Guardian 26,990 / Pan

53 comments on “Guardian 26,990 / Pan”

1. Yes Eileen, I agree that this was enjoyable.

   I was not familiar with 15a STEMMATA, my LOI, but it was gettable once I spotted EMMA and stopped trying to fit in ELM.

   Embarrassingly I misspelt 20d UKULELE at first, and had three “e”s rather than two “u”s and two “e”s. For some reason my spelling of down answers occasionally goes awry; I think it’s because I am an intuitive speller and know if the word “looks right” it must be correct, but for that I need to see it written horizontally. This error meant I took longer than I should have to get the SQUASH part of 14d 22a, BUTTERNUT SQUASH.

   I toyed with HEDGEHOG for 25a but realised that did not include the “r” for river so went back to HEDGEROW. Was just a bit doubtful as I think of wildlife as suggesting animals rather than plants, but then when I saw the definition was actually “habitat for wildlife”, it made more sense.

   I agree with Eileen that 18d GINGHAM was neat due to the visual image evoked.

   But my favourite was definitely 27a TUMESCENT even though the clue was quite gross.

   Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

2. BTW, Eileen, sorry to hear about the laptop problems. Nothing worse than having to rethink every thought already “thunk” the first time through. Thank you for staying 7d DEDICATED to the task, despite being (understandably) as the Bishop supposedly was in 1a, CROSS. A fine blog as always.

3. Thank you, Eileen, don’t computers wind one up?.

   Whilst always trying to stress the positive in comments here, I do feel that this setter has quite a long way to go and might be better suited to Quiptics or perhaps other journals.

   I prefer not to talk about the degree of difficulty, this was over in a flash but several other compilers offer puzzles at the easier end of the spectrum that remain great fun. Several of these clues, on the other hand, don’t make a lot of sense. I don’t wish to labour the point but to give some specific examples:

   “Partners without English papers have food that’s not eaten”, and “Cost faced by prude drinking cold tea cocktail”, and “Angry Bishop’s sick bird”. What on earth can these sentences mean? They read like a collection of random words.

   On the other hand, AIRSTRIKE concealed the definition quite nicely, and CHAIR was nicely constructed.

   Sorry to strike a negative note, the only objective is that the setter might see what I’m getting at and refine his art.

   Nice week, all.

4. Nice to see butternut squash. Maybe it’s time for an Ottolenghi theme

5. Thanks Eileen, for clearing up 25ac – I had HEDGE from ‘how to maintain advantage’ (as a bookie hedges bets) and then couldn’t see where the OW came from. (Thinking of a ROW on a river didn’t seem to work.)

6. Thanks Pan and Eileen

   Eileen, I sympathise about the computer meltdown. Mine packed it in as I was trying to send out a newsletter for a club of 300 members. I used to think that computers make our lives easier. [and I wrote my first computer program (in IBM Assembler language) over 45 years ago]

   For 8a I was wondering if “popular” was doing double duty, being part of the definition as well as the wordplay. Anyone else have the same thoughts? Warfarin is very widely prescribed, but does that mean it can be described as popular?

7. Thank you Pan and Eileen.

   A pleasant solve for me, being rather slow. GINGHAM was great, and I also like FJORDS, MINION, CHAIR and the picture the clue for BRACES conjured up…

   Sorry about your laptop turning off, Eileen. For ZAGREB should it be just G for German, I am never sure of this abbreviation.

8. I agree this was an easy crossword and many clues were write-ins.

   Providing the clue provides a fair route to the solution I am not too fussed about the way the clue reads.

   I hesitated over 24ac, but minion was clearly this answer. Even now I am not sure why a minion is one who curries favour.

9. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. Easy but fun. I’m used to seeing LEFT OVERS as one word.

10. Thanks Pan & Eileen.

    Good straightforward puzzle with only STEMMATA being unknown.

    I was another parsing ‘How to maintain advantage’ as HEDGE and wondering where the ‘OW’ came from, doh!

    I’m not sure why the plural (vegetables) is given for BUTTERNUT SQUASH. Wouldn’t ‘vegetable’ have been OK?

