Guardian 27,418 / Pan

62 comments on “Guardian 27,418 / Pan”

1. Thanks Pan and Eileen

   I found this harder than the last Pan. I’ve never heard “rosary” for a rose-garden before, and I had no idea what was going in in STALAG.

   In what context does R stand for “rule” (5d)?

2. With clues such as 8a and 5d I thought this a tad too cryptic for a Monday.

   I too have muffin’s query about R

    

3. BTW, I’ve been hoping it was an error that would have sorted itself by now ….

   Can someone advise why I cannot put letters in the top right of puzzle since the new look. The compiler and date overlap the grid.

   Thanks

4. pex @3

   I don’t have this problem (using Chrome on a laptop). The compiler name and date appear above the top left of the puzzle, just as they always used to.

5. I’m on an Apple and it happens on all the Guardian puzzles except for the Quick one

6. muffin @1, pex @2

   Under R, Chambers has “rule (law)”. The ODE goes further and gives an example – “Law rule: under r 7.4 (6) the court may hear an application immediately.”

7. I love Mondays! This is the earliest I’ve been able to post thus far on my 225 journey and I managed without any check button or looking up. I should credit Mrs N-L with REVEL, though – I struggle to remember lever for bar, for some reason. I thought I’d parsed everything too but I did wonder if some of the synonyms were a bit of a stretch. Is a rebate the same as a discount? Well, in my current jubilance, I forgive all, as I hope you all will forgive the shameless crowing of this solver. I may have to change my name 😉 Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

8. Thanks Gaufrid

9. Very enjoyable. Favourites were FREEBIES, PICKLE and ENDORSED. Many thanks to Pan and Eileen.

10. Thank you, Eileen.

    A fairly fast solve this morning but nonetheless enjoyable.

    Can’t quite work out how ‘standard’ equates to ‘rate’ in rebate.  Perhaps someone could provide an example.

    Loved the surface at STALAG, did not like the surface at MASTODON.  “No points awarded to amateur coming back for old elephant”.  Wot?

    Thank you, Pan; nice week, all.

11. Thanks to Pan for a gentle start to the week.

    Like muffin@1, I was unsure of ROSARY as the definition for garden at 9a, my LOI, although once I saw “rosemary” for the herb minus the old chestnut “em” for printer’s measure, I knew that was all it could be.

    I thought there a couple of single letters indicated in an iffy kind of way, such as root of beet = t in 17a, and then rule = r in 5d (as already questioned by muffin).

    Eileen, I think I am being a bit thick, but I can’t see how “deal” means “treat” in 6a, a question mark for me as I solved.

    As Eileen has noted, there was a double-up with DETAIL for dock in 19a, repeated in 4d with boss “detailed”. No big deal, guess I am just being picky.

    I really liked some of the clever anagrams Pan included today, especially ms Garland at the bridge table, even though to answer a question from a previous forum, I am not a bridge player. I also had a smile at BACCHUS in the Catholic Church deity clue at 20d.

    Mantbrpthanks Eileen for your attention to detail in your blog, as ever.

12. Sorry I have to pop in again to correct myself at @3. Its the TOP LEFT where the Compiler and Date overlap the grid and prevent me from entering letters.

13. I was second in line when I wrote this, then got distracted…now @11. So forgive me please for not acknowledging some of the posts in between.

14. J in Oz @11:  I had the same problem with deal and treat.  For them to be interchangeable, deal needs ‘with’, doesn’t it?  “This is how to deal with/treat his claim”. For example.

    Perhaps there’s another usage I’m/we’re missing.

15. Distraction obvious … Didn’t proof properly for typos, mea culpa.

16. Thanks Pan and Eileen

    JiA et al: Ref ‘deal’ vs ‘treat’, both can mean to trade, and back when I was in a particular business one customer used to send out an “Invitation to treat”, ie to deal, or come to a commercial agreement.

17. I have been driven to check “rosary” and find that it has become figurative for a “garden of prayers” and comes from ME rosarie < L rosarium, rose garden (in ML, rosary, garland of roses).  Live and learn.  Still struggling with “rate” for “standard” though??

18. I had to go out for a while immediately after posting but I think the queries have been dealt with, so thanks, all.

    Julie @11 – yes, I had a wry smile at the idea of Bacchanalian revelry in a Catholic church. 😉

    Congratulations to Newby-Lurker @7! [Both Collins and Chambers have discount as a definition for rebate.]

    Terriblyslow @17 – I can’t think of an example just now but I did look it up and Chambers has that definition.

