22d down just about works for me especially with the ‘perhaps’ and ‘?’. ‘Dating’ might fairly straightforwardly be substituted for ‘going out’, I think, in a sentence like ‘We were going out for a year before we married’.

  20. Lots of spidery fun, as ever. 🙂

    Thanks PeterO; I hadn’t spotted the uber-ant or the monk under the bed, although I did see the BUS TIER. I haven’t seen RENEGE spelled as RENEGUE before, although it is of course an alternative dictionary form. I also had trouble fitting Martin into the space for RENEGUE, being totally fooled by the wrong O’Neill, as intended. I couldn’t parse the STOP=Sulphur, failing to spot what was in front of my eyes.

    Favourites were RENEGUE, DEPICT and SULPHURED with honourable mentions for most of the rest.

    I don’t suppose that EPO in the tenth column was the drug under the bed. 😉

  21. Can’t agree with Steve @18. I think that “Perhaps top deck” means perhaps the top “bus tier” (as opposed to the bottom one).

  22. I was looking forward to birthday treats but hadn’t expected the added bonus of this terrific Arachne crossword. So many dots by clues I liked, particularly the monk with his stash under his bed. Thank you Arachne for a wonderful fun time.

    thanks to Peter for the explanations too.

  23. I’m with NeilW at 5, and read 23a as “BUS-TIER”. I also assumed there was some nice cryptic word play in the second half (a BUSTIER woman would need to keep her bust better holstered-up), but it turns out it’s in Chambers as a standard bit of slang. Oh well. Pretty perfect, as is usually the way with Arachne.

  24. Many thanks, Arachne and PeterO. A very nice puzzle. I hadn’t known about the spelling of ‘sulfur’ so thanks George.

    Steve @ 18: surely your first definition can’t cope with the ‘ier’. Seems to me the ‘bus’ theory is plainly right.

  25. The NEUTROPHIL is too hard, but this is a n intelligent puzzle and well writtenn. Much better than you normaslly get!!! For 9across I would say ‘old queen ‘ is better, but more rude.

    Rowls.

  26. Thanks to PeterO for the blog. I had SULPHURED without understanding why it was correct. You explained that.

    I also read ‘top deck’ as BUS TIER.

  27. Thanks peterO and Arachne.

    In 23a the “bus tier” idea did not occur to me: I read it much as Steve at #18. I took it to mean Bustier, could be perhaps referred to as a top, an article of clothing. Had it been a Paul, there would have been no doubt!

  29. Slight delay in blogging due to hold-up in SW corner, but pennies eventually dropped. The ex-uber-ant goes right in to my list of favourite clues ever. I rather like UNDERSHOT too – graphic surface.

    SULPHUR may not be ‘official’ any longer but is, I think, still allowed in school chemistry. Any current teachers out there to confirm?

  30. Trailman @29 I am not a current teacher, but I have only been retired just over a year. My Chemist colleagues told me and their students that we should use sulFur, not sulPHur. All the newer Periodic tables and books had the element listed with that spelling. I am not sure if in Chemistry GCSE or A Level exams students would be penalised for using the old form. I can email my friends if you are interested and find out!

  31. (Slightly off topic) I don’t suppose anyone would care about sulPHur, as reputable journals such as New Scientist still use names like “ethyl alcohol” and “acetaldehyde” that have been technically incorrect for about 50 years.

  32. Not to worry, George @30. I guess Mr Gove wouldn’t approve of sulfur though! (apologies to all for the digression)

  33. With a little more time for reflection, I think that 23D works better than it seems to in the rush to publish.
    It is interresting that we have three (at least!) distinct interpretations of 23A (dunsscotus @24: I think that Steve @18 treats the clue as a single cryptic definition), all of which are defensible – but I would probably have gone with NeilW @5 if it had occurred to me. Is the clue any better or worse for this multiplicity of interpretations? For my money, it is better.

  34. Thanks PeterO @33. Re 23a Maybe it is a multiplicity of definitions which is rewarding. But I still find Top Deck as Bus Tier very, very strained -which is why I parsed it differently. Apologies also for ‘course’ (drat those spell checkers!) when, of course, I meant ‘coarse’.

  35. Thanks all
    Usual great effort from Arachne, slightly easier than her recent ones.Last in was Hangar because I had ‘sulphated’ for a while.