11. Robi @10: The plural of squash is squash, so “vegetables” is fine, and more likely to mislead.

12. Okay, I suppose, but over in a flash. I may have done this setters first
    puzzle but I can’t remember it. Was it as straightforward as this?
    A bit more meat next time!
    Thanks Pan.

13. Oh, where oh where is Enigmatist when you need him? I’m really not complaining about this puzzle; it was a good example of its kind, and I enjoyed solving it. There was a nice bit of misdirection with ‘doctor’ an anagrind in 7d, and STURDY at the end gave me food for thought.

    No, it’s just that I’m taking my first flight in years, and flight delay means I have four hours to spend in the very wonderful Gatwick North terminal. This might just about have stretched to one of Mr Henderson’s creations, but alas not one of Pan’s.

14. Thank you Pan I enjoyed this, and thanks Eileen; as ever an impeccable and helpful blog, computer problems notwithstanding!!

    William @3

    At a loose end, but not as loose as a possessor of natural magnetism
    Type of gas that is never right to get promoted
    Starting up or down round pole, steer away from tradition

    These three clues were from yesterday’s puzzle by Philistine which you, like I, and many others praised.

    I can see no real difference between the above and today’s surfaces which you excoriated. It seems to me that new setters and some whose faces, for some reason unknown to me, just do not fit, get denigrated unfairly, whilst others can do no wrong!!

    I thought BUTTERNUT SQUASH a great clue!!

15. Sympathy to you, Eileen, for your computer exasperation — we’ve all been there!

    In 7a, can’t “departed” mean “died” (already anagram fodder in this clue). But as “died” I think it can be just a d.

    Why is a sturgeon Scotland’s leader?

    In my reading of British writers, “pad” doesn’t usually seem to mean “walk carefully.” It more often means “walk barefoot indoors,” as in “She got out of bed and padded into the kitchen.”

16. Valentine @15
    “Why is a sturgeon Scotland’s leader?”

    It’s not a sturgeon, it’s Nicola Sturgeon, the current First Minister of Scotland.

17. S Panza @14 You make a very fair point. For some reason the ones you mention didn’t jar with me, but I agree they are equally nonsensical. Perhaps they were offset by so many otherwise fine clues that one overlooks the few dodgy ones. I certainly didn’t intend to excoriate this setter – you may have noticed that my comments on his/her first offering were quite supportive.

    I love the setter’s art and generally try to nudge towards excellence with positive comments where possible.

18. This was really a bit too easy for me also. I like to be stretched, and sympathise with Trailman@13: this definitely not a four-hour puzzle. Our editor must have been listening to the choir of voices saying that the Cryptic is too cryptic. But it would have been very welcoming for new solvers.

    Having said all that . . . I liked TUMESCENT and BUTTERNUT SQUASH. Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

19. Yes, this was an easy Guardian cryptic, but that’s fine by me. In the discussion about the level of difficulty of Guardian puzzles that we had on here a while back, I expressed a concern that newer/less-skilled solvers might be deterred by the current lack of easy puzzles and the trend to more difficult non-Ximenean clues. I went on to recommend to the the crossword editor a policy of two easy, two medium and two hard puzzles each week, to parallel the policy with the sudoku offerings. I also wrote to him privately, along the same lines.

    Well, maybe he’s been listening. Yesterday, in his latest ‘Crossword editor’s update’ at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2016/sep/11/plus-ca-change-, Hugh Stephenson wrote, “I checked that admirable site Fifteen Squared” and went on to say:

    “I inherited a policy that, in principle, each week of Guardian Cryptics should contain two average, two easier and two more difficult puzzles.

    He then produced an argument – which I thought rather specious – that just under a third of the published cryptics in the first six months of 2016 were at the easier “more non-devious end of the spectrum.”

    But I won’t quibble. Instead, I’ll just celebrate the second appearance of Pan this year and thank Hugh Stephenson for that. I hope he reverts permanently to the policy he inherited 19 years ago.

20. First day back from a short break and this was a gentle way to get back on the treadmill. Never heard of stemmata but it was a write in even so. Thanks to everyone.