19. Mr Paddington Bear and I managed this in just over an hour, which was pretty good for us bears of little brain – I know that’s the wrong bear but it is us as well. I scratched my head over 23 down until I realised it was an anagram. Thanks to Pan and Eileen

20. Thank you Pan and Eileen.
    Julie in Australia: I also liked the picture of
    Toto interrupting Ms Garland’s, possibly dead, rubber.
    Pex, I’m glad you’re a fellow bridge fan. Julie and DaveMc – it’s never too late.
    I’d always argued that life was too short for:
    1) Playing chess WELL, 2) Wagner and 3) Bridge FULL STOP !
    Since moving away I’ve made a start on breaking all of these rules.
    Bridge is a convivial, sociable puzzle and, I’m sure, has helped me with crosswords, and vice versa.

21. Newby Lurker: It’s good to see you back. Congratulations !
    Did anyone give Chris Maslanka a whirl on Radio 4 last week ? Lots of gems (some hidden), including ‘The Don’ at work; (Still available on I-Player).
    I thought I’d come up with a unique solution to the 100 Birds Puzzle (my local barmaid poved ne wrong), but am still wrestling with that of the Haberdasher. NO SPOILERS PLEASE !

22. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. This probably took me longer than it should have done. I always seem to have difficulty getting into Pan’s way of thinking, but always seem to get there in the end. I think at times I tend to overcomplicate things. Liked Bacchus, freebies and hangover (maybe yesterday’s Merlot), but a couple a struggled to parse such as stalag, therefore thanks again Eileen and of course Pan.

23. William@10: Re standard and rate: ‘rate for the job’ = standard price, I suppose.

24. oh I see now that I did the 22 January Chifonie earlier! The Pan puzzle was not showing up when I went to do my Monday Cryptic.

    I will do this puzzle tomorrow when i wake up in my time zone 🙂

25. drofle @23:  Mmm…not bad, thanks.  I had no problem with the basic similarity of the 2 words – just failed to come up with an interchangeable sentence.

26. Did anybody else put rocket in for 9?

27. Do many of you warm up with the Quick before starting the Cryptic? I did, and was a bit annoyed by 1a where Discount (6) was the clue for REBATE. A rebate is not a discount, I thought to myself. And then the same mis-definition turned up at 19a in the same day’s cryptic. I think that is unfortunate, to say the least. I enjoyed Pan’s puzzle otherwise, though.

28. Thanks, Eileen and il principe dell’oscurità. I’m off to see what this Radio 4 thing with Chris Maslanka is. 🙂

29. Thanks for the blog Eileen – my favourites coincided with yours – and to Pan for a pleasant Monday puzzle with a few twists.

    Re rebate/discount – without wishing to stir up a Brexit hornet’s nest the UK’s EU “rebate” is a discount 😉

30. I couldn’t parse ROSARY but it had to be right. Mostly pretty easy but HANGOVER, TREAT and TASK BAR stumped me for a while. Incidentally, I thought it a bit odd to criticise a cryptic crossword for being too cryptic!
    Thanks Pan.

31. Not as simple as most of Pan’s previous puzzles, and quite enjoyable.

    Thanks to Pan and Eileen

32. pex @3 & 12

    I don’t have that problem on my MacBook or iPad and I can’t reproduce it. What kind of Apple are you using? (I’m tempted to ask if it’s a Granny Smith, but that would be rude!)

33. STALAG was the first of several clues to get a tick for surface and construction alike. Clues don’t have to be impenetrably obscure to be classy. Overall though, a tad too many abbreviations for my personal taste.

34. Thanks Eileen and Pan.
    Re 6a, I equated ‘treat’ and ‘deal with’ which is what William @ 14 suggests without noting that ‘deal with’ is actually there in the clue. Sorry if I’ve missed your point William.

35. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. Enjoyable. I parsed ROSEMARY but had difficulty finding a “garden” link and had no trouble equating TREAT and “deal” as nouns – e.g., prefixed with “big.”

36. Mrs Paddington Bear: I think I took about the same time – must be part for the course for us ursines.
    I really like 12a. For some reason it took me ages to see 10a, which was my LOI.
    Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

37. I’m sorry but I feel I have to say the bombing of Dresden bit in 15 ac. is in rather poor taste, even if bombing is an accepted way of indicating an anagram.

    Thanks nevertheless to Pan and Eileen for a challenging Monday puzzle.

