Guardian 26,492 by Arachne

57 comments on “Guardian 26,492 by Arachne”

1. Thanks for the crossword and the blog. Loved this one although I had a few problems on the way. I thought 1D was GLEE for quite a while, and couldn’t parse 24. I didn’t get 19 (I do find some of these Spoonerisms rather ‘forced’) and, round this way, POOR at 6 is pronounced ‘Pooh-r’ (I do understand that there are regional variations). I’m embarrassed to say that I thought the clue to 25 was very ‘clunky’ until I remembered what the Gormleys are, after which it became an excellent clue 😉

   Thanks again for a good workout.

2. Thanks, flashling – but I was waiting for you to explain 13dn! 🙁

   Sheer delight, of course. Lovely to see Arachne back again, relatively soon.

   Favourite clues: 14ac [although, as flashling says, it doesn’t bear thinking about] and 22ac – but I could pick out lots more.

   Many thanks, Arachne, as ever.

3. 13d homonym of “in for a”

4. 13 down Sounds like “in for a” ?

5. most enjoyable, from one of my favourite setters.

   a possible thought on 13d – INFRA sounds like “In for a” (about to receive).

6. A midweek treat thank you Arachne and Flashling.

7. Thanks Arachne, great to see you here again!

   Thanks flashling, I cannot fathom INFRA either. Some really great clues, I particularly liked INSTEP, BOBS & A PRIORI.

8. Thanks flashling and Arachne, nice to have one of your puzzles again.

   I was toying with BOOB for 24d; OB = “when you skip over”, and up and down for OB.

   I can’t see INFRA either. If it’s “In for a”, what is the “see” doing?

9. Thanks flashling and Arachne
   Very enjoyable. I also thought infra equals in for a.
   19d was my last in and 28a took a long time before the penny dropped.

10. “see” might be part of the definition – i.e. see below?

11. Comments 2-10 are probably some kind of cross-posting record.

    Great puzzle!

12. I had 29a as A ROMANI reversed with TA after. Enjoyed this with pennies dropping all over the place.

13. As others have said, some lovely clues. My favourites were NODDY, MILKMAN, INAMORATA and UNDIES. Many thanks to Arachne and flashling.

14. Yes, IN FOR A homophone is intended, but a very difficult clue to solve.

    I found myself saying ‘hmm’ to many of these, but I had definite quibbles at 10a brand name; 17a dbe and problem with datums/ data; 19a very woolly; 20a unintentionally misleading re Mars; 22 poor definition; 2d unfair use of hyphen; 5d C is not a party, that’s a double operation and unfair; 13d as described; 22d a riot of dbe, though nice to see a ?; 25d dbe.

    24a another brand name, but I did like it. Not a good Arachne puzzle really, I think I remember her being better than this.

15. Thanks Arachne and flashling.

    I needed help with parsing Marks and several others, INFRA most infuriating !

    Some of the answers were a hoot, INCURIOUS, MILKMAN, A PRIORI, BEER BELLY …

16. Thanks Arachne, and flashling for what I wouldn’t have realised was a hastily prepared blog if you hadn’t said so.

    It’s like she was never away. 7 & 8 the pick for me, but there are so many others.

    @hh

    You’ve surpassed yourself. “20a unintentionally misleading re Mars”. Ha!

    1) How do you know it was unintentional?
    2) Why on Earth (or indeed Mars) would misdirection in a cryptic crossword ever be a bad thing, intentional or not?

    Also, if 19a is “very woolly” which word(s) would you delete?

    In the interest of evenhandedness, I have to admit that I raised an eyebrow at 5d for the same reason as you, but your objections to brand names and misleading punctuation in crosswords are preposterous.

17. Well Mitz @ 16 I don’t invite agreement, I just report my experience of the day’s crossword. I must say I find your response a little aggressive.

    Re your specific remarks, thank you for your opinions. On 19 of course it is not for me to rewrite the clue. Simply deleting extraneous words is not the way forward however 😀

18. BTW Mitz you will find that while people do not object to misleading punctuation in clues generally, when the definition is interfered with, many do. That was my specific objection in that case. You made it sound general, which is of course itself unfair.

19. MARKS, still not convinced by the homophone explanation. Mars is the red plant and k is the wave number or, written in bold, the wave vector.

20. @hh

    Apologies if I came across as aggressive. I was going for “amused”.

    “I had definite quibbles at…” – your intro to a list of clues. That isn’t “reporting your experience” it is very plainly stating that you feel there is something wrong with those clues. And if you feel there is something wrong, then why is it not your place to offer an improvement?

    But most of all I am genuinely curious as to why you think misdirection in a cryptic crossword clue is a bad thing.

21. @Cookie

    Thanks for that – I didn’t know about “k” being the wave number. Every chance that Arachne intended both that and the homophone – makes it a doubly clever clue.

22. RE MARS/MARKS I did wonder about that but Mars isn’t a red giant other than the sense that all planets are pretty big

23. Plenty of entertainment, wit and invention as ever from Arachne. Last in was TRAIN-LIX after TOE – didn’t help myself by writing CUT for 19. Liked INCURIOUS, BEER BELLY, FACTS, RAMBLING ON and ZERO HOUR.