21. Thanks both,

    While much of this was fairly easy, I had to work hard at a few clues. ‘Minion’ and ‘pads’ gave me pause, but OED has one as ‘a person who is dependent on a patron’s favour’ and ‘the sound of soft steady footsteps’ for the other so I think that is fair enough. (Although OED doesn’t have a verb for ‘pad’ in that sense.)

22. Median @19

    I was interested, really pleased and even a little amused at the response you got from the Crossword Editor.

    I doubt that he actually replied to you, but I know he has complimented this site before, and I have experience of his having acted before on a reasonable appeal.

    I think the policy is a very sensible one, and although I like a crossword to be challenging, I wouldn’t mind at all if the Editor were to revert to, or continue, the policy he inherited.

23. William @17 a very fair response, and indeed excoriate was way too strong a word for your criticisms!!

    I came to the Guardian crossword from The Times which I have to say seemed at the time much harder than the Guardian’s puzzles. I changed because a friend was particularly delighted by the offerings of Araucaria and Paul and suggested I give them a try. I did and I have not gone back much, gaining on the road an admiration for setters such as Arachne and Picaroon among others. But I rarely finish a puzzle without one or two clues which stump me for far too long: it’s part of the fun!! So this argument about level of difficulty largely passes me by. What I do not personally enjoy too much are offering where many of the answers are words which are largely unknown and where on top of that the clueing is not too precise; that just seems unfair!!

    Nevertheless, one of the drawbacks of a Guardian only diet is the seemingly increasing number of themed puzzles. We are all different and I know some people love ’em. But for me the biggest turn-off is a puzzle where an intimate knowledge of, a pop-group, a children’s author, fish as we had last week, or something equally nugatory is necessary to complete it. I know I can use google but is that really any different to using the reveal button?

    One final point on the difficulty argument, since the paper is offering a Prize and withholding the answers for a week, should not the Saturday offering be an order of magnitude harder to celebrate these reasons!! Lately I seem to solve the Prize puzzle with greater ease than the weekday ones. Well excluding the fiendish Masquerade of course!!

24. Thanks all
    Pan is new to me and I found this quite easy except I was forced to leave stemmata unsolved; an entirely new word to me.

25. Cookie @7 [I’ve been out since before you posted]: yes, of course it’s just G for German! A casualty of the meltdown – I had it right to begin with. I’ll amend it now.

    I was interested in the exchange @3, 14 and 17. I wrote the preamble after rewriting the blog and, since I was in a hurry, made the comment simply from my impression of the puzzle as a whole, without revisiting the clues. As one who sets great store by surfaces, I’d actually mentioned the smooth surfaces, and so was surprised to see William’s comment @3. My defence is similar to his @17. 😉

26. Too easy for me. I’d rather be stumped than breeze through an entire grid in 15 min.

27. I saw the J, Q, Z fairly early and was prepared to be pleased with myself for spotting a pangram, but no X appeared.

    I’m fine with an easier puzzle from time to time. As a relatively inexperienced solver, I enjoy the rare occasions when I finish the puzzle without cheating and even understand all the parsings.

28. S Panza @23 Crumbs, we seem to be the same person! I too am no fan of the themed crossword so beloved of Graun compilers. I feel they are more of a compiling thrill than a solving one and so often I feel the clues have that shoe-horned feel about them.

    I, too, came from a Times (& Telegraph) stable but, unlike you, have gone back only rarely and almost always with disappointment. My favourite thing about the Graun is the very differences between the setters and their styles. That’s why you won’t hear me grumble about hard vs easy. All that matters to me is the elegance of misdirection combined with fairness.

    Nice to have “met” you.

29. Enjoyed this one. Yes, not too tricky, but I’m sure Enigmatist will be along in a bit. I read, but didn’t join in, the discussion here on degrees of difficulty. A mixture of hardness is fine by me, and we shouldn’t forget that there are lots of solvers out there who are just starting out on the Guardian cryptic, and would have appreciated this offering from Pan. Anyone remember the feeling you got when you first solved one completely and without help? (I do, it was an Everyman.)

