Guardian 28,417 – Pan

68 comments on “Guardian 28,417 – Pan”

1. Enjoyable puzzle to start the week with.

   I had many favourites today: RUMBA, AFTERSHOCK, TAPENADE, ELEVATOR, LEITMOTIF, ROT, RAJAH.
   New for me: Hare, Sir David (playwright) – but I think I saw a film version of Plenty, based on his play.

   Thanks for explaining TEAS – tea leaves is rhyming slang for thieves.

2. Yep Anto’s was a bit chewier, but there was amusement here, not least by association. Eg, leitmotif reminded me of Wagner (and Rumpole’s droll quip), whereas the CRS of tea leaves reminded me Nancy Spain’s example “Can you sausage me a goose’s?” Dragnet, otoh, I reckon must’ve arrived here with the first TV broadcasts in the ’50s…that raspy voice saying “My name’s Joe Friday, I’m a cop”. Can’t remember the last time I actually heard “By Jove!” but it’s done extremely well to survive a couple of milennia. So, quite fun, ta Pan and Andrew.

3. …millenniia..

4. Nice straightforward Monday outing. Thank you Andrew for parsing TAPENADE for me: it’s obvious (as always) when you see it. Favourite today was LEITMOTIF although I chuckled over STICK and AFTERSHOCK was clever. Thank you Pan

5. Finished this whilst watching the end of the wonderful Masters last night. Very straightforward but good fun. I imagine the homophonic police will be raging about OFFA but it worked OK for me. I liked TAPENADE & DRAGNET.

   Ta Pan & Andrew

6. A gentle stroll, that’s true, with a lot to like. I also thought 24d was not clear enough, and put ASSESS after careful consideration – obviously not careful enough. PIKELETs were small, slightly thicker pancakes for me when I was growing up. We have done a house swap to Herefordshire a few times, and the house is a short stroll from OFFA’s Dyke (and POWYS), so they were gimmees. Michelle has listed others I liked. Thanks, Pan and Andrew.

7. gif @2 You don’t hear BY JOVE! quite so often since Ken Dodd died.

   Favourites were AFTERSHOCK and TEA LEAVES.

   Thanks Pan and Andrew

8. Thank you Andrew for the link to King Offa of Essex, of whom, shamefully, I was unaware. Apparently Bede described him as “a youth of most lovely age and beauty”. I’ll refrain from commenting on how far these traits still characterise the inhabitants of his former realm.

   [Incidentally, after last Friday, maybe I should rename myself oneamongagreatmultitudeofessexpeople.]

   I have never knowingly eaten a PIKELET. On solving the clue I assumed it referred to a young pike, and then went on a post-solve wiki hunt to confirm that pike (s?) could actually be eaten. Result – they can, although de-boning is tricky. Life as a pikelet is hazardous: “Because of cannibalism when food is short, pike suffer a fairly high young mortality rate… Pike do not discriminate siblings well, so cannibalism between siblings is likely.”

   A very pleasant start to the week, thanks P & A.

9. Found this a bit dull especially after yesterday’s Everyman which I really enjoyed. Maybe just not on the right wave length today.

   Favourites were TAPENADE, HARANGUE, BULLETIN. ROT made me smile.

   Thanks to Pan and Andrew

10. Thanks both. Enjoyed this, despite the unpleasant image of 21d!

11. Thanks Pan and Andrew
    I liked the image of the bear swimming around the cold island!
    Generally good, but Pan could have come up with a fairer (and more amusing) way the clue HARE in 2d (you will guess that I’ve never heard of the playwright!)

12. Pikelets in Australia are what my English upbringing would call a drop scone. See https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipes/pikelets-16913
    for Aussie version.

    It was a relief to have a gentle crossword start to the week. Thanks Pan and Andrew.

13. Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

    I enjoyed the swimming bear, too. Other favourites were LEITMOTIF and TAPENADE.

    Crumpets are called PIKELETS here in Leicestershire (Mercia 😉 ).

14. Thanks for the blog. Five minutes of my life I will not get back. Can we please have no complaints this week about crosswords being too hard.

15. Another ASSESS here. I thought when I saw it that PIKELET would induce a spate of regional food reminiscences: being a Londoner I know the word but have never eaten one. Wasn’t aware that steel drums were called pans, but as Pan is our setter he should know!

    Enjoyed this: favourites LEITMOTIF and the rather unsavoury SENESCENT.

