Guardian 27,670 – Pan

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I started off thinking this was going to be pretty much a write-in, but was held up in the SW corner with one obscure (to me) answer and one bit of rather tricky clueing. Thanks to Pan

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. HEATHROW Expression of surprise about a project for an airport (8)
Reverse of EH (surprise) + A THROW
9. ECLAT Striking effect of exotic lace on hem of petticoat (5)
LACE* + [petticoa]T
10. PROP Rugby player runs into old man (4)
R in POP (father, old man)
11. BADGER CULL Controversial killing of animal possessing unusual source of divine grace (6,4)
Anagram of D[ivine] GRACE in BULL. Badgers are controversially culled because of the disputed belief that they spread bovine TB
12. ISLAND Sail around shores of neglected land mass (6)
SAIL* + N[eglecte]D
14. SEDIMENT Waste product generated by people tucking into bad diets (8)
MEN in DIETS*
15. PLACKET Carton containing large piece of fabric (7)
L in PACKET – I had to look this up to check: it is (among other meanings) “an opening in a skirt, shirt, etc for a pocket, or at the fastening”
17. TSARIST Supporter of dictator hiding dresses in vacant toilet (7)
SARIS in T[oile]T
20. ARTICLES Anthea’s contributions to magazine? (8)
“Anthea” is made up of the articles AN, THE, A
22. CRABBY Bad-tembered taxi driver crossing river (6)
R in CABBY
23. NOBEL PRIZE Award for recycled bronze pile (5,5)
(BRONZE PILE)*
24. BUTT Bottom of target (4)
Double definition – American slang for the bottom, and “a mark or mound for archery or shotting practice”; also figuratively an object or target of ridicule
25. ISERE French department covered by precise regulations (5)
Hidden in precISE REgulations
26. ENVISAGE Cook given SAE for picture (8)
(GIVEN SAE)*
Down
1. REPRISAL Priest is stopping money as act of vengeance (8)
PR IS in REAL (currency of Brazil)
2. STOP Discontinue concession over time (4)
T in SOP (concession)
3. BRIBED Brother visiting mafiosi’s final resting place is paid illegally (6)
BR + [mafios]I + BED
4. SWEDISH Head of Sheffield Wednesday is meeting Hillsborough’s first Scandinavian (7)
S[heffield] + WED + IS + H[illsborough]
5. NEREIDES I sneered rudely seeing sea nymphs (8)
(I SNEERED)*
6. BLACK MARIA Where cops may sit for a game of cards (5,5)
Double definition – police van, and the card game also known as Hearts
7. STOLEN New undergarment is hot! (6)
STOLE + N – we have to read this as “New under garment”
13. ARCHIMEDES Leading setter’s swapped seed for mathematician (10)
ARCH (leading) + I’M (setter is) + SEED*
16. ECLIPSED Hidden river flowing north around docks (8)
CLIPS (docks) in reverse of DEE
18. SABOTAGE Wise man protecting new boat from malicious damage (8)
BOAT* in SAGE
19. ASSIZES Old courts using Anglo-Saxon measurements (7)
A.S. + SIZES
21. ROOKIE Piece that is for someone new to the job (6)
ROOK (chess piece) + I.E.
22. CLEAVE Part of stick (6)
Double definition of the famous auto-antonym
24. BUST Clapped-out public transport’s on time! (4)
BUS + T

47 comments on “Guardian 27,670 – Pan”

  1. Nicely Mondayish apart from 20a which I worked out from the checking letters and then saw what it had to do with Anthea

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew

  2. Yes. a tad more cryptic than we’re accustomed to on a Monday.

    I particularly liked 14a (SEDIMENT) for its clever wording.

  4. Although straightforward, a lot more satisfying than many Mondays of late. Fewer vague double definitions (some of which have been barely single-entendres) and a decent spread of clue types. I liked “undergarment” for misleading me until I had some crossers, and “badger cull” (which has been in the news recently). I feel satisfied, as after a small but tasty meal.

  5. Thanks Pan and Andrew

    I had a similar experience – rapid start but slow finish. I didn’t know PLACKET either. LOI and favourite ARTICLES.

    I’m not sure BLACK MARIA is a fair clue. I knew both references, in fact, but without them there isn’t a way in.

    [Matilda’s Quiptic, though esy, is great fun!]

  6. Thank you, Andrew.

    All over a little quickly but enjoyable nonetheless, with ticks at BADGER CULL and the excellent ANTHEA which left me wondering if my lack of current media knowledge was hindering me.