    Thanks to Arachne and flashling

24. Hi Mitz

    It’s obvious I think, based on each quibble, what I would prefer to see, but I disagree with you that it is incumbent upon me to rewrite any clue that I don’t personally like. Even if I could! I just say why I don’t like it, to which a balanced response would be, ‘okay then hedgehoggy, fair enough, you’ve made your point’. Others can refute it or agree with it as they please, or just ignore me, but there’s no need for pejorative accompaniments!

    Re misdirection, obviously it is not a bad idea ‘in a cryptic crossword clue’! I simply felt there that RED GIANT is a bit close to RED PLANET, and that the compiler had overlooked a possible link. It just grated for me. Also, although I did not point it up, ‘waves’ I feel is extraneous.

25. (Re the wave number, definitely not 😀 ).

26. Re hedgehoggy @18, I thought it was pretty much universally accepted that punctuation is ignored in parsing (with the exception of ? when it indicates an example) and that it if often used for purposes of intentionally misleading (i.e., cryptic) cluing.

27. Thanks Arachne and flashling
    Although Arachne is my favourite compiler, I didn’t particularly enjoy this one – mainly, I suspect, because I was completely baffled by several parsings (14a, 20a, 28a, 2d and 13d – an unusually large number!) I didn’t find many chuckles here either. Favourite was MILKMAN (though 1 km is rather closer to 5/8 of a mile than 2/3).

28. I found this very enjoyable and quite easy to solve. INFRA was LOI. Loved INCURIOUS, A PRIORI,MILKMAN and many more. I had BEGAN at 28ac but BEGUN is obviously better- now I have seen the blog.
    Thanks Arachne- and welcome back!

29. muffin @27 – you can find as many more accurate fractional representations of 1 km as you like, but 2/3 is close enough for me (rather like the pi=22/7 we used to use at school)…

30. Thanks, flashling.

    Hugely entertaining puzzle, with great surfaces and a lot of smiles along the way.

    I couldn’t parse INFRA, but I buy the idea of a homophone of ‘in for a’. ‘Red giant using sound waves’ has to be an indication that the answer is a homophone of MARX; ‘Mars’ is a red (giant) herring.

    Favourites were (inter alia) A PRIORI, MILKMAN, NODDY, INAMORATA, BING (with its reference to the nude Gormley statues on Crosby Beach).

31. beery hiker@29
    I frequently have to convert from km to miles. The conversion factor is 0.62137, so 5/8 (0.625) gives a more accurate estimate that 2/3 (0.67) – and isn’t much harder to do in your head!

32. Good puzzle, good blog, hate Spoonerism clues and always have but never mind.

33. Ian SW3 there are signs ? and ! to indicate things like dbe and cryptic definitions, as far as I know, so you wouldn’t ignore those. Yes I think they get used for effect too, and then you CAN ignore them.

    The point I tried to make to Mitz is that things like hyphens that join a definition to the first word of the clued part aren’t tolerated by everyone. I don’t like the practice of mutilating definitions, they should stand alone. It’s not clever either, anyone can do it. Of course a really well-disguised definition is a different thing, and there are some here to admire.

34. hedgehoggy @33 – I can’t help thinking that a world in which all crosswords satisfied you would be a much duller place!

35. Well, that’s just being horrible.

36. Sorry, no offence intended, but I still think it’s a fair comment. Some of us like compilers with compileritis, and appreciate humorous liberties…

37. To Dave Ellison @8: In 13d, I think “see below” might refer to 24d (which is below 13d in the grid). The clue for 24d invites us to “skip over”.
    That leaves us with “IN FOR A” minus the “O”, or INFRA.

    My thanks to Arachne and Flashling. I loved this crossword.

38. Marx is a giant among reds

39. Some good clues, as noted above (particularly liked the DOGMATISTS!), but a surprising number of (for Arachne) very easy ones, including AMNESIA, FACTS, GLAD, UNDIES, CONVERGE. it just didn’t represent the challenge we normally expect from this setter, and left us feeling disappointed.

40. I really enjoyed this puzzle, and my only unparsed answer was INFRA. I smiled at the “certain people” and “fellow afloat” definitions, and the Gormley-related clue for BING was a gem. I had no problem at all with the “Arch-villains” misdirection in 2dn because such cluing is very much an acceptable part of the Guardian’s house style. If I didn’t like it I wouldn’t bother doing Guardian crosswords.

41. SeanDimly@37 – an interesting idea but surely just a coincidence. Your possible explanation would either leave the clue without a definition (it is certainly not an &lit or a DBE) or would require “see below” to be doing double duty, which is always a no-no.

42. Well beery, I really do like some Guardian puzzles, as I’ve said, and when they’re good they tend to be great. I just find it a pity when they are spoilt by what looks like careless stuff.

