Guardian 27,867 / Pan

It’s Pan’s turn to kick off the cryptic week, with a puzzle just right for a Monday.

I found this quite straightforward, with one or two more unusual words, which were clearly clued and easily parsed. There are smooth surfaces throughout and I particularly liked 11, 15 and 18ac and 8 and 13d.

Many thanks to Pan – I enjoyed it.

Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

4 Communist star managed to infiltrate company (6)
CASTRO
An anagram [managed] of STAR in CO [company]

6 Chinese work on the double (4-4)
CHOP-CHOP
CH [Chinese] + OP [work] doubled – with an extended definition

9 Island where gardeners penned poem (6)
RHODES
RHS [Royal Horticultural Society – gardeners] round ODE [poem]

10 Mark request about unorthodox rites (8)
ASTERISK
ASK [request] round an anagram [unorthodox] of RITES

11 Spectacular entrance made by parliamentary leader with premature Bill? (6,5)
PEARLY GATES
P[arliamentary] + EARLY [premature] + GATES [Bill, with a question mark for definition by example]

15 Irritation shown by gambler cleaned out in William Hill, say (7)
CHAGRIN
G[amble]R in CHAIN [William Hill, say – betting chain]

17 A royal stamp of approval protecting source in Newsweek magazine (7)
ARSENAL
A R[oyal] SEAL [stamp of approval] round N[ewsweek]

18 Digression from set phrase in translation (11)
PARENTHESIS
An anagram [translation] of SET PHRASE IN

22 Only partly formed popular colourless sweet (8)
INCHOATE
IN [popular] CHO[col]ATE [colourless sweet]

23 German paintings with the Queen reflected in an upper chamber (6)
GARRET
G [German] ART [paintings] round a reversal [reflection] of ER [the Queen]

24 Chief designer admitting resistance to shock treatment … (8)
DIRECTOR
DIOR [designer] round R [resistance] ECT [ElectroConvulsive Therapy – shock treatment]

25called in sinister medic (6)
TERMED
Contained in sinisTER MEDic – the ellipsis is there for the sake of the surface

 

Down

1 Writer wrote timeless moving lines (6)
ORWELL
An anagram [moving] of WRO[t]E minus t – timeless + LL [lines]

2 Entertainer gets time in small part in fairground attraction (5,5)
GHOST TRAIN
HOST [entertainer] + T [time, again] in GRAIN [small part]

3 Pauses in abnormal and dangerous breathing pattern (8)
APNEUSIS
An anagram [abnormal] of PAUSES IN – &lit:  I didn’t know this word but I knew about sleep apnoea and constructed it from the anagram fodder; I couldn’t find it in Chambers or Collins, so  googled it and found it in Wikipedia

4 Charlie, a star popular musician, is a tough case (8)
CARAPACE
C [Charlie, NATO phonetic alphabet] + A RAP ACE [a star popular musician]

5 A white toy was unexpectedly found as an illegal item on board (8)
STOWAWAY
An anagram [unexpectedly] of A W[hite] TOY WAS – I couldn’t find W for white in either Chambers or [my old] Collins but I found it online: presumably it’s used in chess

7 Talking animal’s mane? (4)
HAIR
Sounds like [talking] hare [animal]

8 Dog‘s urine discovered round bottom of haystack (4)
PEKE
PEE [urine] round [haystac]K

12 Government allowance includes points for breeding (10)
GENERATION
G [government] + RATION [allowance] round E N E [compass points]

13 Worry over radiation initially given to doctor returning to X-ray unit (8)
ANGSTROM
ANGST [worry] + R[adiation] + reversal [returning] of MO [doctor] – great surface

14 Idiot taking assigned drug shut up (8)
CLOSETED
CLOD [idiot] round SET [assigned] E [drug]

16 Contact about professional disapproval (8)
REPROACH
REACH [contact] round PRO [professional]

19 Hot part of roof lifts up (6)
HEAVES
H [hot] + EAVES [part of roof]

20 Discovery made by European leaving Norway behind, going to Germany (4)
FIND
FIN[n] [European minus n, Norway] + D [Germany] – International Vehicle Registrations

