Guardian 27,538 / Pan

68 comments on “Guardian 27,538 / Pan”

1. Thank you Eileen. The bottom half went in so quickly I was expecting a Monday write-in. How foolish I was. The NE corner detained me for as long as the whole of the rest of the grid. 17 and 25 were new to me, and the online version’s answer for 5 seems not to agree with any other spelling I can find.

   Was there a minor food and drink theme? (RESTAURANT, SKIRRET, TAHINI, APERITIF, GIN, RIGATONI)

   Thanks Pan for the unexpected challenge!

2. Problem with the online version which doesn’t accept ragnarok for 5d but needs the erroneous ragnonak.

3. Sorry. Just saw Bullhassoks’response.

4. Thanks Pan and Eileen

   Well, I found this the hardest Guardian for ages (including recent Prizes). I had no idea what was going on with NANA, and only got it by “checking” various relatives until one worked, SKIRRET and HAKEEM were unknown to me, as was the superhero ICEMAN (though this one was easier to see). Several other fairly obscure words too, though ones I did know (ASHRAM only from previous crosswords!)

   I didn’t parse RELAPSE, and now think it’s a bit loose, as was “not finishing food” for DIS in 8a.

   CHATSWORTH was favourite, though I’ll be interested to see what non-Brits make of it.

    

5. 18d reminded me of this:

   Theres a famous family called Stein
   There’s Gert, there’s Ep, and there’s Ein.
   Gert’s prose is all bunk
   Ep’s sculptures are junk
   And no-one can understand Ein

6. As I have said before, Eileen, you are very kind.

   But for me, the uppage on the tuffometer was not matched by an increase in quality.I dont know who’s fault the erroneous spelling of RAGNAROK got into answer sheet and still reckon CHAIN STORE is two words.Quite liked RIGATONI and TAHINI bit a lot of it seemed laboured. Nice try, Pan.

7. Agreed. A crossword of two halves or more three quarters / one quarter! A good challenge overall. My only niggle is that although 13 down was instantly gettable from the crossers, removing two letters from either side, indicated by ‘limitless’, was a bit arbitrary. Thanks to Eileen and Pan

8. I agree with Muffin. I failed to finish today, probably because I wasn’t expecting to work too hard on a Monday! A couple of quibbles/questions – I don’t like limitless in 13d to indicate removing 2 letters at either end and I think boy or girl to indicate a name is a bit of a needle in a haystack type of clue (see 3d).Never heard of skirrets but salopettes rang a vague bell once revealed. Thanks, Pan. Please come back on a Saturday. And thanks Eileen for the blog.

9. muffin@5  what about Beck and Bern?

10. Thanks Pan, Eileen

    Most unusual.   Revealed a couple, didn’t kick myself.

    For RAGNAROK, over isn’t needed for the position of RAG, because cloth comes first.

11. This felt more like Pasquale than Pan. Difficult puzzle for a Monday and I failed to solve 10a NANA – and had no idea how to parse it either, knowing nothing of who/what WALLY might be. And after reading the blog, I still do not understand why WALLY = NANA?

    New words were SKIRRET, HAKEEM, ICEMAN comic, CRAW=crop.
    My favourites were 22a and 1d.
    Thanks Pan and Eileen.

12. @James

    The clue as written suggests RAGKORAN to me. “Over holy book” does not, to my mind, contain an instruction to reverse KORAN

13. James @10 – you’re quite right; we don’t need ‘over’ to indicate the position of RAG – but it’s in the wrong place to indicate a reversal of KORAN: it suggests a reversal of RAG.

14. Hi michelle @11. I think Wally and nana are synonymous as meaning ‘one who is a bit daft/silly’ in English vernacular. Nana in this contest would be pronounced ‘narna’ and might be more properly written ‘nana to indicated a contraction of ‘banana’.

15. I crossed with both michelle and baerchen. My interpretation of 10ac was the same as Bullhassocks’- but it took me a minute or two.

16. Bullhassocks@14

    thank you for explaining.

    It never occurred to me that NANA meant anything other than “grandma” so I had not bothered to look it up, but now I see my online dictionary has this:

    nana 1 |?n??n?|

    noun Brit. informal

    a silly person; a fool (often as a general term of abuse): I was made to look a right nana.

