Guardian 27,855 / Pan

45 comments on “Guardian 27,855 / Pan”

1. Thanks to Pan for the puzzle and Gaufrid for the blog – I needed to come here for the (correct) parsing of HEIFER @ 9a which has been driving me nuts all morning. Apart from that, a very nice start to the week.

2. Pretty straightforward for the most part, although I missed BATTENBERG, having never encountered the cake. AGNATIC was unfamiliar to me, but with the crossers in, it couldn’t be anything else. Thanks to Pan and to Gaufrid for stepping in and parsing HEIFER.

3. Thanks to Pan and Gaufrid. I found this a typical Monday solve. That said it took me a while to get going, with the right hand side generally proving to more tricky than the left. However eventually got going and it then unpacked quite readily. Last ones were Ringo Starr and setback last of all. I learnt a new word in agnatic and I did like ships log, Dorian Gray and sripogram. Thanks again to Pan and Gaufrid.

4. I couldn’t solve 11a, which I would anyway have spelt “strippergram”; the only word that fitted the crossers I had was STRATEGIAN, which made 5d insoluble.  And I couldn’t parse 20ac either. So thanks, Gaufrid, for the explanations.

5. Thank you Pan and Gaufrid.

   I was another who needed help to parse HEIFER, there are some in the field at the bottom of the garden feeling the heat, 31°C in France near Geneva (going up to 37° later in the week), luckily there are trees and a water trough.

   I wondered if “some middle slices of aubergine” might have been more appropriate?

6. Thanks Pan and Gaufrid

   I found it difficult to get on Pan’s wavelength and this took me ages. I didn’t parse HEIFER or the TB part of SETBACK; the latter now becomes my favourite clue. I didn’t know AGNATIC either, but it couldn’t be anything else.

   Aren’t all white Europeans descended from Charlemagne? That makes us all agnatic, or is there a limit to how far you can go back?

7. AGNATIC was new to Yorkshire Lass; liked STRIPPOGRAM and HEIFER was clever – also ENGRAVER. very pleasant start to the week. Thanks to Pan and Gaufrid.

8. stripogram!

9. I’d met Battenberg in an earlier puzzle (and looked up the recipe and picture again — an unusual cake I’ve never met) but had never heard of a STRIPOGRAM.  Couldn’t make head or tail of the parsing of HEIFER — thanks, Gaufrid.

10. My favourites were NEATEN, STRIPOGRAM, SETBACK (loi).

    I failed to solve HEBE and could not parse HEIFER.

    Thanks Pan and Gaufrid

11. Thanks for stepping in, Gaufrid!  (And for parsing HEIFER.)

12. Good Monday puzzle this, and yes like Niltac I couldn’t replace LP with if, even while well knowing that if = provided, d’oh. Slow also to remember consumption = TB. Check is maybe a bit loose for setback, ditto age for date, berg isn’t quite the middle of aubergine, and I couldn’t find hebe as plant (only plant’s ‘pubertal’ foliage). But hey ho, quibblets merely in a fun and witty workout, no write-in but not too taxing. Thanks Pan and Gaufrid.

13. A very fine start to the cryptic week from Pan who came of the sub(quiptic) bench to play a blinder.

    And a big thank you to Gaufrid for stepping into the breech.

14. As above! A very good Monday puzzle I felt, steering away from the vague “craptic” definitions as someone coined them, and giving us proper wordplay, albeit at the trickier end. Thanks Gaufrid and thank you Pan for a delightful and challenging puzzle.

15. Grantinfreo @12 it may be another very English-biased thing but hebe is pretty common in gardens over here. the Royal Horticultural Society is pretty fond of them judging by the number of references here. In fact, I remember seeing some in the RHS gardens at Wisley only a few weeks ago so it came to mind a bit more readily. But then, all GK is relative isn’t it?

16. I don’t recall ever coming across agnatic before, though it seems to be the opposite of morganatic, which I did know.

17. grantinfreo
    i’d be a little surprised if you don’t have wild hebes. New Zealand is stuffed with them!

18. I’ve just looked them up. They are a NZ speciality! Not found wild in Australia, apprently.

19. Very much up my street with a nice variety of clues rather than a surplus of CDs and DDs. I’m in the unparsed HEIFER and AGNATIC tilt clubs. It took me a while to get going and then MrsW came to the fore. Lois were SETBACK and RENOWN – both excellent clues. Thanks to Pan for a great start to the week and to Gaufrid for breach-stepping.

20. Thanks to Pan and Gaufrid. I did not have trouble with AGNATIC because “agnate” turns up regularly in US puzzles but like others I did not parse HEIFER.

21. HEBE(s) are native to The Land of the Long White Cloud as just pointed out by muffin @17 and no, not native to Australia as muffin @18 then discovered! As I remember, ones of those things about which Kiwis are very proud. Anyway, ginf @12 can be excused – it’s a long way from Freo to The Shaky Isles, even if they are in the same hemisphere.

    Unlike others I found this harder than the usual Monday, with AGNATIC, the parsing for HEIFER, SHIP’S LOG for ‘Moving record’ and my last in STRIPOGRAM all taking a bit of nutting out.

    Hello Howard March @16. I’m definitely no expert but isn’t ‘cognate’ the opposite of ‘agnate’?