21 Tree expert gets flower (4)
ACER
ACE [expert] + R [river – ‘flower’]

40 comments on “Guardian 27,867 / Pan”

  1. I actually found this a bit hard to get into, with a slow start. Perhaps that is a Monday thing. I didn’t really know the Royal Horticultural Society for 9a RHODES, so it was a good guess. The Thing I Learned Today was ANGSTROM at 13d, all good from the wordplay, then confirmed as a unit that has something to do with magnetic imaging, via a google check. I thought PRO for Professional in 16d REPROACH was a bit too obvious.
    But I really enjoyed solving 10a ASTERISK and 11a PEARLY GATES (the latter already nominated by you, Eileen).
    Many thanks to Pan and Eileen.

  2. Thanks Eileen; straightforward, I agree, as befits a Monday, but not insultingly so. Though APNEUSIS I thought was a whole degree of obscurity beyond any of the other answers, so slightly spoiled it. I guess setters sometimes have no option, if that’s all that’ll fit! So thanks Pan.

  3. Thanks, Pan – and Eileen. I also enjoyed this – good Monday fun.

    I was a little puzzled by “on the double” in 6ac. I’m familiar with “at” here, but not “on”. The OED doesn’t know about it. Is there some special (perhaps sporting?) context in which the “on” version is used? Either way, a clever clue.

  4. Thanks Pan and Eileen

    I found this mostly straightforward too, except for the SE, where I struggled, with LOI the cleverly hidden TERMED. I got APNEUSIS by exactly the same method as you did, Eileen!

    Favourites were PEARLY GATES, CHAGRIN, and ARSENAL. I didn’t parse DIRECTOR.

    Isn’t 5d technically an indirect anagram (though an easy one – “white” for W seemed OK)?

    [ANGSTROM unit is a unit of length, in fact, although quite a convenient one for quoting X ray wavelengths. It is no longer an accepted unit, though, as it’s 10 power -10 metres, and the accepted multiples are powers of 3, so Angstroms have been effectively replaced by nanometres (10 power -9 metres).]

  5. I beg to differ Eileen, i thought this a bit tough for a Monday.

    Agree with Julie’s first sentence.

     

  6. Thanks Eileen. Like Julie, I found it hard to get going on this one, though eventually things clicked and it all came out nicely. APNEUSIS was new to me, but gettable from the anagram and on etymological grounds (cf pneumonia). I’m surprised W=white isn’t in Chambers: as you presumed it’s commonly used in chess.

    Just to nitpick, the Angstrom is a measure of length (a tenth of a nanometre) so calling it an “X-ray unit” is a bit loose, though the wavelength of X-rays varies between about 1 and 100 Angstroms, so I see what Pan means.

  7. JohnR, if you were ordering a (for example) group of soldiers or schoolchildren to do something, you might tell them to do it “on the double”

  8. I’m another who found this pleasingly tricky for a Monday, with the last few (“inchoate”, “acer” and “orwell”) giving me pause. At first I was all set to be annoyed with some of the clues I could not see as being a bit vague, but once solved I was won over. There were many excellent surfaces here and I shared muffin’s and Andrew’s (@4,6) concerns over the X-ray unit I felt it worked as a definition by example. I was looking for Rontgens and Sieverts at first but given X-ray wavelengths are historically quoted in ångström and the wavelength is a key property I considered it fair in the end.

    Quite a few corkers in this but I think “pearly gates” stood out as the winner for me, though hard pressed by “ghost train” for the imaginative was it was divided up, and “apneusis” for cluing an uncommon word with an anagram (which is usually unfair) in a gettable way as the word was easy to construct from basic etymology.

  9. Roughyed52@7 –  I think JohnR knows that “the double” means quickly: the question is whether it is preceded by “at” or “on”. Its origin is military, referring to marching at double pace, so “at” seems more logical to me, and I think is  the original version. “On the double” feels like a US variant to me, though I can’t find any evidence for this.