    ORIGIN 1960s: perhaps a shortening of banana.

17. Crumbs – that was more of a cold needle shower than a gentle wake up to the week.

    I agree with Eileen re RAGNAROK.  The only way the clue works is if you treat over as a verb (such as ‘flip’ or ‘invert’)

    I have no problem with unusual words – part of the fun – but I think a setter needs to be scrupulous with the cluing to give solvers a fighting chance with them.

    Didn’t know FAERIE in the nounal sense, or SKIRRET, HAKEEM, or TAHINI but thought they were well clued.

    Unlike Muffin, I rather liked the reversal of ESPAL(I)ER and gave it a tick along with CHATSWORTH.

    On the whole, more fun than earlier offerings from this setter.  Thank you.

    Nice week, all.

18. I’m with muffin@4, harder than many prizes. I think I got spooked by finding ragnorak a couple of layers down in the wiki entry for Valhalla, and was looking for scholarly obscurities. Also dnk skirret, hakeem and iceman, though gettable.

    Somewhat the other end of the scale from Rufus and Vulcan!

19. @baerchen, eileen

    I agree with both of you, but still, over is there to reverse KORAN.  What’s more likely, a bit of wonky grammar or a complete omission?

20. Meant to say thanks Pan and Eileen.

21. @James

    The use of “over” in the middle of the wordplay in a down clue suggests to me a positional indicator so in this case “rag” would go over, or above Koran. My money would be on a missing reversal indicator. “From the east” mightn’t have been a bad shout in an across clue.

22. Thanks to Pan and to Eileen.

    I sat down to this with much knuckle-cracking and soon felt deflated and eventually defeated.  A number of dinks – RAGNORAK, SKIRRET, HAKEEM – and a few eyebrow-wrigglers – SALOPETTES, RES for “research”, (T)RICKY – left me with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling.  Nothing too unfair really, (although I’m still debating RELAPSE among myselves) and it is after all a live and learn situation.  But I did enjoy NANA, FAERIE and dragging up CHATSWORTH from the back of somewhere I didn’t know existed – a long-ago episode of the Antiques Roadshow maybe?  Something like that.

    “My old man’s a dustman”, an offering from the great Lonnie Donegan, contains the phrase “..He looks a proper nana..” Antipodean contributors might enjoy this version.

23. As well as the confused clue for RAGNAROK, the online version gives RAGNORAK as the correct answer – doubly wrong!

    As my first attempt at a cryptic after a holiday, I thought my brain had turned to mush, thinking a Pan crossword on a Monday should be really easy – not so!

    I agree with Michelle @11 that this seemed more like one of Don’s puzzles.

    Thanks to Eileen for a good blog and to Pan, although in this case (s)he seemed to be trying too hard.

24. Thank you Pan and Eileen.

    Wow, that was a challenge.  I checked 5d by looking up Gotterdammerung to confirm what I thought the answer might be, it looked so strange.

    SKIRRET was also new, it seems to be a very tasty vegetable, chervis in French, and one can find the seeds here in France and in the UK apparently (though some suppliers are out of stock – wonder if it is making a comeback?).

25. Well that was a rude awakening on a Monday morning!

    I had never heard of SKIRRET and didn’t know that HAKEEM was a doctor.  And I cheated by looking at a list of pasta on the internet.

    Only understood NANA after the explanations in this blog – thank you.

    And general thanks to Eileen and Pan.

26. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. Very challenging for a Monday!

    Re 15a: it struck me that “ill” for ailment is unusual as a singular noun – it normally appears in the plural, as in Hamlet’s “makes us rather bear those ills we have”. It would sound a bit odd to talk of having “an ill”.

27. Didn’t know skirret but gettable from wordplay.

    Grammar in RAGNORAK doesn’t bother me. Don’t mind where the ‘over” indicator falls.

    The thing that gets me is the definition of BOLSHY as ‘awkward’. Same letter count, did anyone else go for ‘gauche’ before following the wordplay? l

28. same as Gillian @8

29. A similar usage perhaps to “over holy book”  is the submarine command “Up periscope” (our physics teacher was an ex-submarine commander).