38. Martin @37 I agree with your comment re Dresden

39. pex @12: I suspect that’s caused by your ad-blocker. Mine does the same thing, and unfortunately the Guardian’s monitoring of ads served in my country leads something to be desired (too many flashing/animated/otherwise irritating ads), so I’m unwilling to disable it. You should still be able to fill those in, though – click on the clue, or select a nearby (uncovered) box and use the arrow keys to move the selection.

40. Tupu @34:  So it is.  You didn’t miss my point…I missed ‘with’!

41. Thanks to Eileen and Pan. Nice to see ROD/PERCH/POLE making another appearance so soon !

42. Like Newby-Lurker, another record solve for me too. I put it down to my regular visits here to absorb collective wisdom, so thanks to all the bloggers and posters. Rosary was my LOI.

    Can I ask someone to explain ellipses in clues please? What are they supposed to signify?

    To me 7d and 13d seem to be stand-alone clues. Do ellipses suggest reading clues together or are they just a diversion?

43. KirinChris @42

    Very, very occasionally the ellipsis genuinely means linked senses to the clues in some way; much more often they are for surface (and misdirection).

44. An enjoyable start to the week.  I thought there were many nice clues, with ROSARY and STALAG being my favorites (the latter being CotD for me).

    I see that “R” for Rule has been very well explained above.  I recall a recent blog discussion (alas, I don’t recall which one specifically) in which MrPenny also explained it nicely.

    Newby-Lurker @7:  In addition to adding my congratulations to those from others above (with some of that for KirinChris @42 as well), I got a laugh from your comment about changing your name.  Just last Thursday or Friday, as I was (happily) reading your posts from time to time, I was getting the image of Mike Myers from his “Saturday Night Live” days (here on TV in the US — I am not sure the degree to which, if at all, this show has been exported to other countries during its decades-long run), doing  “Coffee Talk” as Linda Richman, saying “Newby Lurker is neither a newby nor a lurker.  Discuss.”  [And for those who have no idea what I am talking about, there’s always YouTube.]

    il principe dell’oscurità @20: Bridge will have to be something I keep in mind as a possible future undertaking — maybe after my wife and I are empty-nesters!

    Many thanks to Pan, Eileen and other commenters.

     

45. Thanks Pan and Eileen.

    My only queries were ‘battle’ = ‘war’ at 1d AWARE, ‘on air’ = ‘broadcast’ (instead of broadcasting) at 16a DEBONAIR and R = ‘rule’ in 5d SURRENDER.

    I particularly liked Eileen’s two ‘unexpected’ definitions at 8a HANGOVER and 9a ROSARY.

46. Alan B @45 –

    Re: “unexpected” definitions, I meant to mention in my earlier post that HANGOVER was my LOI, and that I was held up on it for a time because I was not familiar with the use of this term to mean a “relic”.  “Holdover” seems the more likely term for a relic (if one wishes to eschew “relic” for some reason).  I believe I have heard “hangover” used only in reference to the “morning after” affliction (of one who overdid the celebration of 20d, perhaps, the night before).

47. Am I alone in thinking, the ‘Gentle Monday’ tradition à la Rufus is a thing of the past?  Certainly no walkover this, not a real toughie but enough to keep me occupied a while.  That suits me fine, but I appreciate it may not suit everyone…

    LOI was ROSARY because I was certain the word for the flowerbed was ROSIER or something like that (evidently I think too much in French…).  I had to look up to check that there was another meaning besides the prayer-beads.  And at 6d, I toyed for a while with TICK BOX (but couldn’t stomach the X in 15a), then TOOL BAR, before finally homing in on TASK BAR.  All these IT neologisms!!!

    Otherwise no problems.  I thought GRAND SLAM was a bit too easy, definition wise – but then: another bridge-player here 🙂 !  Perhaps if the clue had worked on the ‘tennis’ interpretation of GS, rather than bridge, it might have been fairer to all comers?  Incidentally, to be pedantic, a Grand Slam is nowhere near the highest possible score in a single hand at bridge.  That honour goes to getting the opponents thirteen down, re-doubled and vulnerable, for which you can bag a penalty of 7,600 points.  Not something that’s ever come my way at the table, though…. 🙁

    Incidentally, I’d say that being a Bridge-player is often helpful in solving crosswords – but not the other way around!  To those on here who are thinking of taking it up – do have a go!  Best is to join a local club that offers tuition.  Excellent grey-matter-stimulus stuff!

    Some of the anagrams were a bit light on the ‘scrambling’ front – 13d has THEN preceded by AGIAN which is only two letters transposed from AGAIN.  And back to GRAND SLAM – the letters for GRAND are in the correct order, albeit with others in between.

