Guardian 28,028 – Pan

42 comments on “Guardian 28,028 – Pan”

1. As you say Andrew, tricky in places for a Monday with some unusual words. I thought “duramen” poorly clued for a word not in everyone’s etui – “ram” for “male” being a bit of a stretch. I’d not come across “L” for “lecturer” before either, and “university student” would’ve worked as well. A couple of other bits which could’ve been tidied up – “in” in “infirm” was also in the clue, and “extra power” was awkward as “ESP” = “extra sensory perception”, so again a word repeated in clue and solution somewhat.

   A fair bit to like, and “pentameter” was very apt given Tennyson’s tendency to blank verse. Many thanks Pan, and Andrew for sorting it all out so neatly.

2. I suspect most people had the same problem with 14ac.    Thanks to Andrew for clarifying the parsing of 3dn (as well as the rest of the excellent blog), I didn’t know the name TOD for Fox;  but there was only one possible answer to fit the crossers.   DURAMEN was also new to  me, so more challenging than usual for a Monday, but all the better for that.   Some clever anagrams and charades.   Thanks to Pan for the workout.

3. I agree with your preamble, Andrew.

   This was harder than it looked, with a couple of unfamiliar words (as you said, The Zed@1, and Tomsdad@2) that I could only piece together from the wordplay before checking their accuracy in Chambers. For me, they were 25a SWINGEING (“not obvious” as you put it, Andrew) and the aforementioned 28a DURAMEN. Unfamiliar usage also made it difficult to be sure PETER at 4d was correct until I found in the BRB that one of its definitions is “a safe”. AGUE at 24d was a lucky guess for “Sickness” although I couldn’t make the connection with the POET LAUREATE at 18a – and I had to come here to realise the tricksy wordplay. (I think I have only ever heard the word AGUE in crosswords: obviously a handy word to fit into a grid!) As you have said, Andrew, I also had to check the spelling of the anagram 14a POPOCATEPETL – and I was just glad I didn’t have to pronounce it!
   So all of the above meant I put this in the category of “not an easy Monday puzzle” for me. I did enjoy the challenge and really appreciated clues like 11a EMISSARIES, 12a PEA(t), 26a TRIBE, 2d TINTIN and 20d ASTERN.
   Many thanks to Pan and Andrew for today’s challenge and the explanatory blog respectively.
   (Sidebar: I had to write an essay on my favourite poet in my final year external exams in secondary school and I raved on for 600 words about Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate. I felt such a fraud as nothing could have been further from the truth, as I had spent my time in English classes pencilling in the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s songs on the blank pages in my text book “The Genius of Poetry” and arguing with my teacher that “His Bobness” was the best poet in the world, a point of view with which “Sir” didn’t agree at all. Clearly he had to hold the party line that the classical poets represented the peak of human endeavour. I felt a little vindicated when Mr Zimmerman received the Nobel Prize in 2016. Further tangent: a friend loves to tell the story that her Mum – now 99 and a half and still going strong – complained about said friend (then in her teens) playing Dylan loudly on the record player in her room, saying: “Who told that bloke he could sing?”.)

4. A pleasant solve with a uniform level of clues throughout, which made for steady progress, and nothing left to worry over parsing, when complete. All in all, a nice start to the week.

5. Thanks Pan and Andrew

   Quite a challenge for Monday. I’ve never heard PETER for a safe, but I knew that a “peterman” is a crooks’ term for a safebreaker, so it was a safe (sorry!) guess.

   TOD for fox would be known to anyone who has come across The Tale of Mr. Tod by Beatrix Potter; it also is in The plague dogs by Richard Adams.

6. I am reminded of the verse by Kenneth Horne’s brother Ronald to the tune of The Honeysuckle and the Bee:

   I am Mount Popocatepetl

   You will agree

   When I erupt I scatter metal

   Over land and sea

   Don’t let your molten matter settle

   On my vertebrae!

   It’s safer far to pat a nettle

   Than to sit on me.

7. I thought this was one of the best Monday outings in a long time. Yesterday’s Everyman seemed meatier than usual too. Maybe I’ve addled my grey matter. I’m sure it won’t be the last time we see tod!

8. Thanks, Andrew.

   I thought this was slightly less elegant than Pan’s usual: I agree with Andrew’s  comment about PEA and would add the repetition of TOP in 1ac and delegates /LEGATION in 17dn – practically the same word and the same derivation.

   However, there was lots to like and I enjoyed it – my favourites were basically the same as Julie’s [and I loved your stories, Julie. 😉 ].