30. Finished after a long tussle. I see why people object to RAGNAROK (which I managed to guess), but, like paddymelon@27, I feel it’s fair. I particularly liked SALOPETTES, GIN RUMMY and TAHINI once I’d managed to parse it. Many thanks to Pan and Eileen.

31. Having staggerd through this, I’ve come to check (quite) a few parsings and now must chime in on some some of the objections:

    5d – not sure this is an entirely fair clue, the “over” seems to indicate the position of RAG.  It’s debatable but overall the clue gets low marks.  Also as noted on the website the answer is given as RAGNORAK.

    CHAINSTORE doesn’t seem right to me, indicating a place that stores chains, not a shop, but whatever, I assume Chambers allows it.  I don’t think giving it as (5,5) makes it too much easier.

    Not keen on how limitless is used to lead towards SALOPETTES.

    Nonetheless some excellent clues, including RIGATONI and CHATSWORTH.  Thanks Pan and Eileen

32. Still haven’t seen anywhere the strange ‘ragnorak’ spelling which caused such a kerfuffle on the Guardian site this morning. I must be missing something. I don’t object to ‘over holy book’ particularly. I thought this was a really nice puzzle, and a breath of fresh air for a Monday, though CHAIN STORE is shown in Ch only as two words.

33. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. I can only echo some aforesaid comments, and this was by no means a Monday stroll. Bottom half went in quite slowly but steadily, but top half took much longer. Quite a struggle for me with nana and Ragnarok (only got by a dictionary check of words beginning with rag) last ones. I was slowed down by a lot of unfamiliar words, all of which have been mentioned. That said got there in the end and learned a few new words today. All part of the fun of doing cryptics and thanks again to Pan and Eileen.

34. baerchen @21

    I just can’t believe that the team of eagle-eyed scrutineers at the Graun would have missed … etc.

    I must admit, I haven’t quite nailed how adverbs as indicators should be used.  There has to be an inferred verb, doesn’t there?  So, holy book [turned] over.  But then, why not [turned] over holy book?

    Adjectives are apparently allowed to go before or after their fodder (as in apostles’ pants).

35. Nodding in to defend this usage of Nana, which is in regular use in parts of the country whatever the dictionaries say. It was once a diminutive of Nanny,too. But also to object to ‘latticework’ as an indicator for ‘espalier’. Lattices have verticals; espaliers are horizontal.

36. Harhop @35, the COED gives for espalier “a lattice or frame along which the branches of a tree or shrub are trained to grow flat against a wall etc.”

37. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. I had the same problems as already noted both with words new to me (e.g., BOLSHY as awkward – my LOI) and parsing, especially RELAPSE.

38. Hello all! It’s just lately that I’ve been able to solve cryptics with much confidence, so I’ve been lurking, but am now pouncing. Why? Because of CHATSWORTH. Muffin asks: CHATSWORTH was favourite, though I’ll be interested to see what non-Brits make of it. Well this USperson was familiar with it….During my first and last visit to England in 1968, I saw this wonderful stately home. Just really remember the name, though. Ta!

39. Excellent, Lady Mondegreen! Chatsworth was conceptually the basis for Pemberley in Pride and prejudice.

     

40. Welcome, Lady Mondegreen – I love your pseudonym. 😉

41. Thanks Eileen and Pan. Found this quite hard but mostly enjoyable. I’m with others who thought 13d was dubious. Surely “limitless” implies the removal of the extremes (the edges), not any number of letters?

42. Indeed, Eileen – I wonder if she is related to the Earl of Moray?

43. RAGNARØK I knew, but not SKIRRET or HAKEEM, which is not in Chambers. Also, CHAIN STORE is two words in Chambers. Nevertheless, I enjoyed being challenged on a Monday for a change. Thanks, Pan.

44. copland smith @43 – Chambers has ‘hakim’; Collins gives both spellings.

45. Thanks Pan & Eileen. It has all been said but I wanted to add that like Muffin I too entered and checked MAMA and PAPA before successfully trying NANA. Only then did I remember that line from Lonnie Donegan that Alpalpha referred to. The only time I have heard that term used, although I have a dim memory of a similar crossword clue and reference to the wearer of hobnail boots several years ago.