    Any ideas on why SEDIMENT is necessarily a ‘waste product’?  Perhaps there’s another def but I thought it was just that part of a mixture which sinks to the bottom of a liquid.  Was the setter thinking specifically of wines etc?

    Also not sure if money is enough of a def for real.  Certainly it’s an example but a ‘say’ is needed here for me.

    Other than that, a good Monday puzzle.

    Nice week, all.

  7. My father had a friend who didn’t read Beatrix Potter
    to her children because of the archaic language. I thought
    she might have a point until I began teaching English to
    a seamstress; The Tailor of Gloucester was perfect,
    but I don’t recall a PLACKET among the snippets, lappets
    and the lack of twist.
    Thank you Pan and Andrew.

  8. Even Brian May would have to say 11 is well clued.

    and I am a badgerist!

    Placket-Donnish if you ask me.

     

    Tick from me esp for a Monday

     

  9. Thanks Andrew. I could not parse 20a, until the light dawned with your explanation. I missed “Bull” as the animal in 11a because I thought the def was “controversial killing of animal”.

  10. Thank you Pan for an enjoyable Monday crossword and Andrew for a helpful blog.

    I knew the word PLACKET from dress making, to me it means the piece of material sewn under the opening for a pocket etc. – I don’t suppose many women make their own dresses now, it is probably cheaper to buy them.

  11. Thanks Pan; good Monday puzzle.

    Good blog from Andrew; I also got a bit stuck on the SW corner, looking up Anthea on the web and, of course, getting nowhere.

    I liked the people tucking into bad diets even if the definition was a bit suspect.

     

  12. 11 across is an outstanding clue with a very evocative surface. 20 across also gets a big tick for inventiveness and the vary satisfying doh moment. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  13. Juggling the Philistine, only just now remembered the morning Pan. Yes nice and Monday. Like Pex, I liked 14 for the suggestive digestive surface. Didn’t know that particular French department, had forgotten the card game, and ditto the archery/butt connection (despite reading Mrs ginf’s historical romance collection, wherein young blokes practice ‘at the butts’). But all gettable.

    Good fun, thanks Andrew and Pan.

  15. Yep! Quick, slow, quick quick slow…much more fun than the average Monday offering. Had to check isere, though the parsing was straightforward; likewise placket. Really liked 11 and 20 across. Thanks Pan and Andrew.

  16. Off topic but re your comments on 11 there is no dispute about whether or not badgers spread TB, the arguments concern the extent and implications of badgers passing it on to cattle.

    Enjoyed this, not sure about waste matter for sediment but that’s a minor quibble in a fine Monday crossword.

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

  17. On PLACKET: Bard fans may recall this from King Lear:

     

    “Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders’ books, and defy the foul fiend.”  (Edgar)

    – though placket may have a more anatomical meaning here!

    Thanks Andrew and Pan

  19. My aunt tells me a placket (she spells it placquet) is that strip of cloth down the front of a shirt that the buttonholes are stitched into.

    (Auntie’s usually right!)

  20. Thanks to Pan and Andrew. My experience much like many others. Mostly unpacked readily but held up in the SW. As with Andrew had to look up placket which was the last one. A very nice Monday offering and favourites articles and stolen. Thanks again to Pan and Andrew.

  21. A fine Monday offering from Pan with several I needed help from Andrew to parse – including the excellent BADGER CULL and ARTICLES along with ARCHIMEDES. The only blog for me was ISLAND which I’m surprised hasn’t yet been mentioned – I thought of it early but rejected it as LAND is in the clue – actually in the definition! I did know placket from my years in fashion retail so it seems perfectly fair to me – just another bit of GK you either have or haven’t come across.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  22. I struggled with the spelling of nereides, I would have thought Nereids which left me wondering where to put the extra “e”. Nereieds.

  25. I enjoyed this a lot; thanks Pan. I couldn’t parse ARTICLES, so thanks to Andrew (in what was an exemplary blog IMHO – concise and very clear).

     

  26. Most enjoyable but needed the blog for Anthea – thanks, Andrew.
    I spent some time looking for letters meaning seed to take out of Araucaria to make a mathematician!
    Thank you, Pan.

  27. Regarding SEDIMENT, as well as the aforementioned wine, there is tea and coffee grounds but at the time, I saw it as the the waste product of various industrial processes such as the Blast Furnace or filtration processes.