16. Where I grew up in Lancashire, a pikelet was like a flattened crumpet – much thinner and a bit wider; as far as I know they weren’t then available in the south, or weren’t when I arrived in London in the late 1960s. We bought them from the local baker’s as a treat. Lancashire-style pikelets (which autocorrect keeps changing to spikelets) are now sold in M&S and Sainsbury’s under that name, and very good they are too.

17. Thanks Pan and Andrew.

    Straightforward but well constructed and enjoyable puzzle.

    Here in the NW a crumpet is usually a crumpet – PIKELET is a Midlands appellation, I think, as Eileen hints. essexboy @8: a young pike is a ‘pickerel’. Get someone else to remove the bones and make your quenelles de brochet!

18. [Gervase: pickerel, of course! It even came up in a puzzle recently.]

19. Sarah @16 is quite right: the OED actually defines PIKELET as ‘a thin crumpet’, but in the Midlands the term is used for the standard type. And the word comes from the Welsh ‘(bara) pyglyd’ – pitchy (bread).

20. Not too difficult but some really good bits including the reversed TAPENADE, BULLETIN and especially the descriptive (if unsavoury, as pointed out by Gladys @15) wordplay for SENESCENT.

    A PIKELET tastes good but a ‘pickerel’ sounds better.

    Thanks to Pan and Andrew

21. My Devonshire mother used “pikelet” and “drop scone” interchangeably – batter cooked on a hot griddle-stone.

22. CanberraGirl @12 – yes, that’s exactly what we called pikelets! And I was eating them in Canberra too, until we moved to Tassie.

23. Pikelet’s are a childhood memory for me , having grown up in the Midlands. There were ladies in the market who used to sell them, freshly handmade. Then when I saw some comments that people have never heard of them, I googled and found they are very popular in Oz!

24. Good start to the week.

    DNK PIKELET, but ‘cakelet’ wasn’t right! I liked DRAGNET and SMART ALECK.

    Thanks Pandrew.

25. I am another who ate pikelets as a child, in the 50s and 60s in Victoria, Aus. Also called drop scones, due no doubt to first and second generation arrivals from various parts of England.

    I was also surprised to see Roti pop out of the word play and couldn’t understand how the general Malay word for bread got there. I presume it is a specific type of bread in the UK.

    A pleasant solve, thanks Pan and Andrew.

26. KLColin
    Rotis are offered as alternatives to chappattis in UK curry houses. I struggle to tell the difference!

27. Pretty much a write-in but I thought some of the clues very attractively put together. Shame the “close to” device was used three times.

28. Yes, a pleasantly gentle Monday morning puzzle.
    Coming towards the end of my seventh decade I could have done without SENESCENT, but it’s a beautifully constructed clue.
    And there are some lovely surfaces – I particularly enjoyed the police searching the garden, the swimming bear and the East European who turns out to be a Dane.
    There have to be advantages to growing up in the Midlands (PIKELET) and having lived in Bedford (apparently the burial place of OFFA, though his tomb has long since disappeared).
    Thanks to Pan and Andrew

29. Well that was a quick bit of fun!

    I’d never heard the word “PIKELET” being Kentish/Essex(ish) until my brother married a Midlander – we’d always called them drop scones so I suspect we have a bit of a Bap/Roll/Cob/Bread Bun thing going on here.

    essexboy @8: Yes – I’d gone down the fish route as well. Reminds me of a holiday in France where we were served “quenelles de brochet” as usual not having the f(r)oggiest what they were. The waiter announced in a thick Lyonnaise accent “You are going to be eating the balls of a pike.”

    I am reminded that Gefilte Fish can be made from pike (and are an ‘acquired taste’) and that we tended to have latke rather than pikelets.

    A fun puzzle – thanks Pan and Andrew!

30. [MB @29: 🙂 Reminds me of being served once by a German waitress who was quite proud of her English. She announced, beamingly, “Tonight, you have cow!”]

31. Sorry, can’t resist a little more on bread-related products. To me drop scones are nothing like pikelets or crumpets except in the way they’re cooked – it’s a different sort of batter, being sweeter and lacking the holes characteristic of pikelets; they’re what I’d call Scotch pancakes.

32. Having solved TEA LEAVES and TAROT, in addition to the ‘recurrent theme’, LEITMOTIF, I became convinced early on in the solving process that there was going to be a fortune-telling theme here, and started trying to find references to palmistry, haruspicy, astrology and other forms of divination. This, of course, proved to be a bad case of False Theme Syndrome and held me up unnecessarily. If anyone else succumbed to FTS in this way I would be glad to hear of it as it would make me feel less singularly foolish.

33. I vaguely recall ‘oatcakes and pikelets’ being shouted by market traders or street vendors in either Newcastle or Sheffield during the 1940’s. War rations then, and it was only later that we were able to enjoy toasted pikelets (crumpets) dripping with melted butter.