46. I would never have come close to finishing this without the check button – probably the toughest Monday puzzle I have ever seen. Some very obscure solutions, in some cases clued less than clearly.

    Thanks to Pan and Eileen

47. Needless to say I DNF. And didn’t enjoy most of it, with a few notable exceptions. Still, I’m sure it’s built a little more know-how into my old noggin for future cryptic tussles. I’m not calling foul on any of the clues (well, as with a couple of posters above, I just might on BOLSHY). I hope the England team have less of a struggle against Tunisia tonight!

    Thanks Pan and the ever helpful Eileen.

48. I’m a bit surprised at the comments on BOLSHY. For me it precisely describes an awkward attitude – i.e. mental rather than physical awkwardness. I don’t think I’ve heard it used to mean anything else.

    “Look out – here’s that bolshy poster again!”

49. Chambers: ‘bolshy – acting in an awkward or intractable manner’.

50. Bolshy is one of those words which has come to mean the opposite of what it ought to – Brownie Points which were apparently originally demerits another. The BOLSHEVIKS were the MAJORITY at the Russian Social Democrat Congress of 1903 as opposed to the minority MENSHEVIKS who were therefore the “awkward squad”!

51. Definitely the toughest puzzle for ages for us – and a dnf with RELAPSE and BOLSHY not done and GAGA not correct. RELAPSE seemed full of difficulty with a relatively obscure synonym having a letter missing and a cleverly misleading definition. I don’t have a problem with BOLSHY (other than not solving it). We had a group of blokes all with nicknames beginning with B and one of them was a contrary person called Bolshy – very apt.
    Sadly I didn’t have any ticks and as others have said it felt like trying too hard – at least for Pan on a Monday. I’d probably have felt differently if it had been a prize. Thanks to Pan and to Eileen for the parsing and affirmative review as always.

52. Can someone please help me again?  I put in RAGNAROK and therefore have to admit a DNF since the answer given is RAGNORAK.  Have we heard from the Guardian that their online version is wrong.  I have never heard of either word but Koran reversed seems logical and RAGNAROK is to be found in all my dictionaries.

    I agree with most posters and Eileen that this was hard but OK, although having so many obscure words all in the NE corner made it a real struggle.

    I wonder what tomorrow brings.  Knowing my luck it will be the Don!!

    Thanks Pan and Eileen.

53. S Panza @52

    I’m fairly sure that it’s just a Grauniadism (we’ll see what answer is printed tomorrow). RAGNORAK has no valid parsing, RAGNAROK (despite valid quibbles) does.

54. Me @ 52 “have we heard from the Guardian that their online version is wrong” should have a ?.

55. I’m staggered there’s been no mention of the usage of ‘fulfil’ in two clues, used wholly incorrectly both times. Fulfil and fill have different meanings. Fulfil is not a synonym of fill. How else can I put it? Why has this just been waved through by the editor and seemingly every poster?!?

56. PS. I’m well aware that Chambers has it as an archaic usage but I’m not buying that as Pan’s intention – even if that were the case, it needs an indicator of its obsolescence- even the most fiendish barred puzzles throw you that bone!

57. Thanks muffin! Not like the G to make any mistakes…………. is it?  I feel it must be wrong because leaving the dodgy parsing aside there is no word RAGNORAK that I can find.  But as you say, we will see tomorrow.

58. I was expecting the usual Monday offering but,as we all now know,this was not the case. It struck me that there was quite a good puzzle in here but there was a bit of sloppiness in the cluing which tended to spoil it. I won’t repeat the examples that others have pointed out.
    I did like NANA which I haven’t heard for years. I think it was dated by the time the Lonnie Donegan record came out. I can’t say I knew SKIRRET so had to wait for the crossers. HAKEEM, which I’ve never heard of, was very clearly clued but I had to check it anyway and I could only find the HAKIM spelling. I didn’t look in Collins.
    Hardest Monday puzzle I’ve attempted.
    Thanks Pan

59. Bingybing @55: you are quite correct of course, and I did notice the second one.  Although unfilled ladies would be a bit awkward on a number of levels.  However, I did not comment because I was afraid of being called a pedant.