     

  10. Fun start to the week after the Genius once again lost us a few days last week. Still going!
    Same point here re angstrom a definition by example from Mr H.
    Agree with others about PEARLY GATES and working out of APNEUSIS. QUite like A PAP ACE too.Thanks Pan and Eileen.

  11. Went a bit hmmm at the colonial master tone of 6ac, but momentarily. Nice Monday puzzle, with a bit to chew on. Didn’t know the chain of shops, but no matter. And apneusis worked out as said by others above. Generation for breeding was a slight hmm as well. Thanks Eileen and Pan.

  12. I searched for ANGSTROM via Google and thought it might cause some problems, so I looked it up in Chambers and found ‘a unit used in expressing wavelengths of light, ultra-violet rays, X-rays, molecular and atomic distances’, which sounded OK to me.

    Searching the internet, I found authority for both at and on the double see here, for instance.

     

  13. I started fairly briskly with most of the top half solved quickly. I then ground to a bit of a halt.

    Top-class surfaces, as ever, led to a pleasing, eventual solve. I particularly liked PEARLY GATES, CHAGRIN, INCHOATE and CARAPACE. I didn’t know APNEUSIS but like Eileen put it together from consideration of apnoea.

    I did see the Chambers definition of Angstrom. Personally, I am more familiar with its use in crystallography and electron microscopy. The definition is not wrong but I agree it’s a DBE as there are other more usual X-ray units, such as röntgen, sievert, gray etc

  14. Is chagrin really a synonym for irritation? Didn’t like N as Newsweek abbreviation or William Hill for chain. Agree with gratinfreo @12 about 6ac.

  15. “Pleasingly tricky” works for me too. Similar solving experiences and reactions to others above, but I was particularly taken with 6ac, CHOP CHOP. The serendipity of the dual meanings of “on the double” aligning with the form and meaning of the answer phrase – wow, an almost rapturous moment. And there are other levels of the extended definition that Pan may not have intended. The term “chop chop” is derived from pidgin Cantonese and a “chop” is the (onomatopoeic) colloquial term for the seal/stamp used instead of a signature for identification and authorisation in a Chinese business environment. So chop, chop can be the action/sound of Chinese work…. I’ll get me coat.

  16. Thanks for that, KLColin @16. I’d found the pidgin Cantonese in Chambers but the extra information on the seal/stamp makes the clue even more interesting.

  17. Love that word chagrin, doesn’t get much of an airing these days, but the Libertines use it in the lyrics of their song Gunga Din, from their Anthems For Doomed Youth album…

  18. Thanks to Pan and Eileen. I was another who found this tough to get into, but like others eventually it all began to unfold. Last one for me was inchoate and I am another fan of pearly gates and ghost train. Thanks again to Pan and Eileen.
    .

  19. Oleg @15 I read the N as coming from “source of Newsweek” with source interpreted as the head or lead letter, which made it an acceptable abbreviation for me.

    For those commenting on W for “white” I don’t tend to check abbreviations in dictionaries (maybe I should be more purist) but go with usage. W is, as has been suggested, commonly used in chess but also I’m sure we all remember B&W TV sets and films. B for “black” seems fairly commonplace – sure I’ve seen it in the last week in fact, so w for “white” should follow.

  20. thezed @20 – that’s how I read 17ac, too – but I wasn’t entirely happy with source in.

    I don’t always check abbreviations, either but when I’m blogging a puzzle  I do double check, in case there are queries. I was surprised not to find W = white.

  21. Luckily this opened up right away for me and I was done in under and hour. Very enjoyable.

    Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

     

  22. I thought this was tougher than usual for a Monday with APNEUSIS especially so, despite it being an anagram. Indeed I thought there might be a mistake here- probably as a result of the last Paul! I did like CHOP CHOP though and ANGSTROM even though I originally guessed it.
    Thanks Pan

  23. I’m another who was delighted with this: yes, it took a little effort to get going – but that makes the solving all the more satisfying, I always think. Admittedly I had to google ANGSTRÖM and APNEUSIS, I adored the misdirection in 17A, and I also liked the double use of star in CASTRO and the double meaning to CHOP-CHOP. Nice one Pan! And thanks too to Eileen for the blog: the parsing of ORWELL defeated me, as did (oh the shame!) TERMED. Hey ho…

  24. A satisfying Monday offering with several outstanding clues as noted above. Bucking the trend of most previous comments, I found this easier than today’s Quiptic, baffled only by the parsing of GHOST TRAIN, obvious now in retrospect. I can offer support for “on the double” as a US variation, never having heard the “at” variation.