34. PIKELET was new to me entirely, as crumpets by any name are not common here. But the clue was straightforward enough that with enough crossing letters it became obvious what it had to be.

    [I don’t know if this has been brought up before, but I wish to ask about the giant purple ad for the Guardian’s puzzle app. I can make it go away on my laptop–the “make this giant ad go away” button is in the lower right–but have had no success on my phone. Which means that I can’t solve on my phone at all unless I use the app. And I don’t like the app much for various reasons (and it looks like after a two-week trial it isn’t free–I don’t object, except that I already contribute to the Guardian). Anybody had any success with this?]

35. If you install the Brave browser app it automatically gets rid of the purple thing (on Android at least)

36. [mrpenney @34: You can make it go away to a certain extent – I’m stuck with “Master every challenge” in the bottom right; ironically the challenge I don’t seem to be able to master is getting rid of the big purple banner that says “Master…” you get the idea..

    I believe that by using Chrome and installing various extensions one is able to work around the dreaded pop-ups… (at least on a PC/MAC).

    I actually quite like the iPhone app but I do the Sudokus each days as well which are ideally phone-sized].

37. [Bodycheetah @35: ooohh….. Very nice. Works on PC, MAC and Linux very nicely! Thanks!]

38. I wondered if the fish and the crumpet were etymologically related, but according to my OED a PIKE is so-called for the shape of its head and a pikelet is an abbreviation of Welsh bara pyglyd. I was, however reminded of staring at a French menu and wondering what quenelles de brochet were. (Pike dumplings, rather prosaically)

39. I didnt think that the definition part of the senescent clue was ‘characteristic of old age’ but just the first word: ‘old’. Does senescent mean characteristic of old age? I wouldnt say so: I just thought it meant ‘growing old’

40. Izzythedram @39:
    Etymologically, senescent does mean growing/becoming old. The Latin root is senex, meaning an old man (hence Senate, stemming from a touching belief that age brings wisdom) combined with -esco -escere, a verb form meaning “to grow” (hence crescendo, becoming louder; the crescent moon is originally the moon as it grows from new towards full).
    However, Chambers gives “verging on or characteristic of old age”, just as the term crescent is now used to describe the waning moon as well as the waxing one.

41. An entertaining and steady solve this morning, I thought, and with a very friendly grid to boot. Many thanks to Pan and Andrew…

42. Both the words “crumpet” and “pikelet” derive originally from Welsh. My Welsh grandmother used to refer to pikelets, while everyone in the family preferred to call them crumpets. Pikelet tends to be preferred in the midlands and north west for what we in the south generally call crumpets. As a general guide, both use the same sort of yeast-based batter, but crumpets are made using rings, and are thicker, while pikelets are free-form, poured straight onto a bakestone. They therefore are ready to eat considerably more quickly. Pernicketty detail because I’ve really got into baking them as a lockdown activity.
    My grandmother also made drop scones, which are quite different. They don’t involve yeast, and are more like Scotch or American pancakes.

43. Bodycheetah @35–thanks! Works well.

44. Could somebody explain “could you sausage me a goose?” I have the basics of rhyming slang, but this is beyond me.

    What on earth is pitchy bread? That translation from the Welsh doesn’t get me very far.

45. Valentine @44: Sausage is “sausage and mash” = cash
    “goose” is “goose’s neck” = cheque (check).

    So … “Could you cash me a cheque.”

46. Valentine @44: ‘Sausage’ in Cockney rhyming slang is ‘cash’ (from ‘sausage and mash’) and I think in this context ‘goose’ is ‘cheque’ (or ‘check’ across the pond, from ‘goose’s neck’). So: can you cash me a cheque? And ‘pitchy’ means tarry, ie sticky.

    Goujeers @42: the dictionaries that I have consulted all say that the etymology of ‘crumpet’ is doubtful, but I do wonder if there is a connection with the Welsh ‘crempog’, another type of griddle cake.

47. Thanks to Pan and Andrew.
    A pleasant and gentle solve
    A good way to learn the different names for and traditions of local food is to listen to “The Kitchen Cabinet” on Radio 4.
    31ac made me think of the old schoolboy/girl joke: “what’s brown and sticky?”.