60. I’m another who doesn’t accept “fulfils” as “fills”
    And shouldn’t 25ac have a qualifier of some sort? All the definitions I’ve seen refer to a Muslim doctor.

61. Wow – very difficult for any day, let alone Monday, with several words not previously known to me: SKIRRET, SALOPETTES, NANA, BOLSHY.  I needed a lot of assistance from Google to complete the grid.

    S Panza @59 – I assume you meant that unfilled ladies would be a bit BOLSHY?   Ha ha

    Eileen @49 – Speaking of BOLSHY, I found it interesting to see the Chambers definition that you quoted (“acting in an awkward or intractable manner”).  When I was Google-confirming BOLSHY based on the crossers and wordplay, I looked up the online Chambers (called “Chambers 21st Century Dictionary”), and the only adjectival definitions I found there were “1. bad-tempered and unco-operative; difficult or rebellious”, and “2. left-wing”.  Definition 1 captures the “intractable” part of the Chambers definition you quoted, I think, but not so much the “awkward” part, which is of course the definition that Pan used in the puzzle.  Even if it may be the case (and I’m not entirely sure that it is, having only heard of the word today, but I am surmising) that the definition of this word has evolved and that predominantly it is now used to mean bad-tempered, I’m surprised that the “21st Century” edition did not retain anything (perhaps a third adjectival definition?) suggesting the word is also used to mean “awkward”.

    Many thanks to Pan and Eileen and the other commenters.

62. Not my cup of tea.  I was surprised at the number of obscure words, and rather than be forced to look things up I left this unfininshed, with 6 clues unsolved, one of them being NANA.  I liked CHATSWORTH and GIN RUMMY.

63. Most of this crossword was probably OK. Until, yes until, I reached the NE(& E). I don’t mind when a puzzle is hard but if the choice of answers (read: obscurities) is the reason for it, then I’m not so sure we should give the setter the benefit of the doubt. Add to that some less than elegant clueing (over (in 5d), limitless (in 13d)) and one should indeed conclude that this wasn’t my cup of tea. Luckily, I am not alone today.

    Bingybing @55 mentioned two ‘fulfil’s, perhaps somewhat unfortunate. But there also three (!) “one letter ‘leaving'” clues: 23ac, 26ac and 4d). I can live with two ‘mansions’ but find two consecutive hidden clues (21d, 22d) a bit odd.

    On top of that, Pan joined the only a handful of setters who think that the use of ‘for’ as used in 23ac, is fine. Well, it’s defendable but not really good. I objected to it on many previous occasions but if one’s happy with it, who am I to disagree?

    One clue in the NE (Chatsworth, 6d) was not difficult because of the answer itself [I’ve been there, long ago] but it’s the word ‘produced’ that made the clue blurry. For a long time I was convinced that it had to be an anagram (indicator: produced) of “tea + it[s] + value”, even more so since the letters of ‘chateau’ are in it. Of course, I do understand how it really works now but it does leave me with a rather inappropriate link word (‘produced’).

    Like I started this comment, most of this crossword was probably OK.  However …

    Thanks Eileen & Pan.

     

64. The answer published in today’s paper has the incorrect RAGNORAK at 5d

65. Correction as to my thoughts on 6d: not (TEA + IT[s] + VALUE)* but CHA + (IT[s] + VALUE)* is what I meant to say.

    [otherwise there wouldn’t be ‘chateau’ in it, innit?]

66. re. 7 down. I don’t object to ‘little’ for name abbreviations but I do object to unheard-of abbreviations for words. Why does ‘tense’ stand for ‘T’? Why ‘recipe’ for ‘R’?

67. “Salopettes”? “Hakeem”? “Chatsworth”? “Skirret”? Good grief.

68. Too hard for a Canadian. Thanks Toronto Star!

    Impossible:

    – Wally’s relative (nana ok, wally, no)

    – Bolshy… wha?

    – Skirret

    – Hakeem (well, impossible for me anyway, never hear of it)

    – Chatsworth

    – Faerie (I could almost walk to Lake Erie, but never heard of “faerie” as a place)

    – Salopettes (comes up here as a spelling error)

    Nevertheless, I appreciate the skill of the setter, and thanks to Eileen and other commenters for the explanations.

     

     

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