    I also omitted to admit (earlier) that 1) I too dnk placket and 2) Anthea brought a smile, Turner being the only name I could think of.

     

  28. I think this was a cracker for a Monday. On the easy side, but plenty to amuse and entertain for those who’ve been doing them a while. Great work from the setter. Thanks also to Andrew because I didn’t parse Anthea either – which is a shame, because it’s really rather good.

     

    I think I knew placket from TV show Great British Sewing Bee (which I really liked despite not knowing thing one about sewing – it was just another nice show about people who cared about what they were doing, which I tend to find incredibly watchable even if the subject isn’t my cup of tea).

  31. Thanks to Pan and Andrew. Enjoyable.. Like Cholecyst@17 I knew PLACKET from Shakespeare who several times links the item of clothing with sexuality – e..g., desribing the Trojan war as a “war for a placket” (Troilus and Cressida) or describing Cupid as “prince of plackets, king of codpieces” (Love’s Labor’s Lost). Also, the NEREIDES (which I too have trouble spelling) turns up in Enobarbus’ description of Cleopatra on her barge in Antony and Cleoptra.

  32. Pleasant Monday fare. I knew placket etc, Anthea a great clue, but the one I failed to parse was 1d, due to not knowing PR as a shorthand for priest. Now I do 🙂

  33. I’ve a strong feeling that Anthea (ARTICLES) has occurred before somewhere, probably decades ago, it might even have been in Azed.. It certainly had to be unravelled, and admired again as a neat bit of misleading.

  34. All pretty straightforward except that PLACKET was new to me, so last in

    keith @33 – I can see a few examples in the archive but they are all the other way round:

    Orlando 21690: Girl’s three articles (6)
    Pasquale 22085: Three separate articles submitted by woman (6)
    Araucaria 22207: Articles only for this girl (6)
    Crispa 23202: She’s written several articles (6)
    Boatman 27572: Girl seen in series of articles (6)

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew

  37. Endorsing comments above (ed please take note) very nice to have a light-weight Monday offering which still has a touch of bite.
    Many thanks to Pandrew

  38. I used to play BLACK MARIA in my youth: all to do with the Queen of Spades if I remember rightly. I didn’t know PLACKET and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make an anagram of CARTON and L, and I got ARTICLES without understanding why. Annoying, because it’s an excellent clue.
    Thanks Pan.

  40. Started this puzzle late in the day.  Not too demanding though I didn’t know the badger thing was still in the news in the UK.

    I vaguely remembered PLACKET from donkeys years ago.

    I was surprised that the tsar is now referred to as a dictator.  Could that have happened during the Soviet era?

    Anyway, thanks to Pan and Andrew

  41. Anna – Referring to the tsar as a dictator seemed a bit odd to me too. The tsars were members of old-style hereditary ruling dynasties who were replaced by the dictators of the twenties and thirties. But I suppose in the sense of dictator as absolutist ruler it’s reasonable.

  43. My wife saw me ironing a shirt once and said, “You’re doing it wrong. You’re supposed to do the placket last.” The result, many years later, is that I knew there was a word “placket” that had something to do with clothing. (Apparently, she used the word in the same sense as William @19’s auntie.)

    This was a very satisfying puzzle. I thought the surfaces in 14a and 7d were particularly nice, and 20a is ingenious. Neither meaning of BLACK MARIA was familiar to me, but I had a vague sense that there was such a phrase, so once all the crossers were in I managed to guess it.

     

  44. Thanks to both and a late tick from me – I enjoyed STOLEN in particular for the lift and separate (some may recall the origins of the term in an ad for, well, underwear so many years ago). This is more like it for a Monday.

  45. I thought this was a very satisfying mixture of clues – even though I’d never heard of PLACKET, nor the NEREIDES, nor ISÈRE, and only figured them out from the crossers. I loved the surfaces to STOLEN and BADGER CULL and ARTICLES – and giggled at BUTT. Given how clever this puzzle was, it didn’t occur to me for ages that “bad-tembered” was a misprint: I started off looking for a solution where a P was replaced by a B, and only twigged the answer after BLACK MARIA went in. A definite “doh!” moment! Many thanks to Pan for a creation full of entertaining misdirection, and Andrew for providintthe signposts.

  47. Getting to this late.  I don’t think a stole is strictly a garment; surely it is an accessory?  (Or a vestment, when worn by a priest.)

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