30,000

 So, today's Cryptic Crossword in the Guardian was number 30,000.  

For which the paper prepared a real challenge.

Note:  There are many spoilers below!

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....

Crossword No 30,000 was by Arachne (aka the Spider Woman).  Having solved it, the answers at top and bottom point the solver to the perimeter of the Quick Crossword.


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Which is a Nina, presenting a cryptic clue.

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Solving which points you to today's Editorial (The Guardian View).  Which is a lovely piece, worth reading, about the Guardian Cryptic Crosswords in particular, with lots of links (eg to an old interview with Arachne).

But that isn't all...

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One of the answers to Cryptic 30,000 is "Acrostic".  And the first letters of each paragraph of the Editorial form an Acrostic.

Which reads:

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LAST THIRTY FIVE PRIMES.

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And then (this from a post by "Askival" to the estimable Fifteensquared Website):

 If you look at the bottom row of the cryptics whose numbers are the 35 primes before 30,000 (going all the way back to 2/1/2025!) you get:

29581 WELL DONE
29587 BRAVO
29599 HERE
29611 IN CONCLUSION
29629 IS OUR F
29633 INAL CH
29641 ALLENG
29663 E ARE YOU
29669 KEEPING UP GREAT
29671 THERE WI
29683 LL BE A WON
29717 DERF
29723 UL PRIZ
29741 E BUT FIR
29753 ST YOU M
29759 UST ENT
29761 ER A RAC
29789 E NOT A N
29803 ACTUAL ATHLETIC
29819 RACE OF C
29833 OURSE TH
29837 AT WOULD
29851 BE WEIRD
29863 NOT THAT
29867 IT’S A CER
29873 EBRAL RA
29879 CE IN THE
29881 FORM OF A
29917 CROSSWORD PUZZLE
29921 IT’S A GEN
29927 IUS PUBL
29947 ISHED AT
29959 NOON BST
29983 TOMORROW
29989 GODSPEED

So this has been planned for well over a year, and continues with a GENIUS puzzle tomorrow.
They are notoriously hard...

Arcadia

 Arcadia at the Old Vic was very good. 

In many ways a companion piece to Stoppard's Indian Ink, with its parallel stories of modern-day literary researchers and the lived lives in the past (which they misunderstand).  

But whereas the earlier play used art and literature as its ostensible subject, in Arcadia there is a rich discussion of mathematics and chaos theory.

We enjoyed this muchly.  A strong production, with a lot to untangle (and some good jokes).

Into The Woods

 We really like the Bridge Theatre.  It's where we saw the wonderful gender-switching A Midsummer Night's Dream last year, and the space is welcoming and flexible.

So we went to see Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods at the Bridge with high hopes.

The sets were very good, and the cast were great (and the production has won several awards, not least Best Musical Revival at this year's Oliviers). 

But... we were disappointed.  

I think we found the music a little same-y, and the plot over long.  It could have been trimmed.  

It was definitely the piece itself, rather than the production.

This may all sound heretical.  

But there you go.

Indian Ink

 So we went to see Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink. 

In the first ever production of the play, Felicity Kendal had played the young poet, Flora Crew, travelling around India.

At the age of 79, she was also in the production we saw at the Hampstead Theatre, playing Flora's elderly sister, Eleanor Swan, remembering Flora in the past.  

We enjoyed this immensely; the play was full of typically Stoppardian musing, and the cast were very strong.  This time, Flora was played by Ruby Ashbourne Serkis (Gollum's daughter).  

Some of us were a critical of Stoppard's picture of India from the standpoint of a white Englishman (although Stoppard did spend some time at boarding school in Darjeeling, that probably didn't provide much real insight).  However, others thought he got away with it via the character of Eldon Pike - the American academic who is trying to publish Flora's Collected Letters.  He misunderstands and makes assumption about her life - and Stoppard uses him to recognise the likely errors in his own presentation, (or so some of us thought).

At one point, Flora mentions pouring a jug of water on the critic JC Squire's head, after he panned her poetry.  Squire is a name we know from his book of essays "If it had Happened Otherwise" (1931) which have been considered proto-alternative histories.  According to Wikipedia, he moved further and further to the right through his life.  Despised by most of the Bloomsbury set, he eventually became associated with Moseley.

Meanwhile the Rajah mentions 'Bendor Westminster' - the Duke of Westminster and one of the many Grosvenors, who for a long time have used the name Bendor.  And it seems Chaucer, years ago, had a hand in that.  But that is for another time...

But those two small instances only reinforce the complex series of references and allusions in the play. 

Very good.

Mackerel from Nunhead

Mackerel sky over Nunhead. 
Better tell Sopers...

 

Solace?

 In today's Guardian...

Artemis II Advertising?

 As Space Junkies, we have obviously been glued to our screens and radios for the latest information about the Artemis II trip around the moon.

And we enjoyed yesterday's Guardian Prize crossword on a similar theme.

We do worry, however, about the advertising.

First a jar of Nutella flies weightlessly across the capsule on camera - to the joy, doubtless, of the Nutella advertising department.

And then there was this advert for Tunnock's Teacakes:

(Many thanks to one of our sons for pointing this out...)