    Thanks to Pan and Eileen.

  25. Thanks both,

    A bit more to chew on than many Monday puzzles. Not a CD in sight. It took me a while to twig ‘Orwell’ and when I got Angstrom I thought, ‘There’ll be trouble in 15^2 over this one.

     

  26. Re CHAGRIN and Ronald@18: Am I imagining it or is this the second time someone has referenced the Libertines’ Anthems for Doomed Youth on these boards recently?
    (My most familiar musical reference to this great word is in the second line of “Plaisir d’Amour”. Ah, how true!)

  27. I was convinced that 19d was HOISTS as H+ part of ‘joists’ (= part of roof) which works if ‘part’ serves a dual purpose ( too clever by half!).Generally made a mess of the SE corner.

  28. I’m afraid you’ve lost that fight Bingybing: Flower = river = R are all standard.  The parsing of CHAGRIN is fine.  It’s “Wiliam Hill, say” for CHAIN, not “William Hill”.  Spoils the surface a bit, but makes the clue correct.  Thanks all.

  29. I disagree. I have seen ‘flower’ as a def for river since I was a babe in arms. I have never however seen it one step removed. What next – ‘dwelling’ to mean H? It’s nonsense and no other broadsheet that takes its cryptics seriously would allow it.

  30. @ Colin R

    So what next?

    Flower= river = R = Queen = cat?

    How many steps do you want to allow?

    That kind of attitude is actively encouraging the plummeting standards I’m seeing in the Guardian – now quite comfortably the poorest daily crossword.

     

  31. Top half went flying in – far more smoothly than the Quiptic – but got stuck after that. Yet to finish a whole puzzle but I felt this wasn’t a million miles off, just need patience and time! Thanks Pan and Eileen

  32. Thanks to Eileen and Pan

    I enjoyed the crossword, the blog,and the comments.

    These are not gripes therefore, merely observations.

    6a I can find no support (other than in American usage), for CH = CHINESE. ON THE DOUBLE is also “doubling up” here.

    17a Source IN seems a little off, good for the surface, but OF or FROM would be better cryptic grammar I think.

    3d There is another word that fits (appeases), but this a very good clue, probably hard to resist, though I don’t think it quite qualifies as an &lit.

    5d Actually, this might be a gripe: my Collins and my (not the full version) Chambers both give B for BLACK as being derived from pencil markings. In chess, B is for bishop. Almost all words can be found abbreviated somewhere so there has to be some reference point or anarchy will reign ( A W R ) if you look hard enough.

    21d I sympathise with those who object to FLOWER = R. LEARNER DRIVER = LEARNER = STUDENT = L, may have started it (all wedges have a thin edge), but perhaps it’s not too late to stop the rot!

  33. Monday Funday: straightforward but entertaining. Technically a DNF for me: as a Spurs fan I refused to enter all the letters of ARS£N@L.

    Good clue though, as were FIND, PARENTHESIS and several others.

    ACER and APNEUSIS were unfamiliar but fair.

    Thanks Pan and Eileen.

  34. I think the poor stowaway (who, as far as I know, is always a person) might be a bit insulted at being called an “item”.

    Google confirms that “on the double” is an American usage: it’s not found at all in their corpus of British books, whereas in the American corpus it’s far more common than “at the double”. This agrees with my experience, which matches those of other Americans who’ve commented here.

  35. I messed up those links, and nothing I do seems to fix them. If you want to see what I meant, go to https://books.google.com/ngrams, and enter

    “at the double”,”on the double”

    in the search bar. By default it’ll search the entire corpus (both British and American — and, for all I know, books from the rest of the English-speaking world), but there’s a drop-down menu that lets you change to just British or just American.

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