    Thanks, both, and commiserations to Eileen on the IT meltdown. I have a three-word phrase that I use in such circumstances. The first two words start with F, but Eileen is far too delicate a creature to resort to such language. She probably used ‘Oh, botheration!’

30. About difficulty — I take the puzzle to bed, work till I get stuck and finish it the next morning when things I missed become obvious. It was a bit disappointing this time to have nothing to do in the morning!

    But my real reason for posting — I for one thoroughly enjoy themed puzzles. I’ve read a bunch of attacks and (I think) not one defense, but there must be more of us who like the feeling of “oh, look, there’s another one!” And though my knowledge of rock bands, for instance, is vanishingly small, some of the themes are wonderful. I think I’ll start keeping a list of them so the next time I write about this I can mention a few.

31. Thanks, K’s D – the air was rather blue. 😉

32. I enjoyed this offering, thank you very much Pan.

    It was straightforward though I did slow down in SE and STEMMATA was new, but I enjoyed the clean clueing and nice surfaces.

    I was really pleased to see CHAIR, only because I have argued for years I prefer to see a good clue for CHAIR rather than for an obscurity.

    I liked ROOF RACK, ZAGREB, DEICATED, UKULELE, STURGEON, BUTTERNUT SQUASH and more.

    I’m not sure how anyone with the misfortune of having to be on warfarin (hard to maintain right dosage) would think it popular kevin@6

    Thanks Eileen and thanks again Pan, looking forward to number 3.

33. The themed puzzles I like most are ghost themes – these are an entertainment bonus with no extra knowledge required from the solver. Surprise surprise, the grid contains names of the seven dwarfs even though they were clued with different definitions.

    I respect the setters who include themes – it’s hard enough to set a puzzle, adding constraints voluntarily is moving up a level.

    Of course theme puzzle that require specialist knowledge in my mind are akin to puzzles that require an exceptional knowledge of obscurities. I can’t do plants.

34. Thanks Eileen – Joyce is on her own this evening as Bert is attempting the Three Peak Challenge tomorrow. This was just the correct amount of difficulty for solving whilst eating tea.

    I did wonder what puzzle I had been doing though when I read the comment by Dutch@33. Am I going crazy or has the second comment by Dutch been added to the wrong puzzle?

    Thanks Pan.

35. Well, I mistook. I thought I was doing a Puck, not a Pan, and I was thinking it was a bit easier than usual but no less elegant or entertaining. So depending on your view of Puck, that is a decent compliment.

    Joyce @34 – Dutch was commenting on a hypothetical themed puzzle of the type that he would appreciate.

36. Thanks to Pan, and to my two favourite contributors, Eileen and Julie in Australia.

    At 3d (‘Setter wearing beheaded emperor’s garments’), I beheaded (rather over-zealously) the wrong emperor, so arrived at (Cae)SAR’S – popped in ‘I’, and came to the same answer !

    12a (‘A-Z returned…’) reminded me of one lunch-time years ago (when I was not even 20 yrs old) which found me uncomfortably perched on the misericordia-like bench by the window in the Yorkminster Arms (known as ‘The French Pub’) in Dean Street, Soho. I was struggling with the pint glass and a copy of London A-Z (I was relatively new to the city) while attempting that day’s Times crossword. After a few words of polite conversation with my patrician bench-neighbour, I was stunned (agreeably) when he introduced himself as Edmund Akenhead, who was, or had been, crossword editor at The Times. He was kind enough not to interfere with my solving, but did, seeing me holding the A-Z, give me one of his favourite clues:

    Element ‘HIJKLMNO’ (5)

    I worked it out several days later. Is this a well-known classic ?

37. Thanks Pan and Eileen

    Very Quipticish, except for STEMMATA – I was fairly confident that it started ST and ended TA, but, not knowing the word, it took me some time to find “emma”. Favourites were STURGEON and HEDGEROW.

    Adam @36
    “Ancient element” would be better, as it’s a compound rather than an element now!