   Many thanks to Pan.

9. 3d Pleased to be reminded of “The Tale of Mr. Tod”. Didn’t know 28a Duramen or 4d Peter as a safe (St Peter holding the keys?).

    

10. I thought this was tougher than the usual Monday fare. Thank you Pan for the challenge and Andrew for the blog. Saturday’s prize was a gem for me, especially the outrageous ‘catch on in the end’.

11. Like TheZed @1, I thought ‘L’ = ‘lecturer’ was decidedly iffy (and I didn’t spot that ‘student’ would work so much better). In the same vein, in 24d, I am not convinced that PL = “Poet Laureate”. Is ‘D’ = Dutch a conventional abbreviation? I agree with Eileen @8 that the LEGATION/delegates etymology really is too close, and with Andrew’s note about PEA & APPEASED.

    But then again I quite enjoyed lots of this. I liked the ‘sailors behind’.

12. L for lecturer and D for Dutch are both in Chambers, as is PL for Poet Laureate.  L[ecturer] comes up quite often, and there was some discussion about D[utch] in a Chifonie puzzle that I blogged a couple of weeks ago.

13. As with Auriga@6, 14a took me on a trip down memory lane: I’ve been muttering “the Popocatepetl is not in Canada, rather in Mexico, Mexico, Mexico” all morning: see the Geographic Fugue, quite popular with school choruses in the US.

14. This was indeed a bit trickier than we expect on a Monday.  I struggled for a while with 25a SWINGEING and agree that “great” is not a particularly obvious definition.  In 20d ASTERN there’s a nice hint of an extended definition with “sailors behind”, although “sailors” is of course part of the wordplay.

    (Julie @3 – your final story reminds me of when I was a teenager playing my new Van Morrison album and my mum came in.  Mum: “Is that your new record?”  Me: “Yes, it’s good.”  Mum: “You mean apart from the way he sings?”)

15. I’m with Eileen@8 in thinking Pan has set better puzzles than this. I also raised an eyebrow agh the proximity of POST in the clue for 1a and the solution for 1d. DURAMEN was made even harder by me spelling 13d with RE rather than ER at the end. Loi was SWINGEING and it got a tick. Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

16. I think James Joyce mentioned Alfred Lawn Tennyson. He didnt set crosswords but page 1 of Finnegan alone is hard to parse(except that the first part of the first sentence is at the end of the book)

    The Book of Guinnesses indeed.

    Fun blog and comments. Sorry I spoil it.

17. Who’s been messing with my Mac?

18. Quite meaty Monday fare; especially as I didn’t know DURAMEN.

    For SWINGEING, Chambers has: ‘Great, huge, thumping,’ so no grumbles about that.

    Jin @3 has picked out most of the best clues.

    Very enjoyable, thanks Pan and Andrew.

     

     

19. I like the old clue for TOENAIL as “limit of human understanding”. (Torquemada, I believe.)

    No, I couldn’t spell Popacatapetl either.

20. Thanks to Pan and Andrew. I found this easier than most Monday puzzles: not too many double definitions.

    I think “peter” for safe is only ever used in crosswordland.

    Lovely to see Popocatapetl clued. Sung by/to children when mine were small:

    Popocatapetl is a big volcano

    Far away in Mexico

    Popocatapetl goes bang, fizzle fizzle bang!

21. Julie @7 – Bob Dylan wrote some great songs, but his singing is definitely not to my taste.

    I found the crossword good for a Monday. 9ac seemed a bit weak , 11ac or 17d probably mu favourites. I often struggle with anagrams of non-English names, but Popocatepetl jumped out at me, though I did google the spelling to be certain of the fourth letter.

22. I’m glad it was harder then the usual Monday offerings. I knew the Mexican mountain, but having the vowels in the right places was the challenge. Tod for fox, date = court and peter for safe all seem a bit old-fashioned. And the s for special in sacraments seems to be in the wrong place to me. And ASTERN was also a Quiptic answer to today. But I’m not one to complain.

23. At the instant I write this, there are 22 responses ahead of me and 12 mentions of Monday. Fill in your own punchline!

24. In this neck of the woods, UL is the standard abbreviation for the post of University Lecturer but L is not generally used for Lecturer on its own.

25. Many have said this was harder than usual for a Monday. Do the Guardian puzzles get harder as the week goes on like the crosswords in the NY Times? The crosswords in the FT don’t seem to follow that pattern. All in all I found this a good solve except for 25a and 28a, words new to me.