    STALAG is taking a liberty I think – definitely un-Rufusian!  Ximenes would probably object to the usage of “unpopular”.  But hell! …. this is the Grauniad after all!

    Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

48. I must have gotten enough sleep this weekend because I agree with Eileen’s assessment of this being a gentle puzzle to start the week – challenging but not frustrating.  Like many others, ROSARY was new to me but nothing else.  And I didn’t find the reference to the bombing of Dresden to be offensive – I thought it was quite clever.

    Thanks both to Pan and Eileen.

49. cs @ 27

    A rebate can certainly be a discount.

    I meant to add in my earlier post that when I was a buyer/negotiator we used to negotiate retrospective discounts based on volumes achieved. They were known as rebates, as they were payback of a payment we’d already made.

50. Bluedot @48 I thought it was clever too, but in poor taste nonetheless.

51. Julie @ 11 “in an iffy kind of way, such as root of beet = t in 17a” Sorry to disagree; I thought beetroot was really neat.

    I enjoyed this Pan, and thought he had upped the hardness a notch or two.

    Thanks Eileen and Pan

     

     

52. DE @ 51: I can’t remember where I came across this, but I believe Pan may be a she.

53. Am I the only person who enjoyed the relative simplicity of Rufus and Crispa and the ‘easy Monday’ crossword?  Since Rufus’s retirement my partner and I have been unable to complete a puzzle.  If the Monday crossword continues to be set at a ‘Bletchley Park’ level you will be selling one less copy of the Guardian every week, which may will be one more nail in the coffin of the printed newspaper. Adieu.

54. DaveMc, glad you got a giggle! I’ll have to check YouTube, I do like Mike Myers but haven’t seen those. I now remember I’ve even subscribed to the SNL YouTube channel. So many great comedians seem to have been involved over the years but I’m not aware of it being broadcast (or ON AIR?!) here.

55. If you’re still there Newby Lurker, to answer your question about the 20 shilling birthday present, it was a book from Heffer’s Children’s Bookshop, The Little Prince, in hardback, which I still have – complete with price tag.

56. Oh, forgot to say congratulations to KirinChris! Also, Patrick, I also miss Rufus’ “easy Mondays” though I know not everyone could get on his wavelength. I hope you will persevere as I hope the Monday puzzle will continue to make some concession to us newbies. (If you haven’t seen my other posts I should admit that I use the online functions such as the check button for many weeks to get me to the point where today for the first time I managed the whole thing unaided.)

57. Il principe, thanks for the explanation, now I see! A prescient present, considering your monicker! I read it for French O level, I think. Lovely.

58. [Dave Ellison@51: funny how a good night’s sleep can change one’s opinion – I now tend to think that if a setter is going to use an indicator for one letter, in this case “t”, then using a clue like “beetroot” is actually pretty clever. Thanks for sharing your point of view and leading me to a re-think.]

59. PS I wanted to echo what Newby-Lurker has said@56. I hope Patrick@53 (and partner) that you do stick with it. When I started, I used to savour each clue I did solve – which was usually only three or so. I do miss “easy Mondays” too as I like my routines, but think engaging with this forum and gaining increasing familiarity with other setters has helped me to become a more successful solver. Along the way I have learned some of the tricks of the trade and thereby, gleaned more enjoyment from this hobby than I ever thought possible.

60. Julie et al:
    Before the days of check buttons and blogs, at least for me, I have to thank my very indulgent father (also my lodger at the time, in Cornwall) in 1989 or so. He would solve half The Times and then give it to me to work through what he’d done and then I’d try to finish it.
    “Greater love hath no man than this , than to give up his crossword for his son.”

61. Chris @ 39. Thank you for that. No wonder there was an eerie silence over my question.

    Yes I can click on a part of the word and as you say I can use the arrow keys.

    Much appreciated

     

62. Patrick@53: may I add my voice to the others who say, please persevere!  I agree that it’s a shame that Rufus is no longer setting, but can you blame him for taking retirement?  And other setters will not find it easy to take up his slot and maintain his ‘accessibility’.  All I can advise is, if you keep at it and use ‘Reveal’ as and when needed, you will find some of the more ‘cryptic’ puzzles will in the course of time fall into your hands.

    At least, that’s what happened to me.  It was only about a year ago that I resumed cryptics after a long gap.  I was rather lost at first.  But now I’m proud to boast, I don’t often have a DNF…

Comments are closed.