38. Have only skimmed earlier comments as is my wont – I tend to do crosswords on the day itself later in the week and they tend to be more challenging – quite enjoyed an easier solve – didn’t think it was particularly a write-in – and great for people just getting into Guardian crosswords – that was me forty years ago when I was very pleased to see the answer and understand why – anyway STEMMATA was new to me although clear from wordplay – FOI FJORDS LOI MINION – favourite I think was UKULELE for the deception of British = UK rather than BR or anything else – I’ve also noted AIRSTRIKE – and I liked BUTTERNUT SQUASH…
    Ah A to Z well I never 🙂
    Thanks Pan and Eileen…

39. Adam @36

    Yes, the clue HIJKLMNO is a classic. In fact there was a discussion on it not too long ago on this site on the General Discussion page, starting @111 and then continuing in 113-116. The related clue DEFGHIJKLMNO (5,5) also came up in that discussion, plus a few others that some of us could remember.

    You can get to all this by clicking on GENERAL DISCUSSION at the top of the page and then click on another link where indicated to get to the discussion page itself.

    I was very interested in your story concerning Edmund Akenhead. I remember the name but of course never met the person.

40. Adam @ 36, Alan B @ 39 beat me in replying to you about the WATER clue. Indeed the discussion was very interesting and other classic clues were mentioned!! Unfortunately I have never found out who wrote it (HIJKLMNO (5) that is) and where it was published, so if you (perhaps the venerable Edmund Akenhead mentioned who the setter was) or anyone else can throw any further light on it I would be very grateful!!

41. Thanks Van Winkle @35 – Joyce now feels rather foolish. Her only excuse could be the absence of Bert or too much wine!

42. Just in from the theatre. All the best to Bert – I’ll be thinking of you as I fly off to Menorca tomorrow for a walking holiday.

    Adam @36 – if you’re still there – I like your parsing of 3dn, especially since Caesar is the derivation of Tsar / Czar 😉

43. Alan B @ 39. Please could you put me out of my misery and give me the answer to DEFGHIJKLMNO

44. Meg

    HEAVY WATER

45. Meg@43 – that would be D2O and hence “Heavy Water”: the D is for Deuterium, an isotope of Hydrogen; I could go on, but this is from the back of the memory, way back and I could go astray. Anyway if H2O is water, D2O is heavy water.

    Pl see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

46. Thanks Alan B and Alphalpha. I got as far as D2o but didn’t think it meant anything. Should’ve googled it. I don’t think heavy water was even discovered when I was struggling with science in the fourth form.

47. Meg @46
    Heavy water was important in early nuclear reactors. The film “The heroes of Telemark” is about an attempt to blow up a Norwegian power station during the war that was producing heavy water* for the Germans’ atomic bomb programme.

    *by electrolysing water repeatedly – the ordinary water molecules move a little faster, so are broken down slightly more rapidly, thus increasing the proportion of heavy water left. This process takes vast amounts of electricity, so was done in NOrway, using thier hydro-electric poser, which was relatively cheap.

48. Thank you Muffin. Obviously I wasn’t paying attention in the lower fourth.

49. meg@48 Naughty girl! Not paying attention – and in the lower fourth! Tut tut!
    😉

    (puzzle curately ovoid. many thanks to Pan and Eileen)

50. If I’ve missed it in the comments please forgive me but the crossword was almost a pangram, the only missing letter being the X – although “CROSS” does appear in the first solution.

51. Whoops! Forget that; there is no Q either!

52. Late to the party, so apologies, but I’d like to thank Adam @36 for that anecdote. What a wonderful chance meeting!

    Given the inevitable “I think it’s a pangram, oh no it’s not” comments that come with any crossword containing more than one of the more unusual letters (there is a Q, it’s in 22a), I wonder if this was deliberate and the CROSS put in just to tease. Great misdirection if so.

    Thanks, as always, Eileen and Pan.

53. Thanks Pan and Eileen

    Did this on a recent flight back from the Sunshine Coast without any electronic help taking about 45 minute – so not quite a stroll in the park. It did draw an error with HEDGEROW where I had a not fully parsed HEDGEHOG (with electronic help I may have checked with a word finder to see if there were alternatives).

    Was able to confidently piece together STEMMATA from the wordplay and did remember Ms STURGEON.

    Last one in was ZAGREB which I found harder that what I should have.

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