26. Tony @25 People certainly seem to believe that the puzzle gets harder as the week goes on, leading to pretty much weekly comments on how this week does not follow the trend. Odd that…

27. TheZed @26

    I don’t think that there is a trend from Tuseday to Friday – any of them might be the most difficult of the week – but traditionally Monday has been easier (or not, if you weren’t on the wavelength of Rufus’s cryptic definitions!)

28. “Tuesday”, of course!

29. Never heard “Peter” for “safe”. Perhaps we don’t use it in the US. I think the clue would have been more fun if it ended “retuned to a robbery victim.”

30. Probably not as airtight in the clueing and definitions as most of Pan’s offerings, but I usually overlook looseness if I get the answer. This did have a number of words not commonly heard west of the Atlantic, at least by me: SWINGEING, PETER, TOD and TINTIN, the last of which prevented me from a successful completion (entered an unparsed TANNIN = colour).

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

31. Thanks both,

    I thought 28a was too hard for a crossword that people like to solve without artificial aids because it used a hard clue for an unfamiliar word. But there were some neat anagrams and witty clues. I still haven’t finished Saturday’s prize.

32. I found this quite difficult- and bung ing an unparsed EDILE in at 26 ac didn’t help. 14ac was FOI and I looked it up to confirm the spelling to discover that I’d put an E where an A should go and vice versa. I almost gave up on SWINGEING and wasnt entirely convinced by it once it was in. DURAMEN was new to me.
    I did like EMISSARIES.
    Thanks Pan.

33. I thought this was just right for a Monday (sorry to give the day another mention). I actually found it easier than most of Pan’s offerings, with DURAMEN the only word I hadn’t come across before. I did think that DESPERATE is not the same thing as ‘drastic’ but I see that at least one online dictionary gives it as a meaning.

    My rapid progress may have had something to do with my hunkering down behind the shutters while Storm Brendan passes, so fewer distractions than normal. So far, he seems not to be as bad as billed.

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

34. Quite hard for a Monday, I thought.LOI 25ac but not convinced by ‘great’ though it’s in Chambers. Peter for safe is common in crosswordland.

35. Pan surely is a setter whose puzzles are very consistent in the positive sense of the word.
    On this one, however, I am with Eileen.
    She mentions a couple of flaws that I noticed too.
    But while, on the whole, I liked this crossword, there was something that really irritated me.
    In both 22ac and 5d Pan used ‘for’ to indicate that we should add something.
    True, she’s done these things in the distant psst but then forgot about it.
    Well, that’s what I thought.
    It is really one of my pet hates.
    Many thanks to Andrew for the blog and to Pan for a, despite my niggles, enjoyable hour of solving.

36. A swineging crossword. Really enjoyed 14ac! Thanks everyone.

37. I found this quite difficult in that it took me a while to get going. It felt a bit as if Pan was in Pasquale mode. New words for me were POPOCATEPETL, POSSET, DURAMEN. I coud not parse PEA (12ac) or TOAD in 3d.

    My favourite was EMMISSARIES.

    Thanks Pan and Andrew.

38. That all went in very briskly (my struggles with the quiptic must have put me in the right frame of mind) until my LOI, which I looked at every which way, running through the alphabet is various places to no avail. Eventually, in frustration, I resorted to cheating, so a fail for me; I suppose SWINGEING can be great in magnitude though it seems to be usually applied to things generally not great at all in terms of worth… “swingeing cuts to library budgets” etc. Not that keen on LEGATION / delegates, nor really on “Dutch” for “D”. Thanks Pan & Andrew. Now it’s past midnight, so I can have an early crack at Tuesday’s. Onwards!

39. Apoplecticcotopaxiaxolotl was not familiar to me. That’s probably because my walking is generally limited to about 3000 rather than 5000; feet that is, not metres. That said, I was once heading for it on horseback but I only got as as far as New Mexico.
    I thought I was going to fail as I have an allergy to Tennyson, having lived under threat of a beating if I couldn’t learn it in 1980 (yes, 1980 not 1880); Julie in Oz I’m with you there. I’m also with your mother re Dylan; I make arrangements of comic songs with a ukelele but try to get musicians to actually play them.
    Thanks for the blog Andrew and the stretch Pan; all very enjoyable.

    We live and learn.

40. I enjoyed it, though did not find it easy. UL for University Lecturer is a normal abbreviation in the place where I work, so that was a write in.

41. We failed to get SWINGEING as had SLING for the drink.

42. I knew SWINGEING from when BT made SWINGEING CUTS to their engineering staff back in the 90’s. Followed of course by other privatised companies.

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