48. [More etymological musing: as Petert says, the fish Esox lucius is known in English as ‘pike’ because its head supposedly resembles the weapon. This reminded me that the French call ‘pique’ the playing card suit known in English as ‘spades’ – from the Italian ‘spade’ (‘swords’). Although there is an etymological link there is no direct connection between the suit and the horticultural implement]

49. In the clue for 26D REAL, why does “in addition to pure alcohol” mean “hidden in pure alcohol”? I can’t see it.

50. ‘Bet is … a pike than a pikerel’ Chaucer, Merchant’s Tale (i.e. better than)

51. Thanks Pan, that was pleasant and proof that one doesn’t need to be tortured to have fun. I liked the humourous surface for SENESCENT and I enjoyed TAPENADE, AFTERSHOCK, and the simple ones like STICK and TAKE. There were some unfamiliar ones like OFFA, PIKELET, and POWYS but all were easily derived. Thanks Andrew for the blog; the parsing for TEA LEAVES and SMART ALECK eluded me.

52. I knew OFFA and POWYS, but PIKELET was beyond me. Like mrpenney (I think), I’ve never had any of the bready confections in this complicated and fascinating etymological discussion, though baked scones have become pretty common over here. It would never occur to me to call something sticky “pitchy.”

    Kingsley@49 “Substantial” is the definitoin for REAL “made a substantial difference,” for instance. “Addition to” means “component of,” the indicator for a hidden/contained answer — REAL is contained in “puRE ALcohol.”

53. Manners, manners! Thank you, Pan, for a pleasant morning’s diversion and Andrew for the parsings.

54. Thanks, Andrew. Just one thing – at 23d you write:

    J in BOY* + V (versus, playing) + E (Spain)

    I’d say that “playing” is the anagrind for BOY*, while “against” clues V.

55. Well spotted Miche, you are quite right – blog corrected

56. Greatly disliked ‘flowering’ as an anagram indicator for garden, but enjoyed everything else. Just had a crumpet

    Thanks A&P

57. Sorry, Valentine. Can’t get my head around “addition to” = “component of”. Hydrogen is an addition to water? Isn’t a component an intrinsic part rather than an addition?

58. Kingsley@49, Valentine@52: Does “addition to” really mean “component of” in the cryptic crossword world? It seems a stretch to me, but I’m still new here. “Substantial extract of pure alcohol” would have been too easy a clue I suppose. But I parsed the clue differently, with the word “substantial doing double duty: a “substantial addition” — in this case, several letters — had to be added to REAL (substantial) to produce puRE ALcohol.

59. Thanks for the parsing of ASSETS. I had contorted my mind into believing that it was ATTEST with the S’s swapped for T’s and vice versa. I wasn’t happy about ATTEST meaning judge, but was willing to accept it.
    My favourite today was AFTERSHOCK.

60. Managed to complete the grid correctly, but was slowed somewhat by the regional usages/pronunciations: rhyming slang, clever clogs, pikelet, afters, SEN for nurse, Offa/offer. Anyway, thanks Pan and Andrew, and the posters at fifteensquared, for the entertainment and the enlightenment.

61. COD 19d. I thought ROTI is typically Indian food, I remember my Indian neighbours selling it in their food shops in the seventies here in Nairobi.

62. I wondered the same thing as Kingsley @49 about 26dn: I can see what Valentine @52 is saying, but the indicator still doesn’t seem right to me. REAL isn’t an “addition to” PURE ALCOHOL; it was in there all along. But the intent was clear, and the clue was solvable.

    I also agree with Mr Aphid @56 about “flowering” as an anagrind, by the way.

    Having groused about these things, though, I should add that my main reaction to this puzzle was quite positive. It was quite easy (much easier than the Quiptic), but nonetheless very enjoyable. And I added one more item to my rhyming slang lexicon and to my list of names of British foods I’d never heard of.

63. I can’t understand the problem some people have with ‘flowering’ as an anagrind. A bud is one shape, a flower is another, the process that makes the change is called flowering.

64. Muffin@11 I don’t wish to be rude, but I don’t think you can claim that the clue to 2d is unfair simply because it contains a reference to someone (or something) you have never heard of. It could just as easily be claimed that you SHOULD have heard of one of the most famous living playwrights in the English language. Lack of interest in a subject from a solver shouldn’t mean that it has to be off limits for a setter.

65. Gert Byce @64
    That wasn’t the point I was making; more that it was a missed opportunity for a more amusing clue.

66. Can someone explain how the ‘close to’ thing works and why please?

67. @Rocker – it’s a roundabout way of saying “the closing letter of …”

68. Gotcha. As in ‘close of play’ rather than ‘close’ being to do with proximity. Don’t forget us newbies when explaining stuff like this please, especially on Mondays! I couldn’t see this at all even after a fair bit of research on the technique. Obvious now you say it as always

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