  37. muffin @31: The Royal Society of chemistry decided in favour of SULFUR as that was the spelling used, not only in the US, but in other languages and even in Latin (though both ‘sulphur’ and ‘sulpur’ are also attested). ‘Ethyl alcohol’ and ‘acetaldehyde’ are not ‘technically incorrect’ – they describe the substances exactly, but are just not the modern systematic names for ethanol and ethanal respectively. Trivial names, as they are known, are widely used, especially for more complex substances: most scientists in their academic papers would use the name ‘adrenaline’ (unless they were American, in which case they would say ‘epinephrine’) rather than 4-(1-hydroxy-2-(methyl amino)ethyl)benzene-1,2-diol!

  38. Rarely comment but feel compelled to add to the general praise here – splendid stuff. And this on the back of her “Big Brother” one recently, which was probably my favourite Guardian daily of the year!

  39. I found this relatively easier than some of Arachne’s puzzles but it was still a delight. The “uber ant” was a great way to start the puzzle, and there were plenty of other smiles along the way. I also parsed 23ac as “bus tier” and although there are arguments for the alternative parsing I’m pretty sure it is what Arachne intended.

    The only word I didn’t know was NEUTROPHIL but it was the most obvious construction from the anagram fodder and the wordplay.

    With all but one of the checkers in place I was pretty sure that 14ac had to be SULPHURED but I didn’t enter it until I saw that the wordplay works when “Stop” is separated to “S top”. HANGAR was then my LOI, a clue that has a very Rufusesque feel to it.

  40. Thanks Arachne bloggers and all.

    This caused people in a pub to glance repeatedly at the strange man with a paper who kept laughing to himself, especially at 9a.

  41. 23 is a charade for me, not Steve’s crappy CD with confused parts of speech! ‘As top deck may be better upholstered?’ would do it perhaps, but not here: ‘Maybe top deck’ = BUS+TIER? Gotta be. Thanks to blogger & puzzler.

  42. A double decker bus has two tiers, so top deck would be one bus tier.

    Single definition then, “better upholstered” for me.

  43. Nothing much to add except to agree that this was another super puzzle from Arachne.

    Lots of great clues.

    I found this harder than her last. I didn’t help myself by entering STRATAGEMS for 5D. I couldn’t parse it and new it was wrong. However the fact that MEGA TART was reversed in there made me persevere.

    Got there in the end with LOI 14A

    Thanks to PeterO and Arachne

  44. Thanks PeterO and to Arachne for a superb puzzle. For my money she is the setter to beat at the Guardian at the moment.

    I like both explanations for BUSTIER. Do I have to choose?

  45. I wouldn’t argue too much with that, PeeDee.

    Re BUSTIER, I think the definition “BETTER UPHOLSTERED” i.e, “larger breasted” goes with the spirit of this particular puzzle, as manifested in “LOVE BITES” and other everyday playfulness.

    Sweet dreams all.

  46. If the idea in 23A, as with all decent clues, is to lead away from the real definition, then surely BUS plus TIER is the way forward. Why would you, having got a nice definition to do with upholstery, then push the ball back in the solver’s direction? Nah, this one is about buses and seats, until you crack it.

  47. I have to join in and comment since I was so mean about the Spiderwoman’s last puzzle. This was work, and I needed a few aids, but not ones that made me feel like I was cheating. Bravo! I had a few favorites as things slowly unfolded – HOARD, TELLIES, TICKS, and probably a couple of others.

    BUSTIER was my COD. The obvious double-decker reference was what convinced me it was correct, but what a lovely, intricate clue! Didn’t bother to look it up in my Chambers so I could ink it in, but it still “just seemed right”.

    Thanks for the puzzle, Arachne, and for the blog PeterO and the rest of you lot. Especially for parsing EX-UBER-ANT!

  48. Thanks, Arachne, for a delightfully wicked puzzle. I found it harder than your last because I entered CASTLE for 7d which seems an equally valid solution.

    The problem is the query following the clue, which, by Guardian conventions, may act as a subtle anagram indicator. Then, Lancaster can be interpreted as a padded anagram of castle, and the whole clue could be the definition because – to the Lancaster Plantagenets of history books and Shakespeare – ones home was a castle not a house. Moreover, I reasoned, a lesser setter might have clued CASTLE as something like “House of Lancaster breached.”, but such clear shades of Henry V would be too obvious for an Arachne puzzle. Or did you anticipate my line of thought and add a further level of misdirection? With no query, and perhaps using lower case h for house, then HANGAR would be the closer solution.

    Otherwise, so many wonderful clues packed into one puzzle …

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