    Thanks to Pan and Gaufrid.

22. Thanks thezed and muffin, great links. My SOED has “[Gr, youthful prime; the daughter of Zeus and Hera] 1. The goddess of youth and spring, the cupbearer of Olympus; hence a. A waitress; b. A woman in her early youth. 2. The sixth of the asteroids 1858. 3. attrib as Hebe bloom, etc. 1838.” And Hebe- the prefix as, roughly, botanical pubescence. So, oddly, no actual plant clearly mentioned; the intricacies of knowledge, eh!

23. I usually have difficulty remembering the distinctions between agnate, enate and cognate (they’re not opposites as much as variations on a theme: related by male lineage, female or either). Well, cognate is a bit easier to figure out because of its use in linguistics, but there is nothing gender-specific about “ag-” (from “ad-“) and “e-“. However, when you’re anagramming “acting+a” you fortunately don’t have to remember.

24. Thanks Pan and Gaufrid

    grantinfreo @ 22: eChambers has for Hebe

    “2. A genus of Australasian and S American shrubby plants with spikes of showy flowers, belonging to the family Scrophulariaceae, in some classifications included in the genus Veronica”

25. Thanks Gaufrid for stepping in on my behalf.

26. I found this puzzle a hard slog at first, for some reason. Did not get on the wavelength early, but when I did it all fell apart quickly. FOI was AGUE, LOI STORAGE, COD Ringo Starr – very cute.

    I was fooled by the old Nazis for a bit, couldn’t work out MOAD as keen, then the light came on. Nice one.

    Thanks Pan and Gaufrid.

27. Thanks Simon S, yes a quick search and there it was. I’ll remember to always include the e-world in future research!

28. Really enjoyed this. A little more difficult than usual for a Monday, but am not complaining. 5 Down was possibly my favourite. With thanks to Pan and Gaufrud.

29. A bit more GK required than normal for a Monday.

    Thanks to Pan and Gaufrid

30. I had never heard of a stripogram or a Battenberg.  The former was gettable (since that’s how anagrams are supposed to work); the latter, for me anyway, was not.  And I agree with the above person who suggested that BERG is not, strictly speaking, the middle slice of aubergine, which should be the symmetric middle (be it one, three, five, or seven letters).  Other than that quibble, a fine puzzle.

31. Oh, and I was familiar with HEBE as the mythological figure (two syllables) and the antisemitic slur (one syllable), but not as a plant (which I’m assuming is also two).  But of course, the clue and the crossing letters made it clear.

32. Battenburg is the usual spelling for the cake, though both are acceptable.

33. mrpenney @31, I was wondering if “chunk of aubergine cake” might be acceptable, but perhaps not on a Monday – one sees “chunk of fat” and “berg of fat”  quite frequently in articles about fatbergs in sewage systems.

34. Thanks Gaufrid and Pan. Tricky but enjoyable. Re cake, see
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenberg_cake
    Quite a complicated story!

35. I can’t say I liked this much and I didn’t get on Pan’s wavelength at all. I got MOSSAD and HEIFER but I couldn’t parse either. In fact I needed the check button to convince me that both were right. I’m not sure how I got STRIPOGRAM. I’d given up on the answer being an anagram and then I found it was!
    Thanks Pan.

36. Very nice!

    FOI was 10a (AGUE) and LOI was 2d (HEBE) — both being substring clues, the difference being that I knew one word but not the other. Still, after everything else was in, I decided 2d might be “hebe” abd then found it in Chambers.

    The surfaces were unusually smooth today, I thought.

37. Found this hard going and eventually gave up after a couple of hours – but I had solved and parsed HEIFER and MOSSAD Blind luck ? Probably!! Thanks to Pan and to Gaufrid.

38. I must admit I found this far more difficult than the normal Monday fair and did pretty badly before the towel was thrown in. Partly driven by the clue mix… only 2 straight anagrams and precious few ‘cryptics’. Personally I find I need a few crossers to help me into the sandwiches and takeaways…this was I think an easy puzzle for experienced solvers rather than one for the less experienced. I’m not sure which of these two types Monday is supposed to be (are developing silvers meant to do Quiptic now?) but they are quite different.

39. Hi Stuart

    I think I would dare to count myself as an “experienced solver”, but I too found this difficult – certainly harder than last Saturday’s Prize puzzle.

40. Thanks muffin

41. Well I’m really chuffed that I DID manage to parse heifer! But couldnt get setback or engraver. Good crossword, but rather tricky for a Monday

42. Thanks both,

    I was done up like a kipper by ‘hebe’ and ‘behave’, so I’m with the folks who thought this harder than usual for a Monday, not that I’m complaining.

43. Enjoyable crossword. Around 40 years ago Stripograms were a craze in the US and became a common answer in Guardian crosswords for a while, but I haven’t come across the word since. Certainly harder than we’ve come to expect on a Monday but nothing too tricky. Thanks to Pan an Gaufrid.

44. For so long I thought I was doing quite well with the Monday crosswords, Quiptic and Cryptics. Today floored me, I need an easy one next week to restore my confidence. ?

45. Am i the only one who looked at Mossad and though: But Mossad is most definitely NOT a secret service keen on protecting old Nazis??? Had the setter perhaps been either satirical or too busy creating a clue?

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