43. Many thanks, Flashling – great blog after such a late start! Thanks to everyone for the comments.

    re 13dn: “see below” is intended to be the definition. Although Latin “infra” means “below, beneath”, when the word is used in a text I take it as an instruction to the reader to “see below”.

    The Crosby Beach Gormleys are rather haunting, and well worth a visit. They do look rather chilly on the average Lancashire day, though, so people bring them hats, scarves and loincloths. Especially loincloths.

    Love & hugs,

    Arachne

44. Hedgehoggy @33, I’m all for correct and clear punctuation (especially semicolons), but obscuring the line between definition and clue seems not just par for the course but in fact a large part of the fun. I can’t see why the definition should have a different treatment as to punctuation; it might make solving too obvious.

45. Thanks Arachne! That’s the most fun I’ve had with a puzzle in a while.

    MILKMAN took me down Memory Lane to when my British colleagues had to explain a joke about the perks of their job including a company milk float!

46. Hedgehoggy should solve Times puzzles, where such niceties are as far as I am aware nearly always observed. Here at Anagruid anything is possible, and elsewhere too liberties may be taken as required. I feel sure he knows this life’s-rich-tapestry-style fact.

    Just saying, but I wouldn’t necessarily preclude The Times (for which Arachne also sets, if I have my facts right) from coming up with something wild and whacky. Whilst it may be correct to describe the organ as neo-Ximenean, it retains the capacity to shock and stun, such is the quality of its panel.

    Nice to see you back in gear Arachne � nice one!

47. Thanks again Arachne. Like Blue Dot, MILKMAN was very nostalgic for me. I was allowed to accompany the milkman on Saturday mornings as a girl. Thought I would Google ‘Wellington horse drawn milk floats’ and there in the first old photo was one just the same, no. 44. The hills were very steep, and one can see a log acting as brake behind the rear wheel to stop any backward slipping.

48. Thanks Arachne. The fun you had with this carried through, and to the solving.

49. Gervase @30 and Arachne @43: thanks for demystifying “Crosby Beach imported numerous Gormleys,” especially the photo. Though I solved the clue by the first-letters-only route, I had no idea what the reference was. Fifteensquared expands my horizons.

50. Probably my least favourite Arachne ever. The cluing just wasn’t as precise as usual.

    Several gripes which have all been mentioned. The top two being PASS (never heard of this with “on” or “away” (although it is in the SOED) and POOR supposingly sounding like POUR. (Not true I imagine for at least half the UK. In fact so far apart in my neck of the woods that I failed to get this!)

    Thanks to Flashlng and Arachne

51. A curious mix of wonderful (20, 22, 26, 25D) and pour, sorry, poor clues (13D & 6D were both very stretched). My wife’s from Crosby, so I got the reference immediately and laughed out loud when I realised the answer.
    Surprised at the troubles with 19A and 20, which I thought perfectly fair, indeed 19A was my first answer.

52. @hedgehoggy, whenever

    I’ve been trying to think to think about the value of your contributions and I think I have a good analogy. There are two kinds of film critic – those who take directors on their own merits and those who try to impose absolute standards across all films. In the US, Siskel and Ebert, both sadly passed, were fantastic at the former – they could engage a new wave movie on its own terms, or a blockbuster or a Tarkovsky. They asked, what was the film trying to do and did it do it well. The other genre (more Janet Maslin in the NY Times for the Americans amongst us) had absolute standards, the reviews got pretty boring, coz they always just tried to make every film conform to their predilections. For me, Arachne is a Tarantino or a Coen brothers – of course she doesn’t follow Aristotelean unities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_unities); Auraucaria was a Kubrick. Your remarks *are* prickly, as per your name, but I’d encourage you to make them fun as well.

53. geof @ 52

    Firstly I would take you to task for comparing Arachne to soemebody as crass as Tarantino. Arachne is fairly conservative/Ximenean in her setting. She is “different” in that she is very good.

    Secondly I think your comparison of comments on this board with film reviews is a little off the mark. As hedgehoggy (and myself) has often said his comments are his honest private reaction to a puzzle. A film review is something much more global. A reviewer’s comments are part of the industries reaction to a particular piece of work.

    Third, I would take your own advice to hedgehoggy. (Try and take posters on here on their own merit and engage with the comments on their own terms. 😉 )

54. So kind Brendan, a balanced response on 15/2!

    Also, I do solve Times puzzles. The standard is very high, but you should see the posts TFTT! Some are vicious, I should say.

    😀

55. hedgehoggy @54

    I never said you weren’t entitled to your opinion, and most of the time I can guess what that will be by now. All I was saying is that my views (as a Guardian solver for many years who only occasionally dabbles in crosswords in other papers) tend to be different. I don’t understand what is “horrible”, or unbalanced about that. I can’t help being reminded of the pot and the kettle…

    I liked Paul B’s comment @46

56. Great stuff, but MEDIAN is not the same as AVERAGE (23d).

57. @shackleram Although in everyday speech median might be regarded as different from average, basic statistics books generally introduce the median as one of three kinds of average, the others being mode and mean. So for me, that’s fine.

Comments are closed.