Guardian 28,627 – Pan

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A brief but enjoyable solve, suitable for those who like to be eased gently into their crosswording week, Thanks to Pan.

 
Across
1 LIMBURGER Cheese and fruit mostly served with minced beef (9)
LIM[e] + BURGER
6 COCA Shrub found in Colorado and California (4)
CO + CA (state abbreviations)
8 PAGANINI Composer‘s toasted sandwiches have a good filling (8)
A G in PANINI
9 WALLIS SIMPSON Barrier to one special female (retired) working for royal mistress (6,7)
WALL + 1 + reverse of SP[ecial] MISS + ON (working)
10 DELUGE Heavy rain initially delayed every London Underground going east (6)
First letter of Delayed Every London Underground Going East
11 TOREADOR Bullfighter charged with endless love (8)
TORE (ran, charged) + ADOR[e]
12 BAD EGG Unpleasant character wished to go by horse (3,3)
BADE (wished) + GG (gee gee, horse)
15 EPIDEMIC Priest stopping religious festival before mice spread an outbreak of the plague? (8)
P[riest] in EID + MICE*
16 CHARTRES Cathedral city where church converted Sartre (8)
CH + SARTRE*
19 GUSSET Suggest leaving end of webbing out of panel strengthening garment (6)
Anagram of SUGGEST less [webbin]G
21 PROCLAIM Corporal returned with new mail to give out (8)
Reverse of CORP + MAIL*
22 OPTICS Scientific study of works claiming most of credit (6)
TIC[k] (credit) in OPS (works)
24 NEROLI Liner after refit carrying old oil (6)
O in LINER* – neroli is an essential oil made from flowers of the bitter orange tree
25 SCALLION Family heir required to eat every bit of spring onion (8)
ALL (every bit) in SCION
27 MENAGERIE Group of live animals discovered by yours truly leading horse by lake (9)
ME (yours truly) + NAG (horse) + ERIE (one of the Great Lakes)
Down
1 LEAVE Permission to depart (5)
Double definition
2 MEASURE Standard of dinner mostly OK (7)
MEA[L] + SURE
3 URINE Vessel containing one last bit of pale amber liquid (5)
I in URN + [pal]E; I was going to question the use of “amber” in the definition, but I find that “normal urine colour ranges from pale yellow to deep amber”
4 GRISTLE Chewy stuff made from corn for grinding on sides of ledge (7)
GRIST (corn for grinding) + L[edg]E
5 REWARDING Profitable hostilities with Dutch essential to troubled reign (9)
WAR + D[utch] in REIGN*
6 COLLAGE Pen used round old lines in artwork (7)
O + L[ine] twice in CAGE (pen)
7 CRINOLINE Fabric company clothing most of band with narrow stripe (9)
RIN[g] (band) in CO + LINE (narrow stripe); the word crinoline usually refers to a garment, but it was originally “a stiff fabric made from cotton and horsehair”, from Latin words for “hair” and “flax”
13 ABHORRENT Repulsive tip of aromatic herb torn apart (9)
Anagram of A[romatic] HERB TORN
14 GERMANIUM Plant containing source of metallic element (9)
M[etallic] in GERANIUM
17 RACCOON Nurse carrying cocoa mixed for animal (7)
COCOA* in RN (Registered Nurse)
20 SETTLER Colonist‘s dog crossing lake (7)
L in SETTER
22 ORANG-UTAN Fruit endlessly given to posh smart brown ape (5-4)
ORANG[e] + U (posh or smart – not sure why Pan uses both words here) + TAN (brown)
23 CHORE Husband contributing to essential part of housework? (5)
H in CORE

52 comments on “Guardian 28,627 – Pan”

  1. Nice and easy like a Quiptic. Solved NW corner last.

    Favourites: EPIDEMIC, PAGANINI, DELUGE (loi).

    New: GERMANIUM, GRIST (4d)

    Thanks, both.

  2. Where is the foreign language indicator for 8a? Toasted sandwiches are PANINIS in normal English, or possibly PANINI’S if you go to the right cafe.

  3. Not an excess of giggles but over quickly.

    Dnk EID for festival and struggled a bit to equate standard with MEASURE.

    Felt the structure of the GUSSET clue a little clumsy but the rest was straightforward enough.

    Many thanks, both.

  4. VW@2: isn’t it the old chestnut of panini being the true plural, with panino being the singular? I was impressed that Pan clued it so (‘toasted sandwiches’). However I know no Italian.

  5. I struggled for a while trying to fit SHALLOT into 25 across, but otherwise things dropped out.

    Van Winkle @2, Chambers lists PANINI as a plural noun and doesn’t explicitly list it as foreign (although it is derived from the Italian panino (singular) and hence panini (plural)).

  9. I can’t say much more than Andrew. This has got the week off to a reasonably quick but not overly challenging start. Just what I needed. Thanks to Pan and Andrew.

  10. Well, that was nice and easy. Thank you Pan & Andrew.

    Never heard of NEROLI, and had to resort to working my way through the various combinations of liner letters. Searching Google implies it often goes with patchouli, that other crossword favourite.

    Michelle @ 1 Strangely I often find the Quiptic harder than many (not just the Monday) cryptics. Am I alone in this?

  12. Quite straightforward but no complaints or quibbles which is nice. Made a proper meal of crinoline (LOI) and needed all the crossers as I couldn’t get calico out of my head which I thought of as CO (company) round ALIC(e) most of band on first reading.

    Thanks Pan and Andrew

  14. Extraordinary number of mostly, most of, initially clues – was this a theme or just a case of endless love? I’ll spare you the earworm 🙂

  15. Pretty easy, enjoyable Monday fare, but was held up by LIMBURGER which I hadn’t heard of. I understand it’s very smelly. Thanks to P & A.

  17. Nice puzzle, finished in half the time of today’s Quiptic, in fact.

    In 22d, I think smart worsens the surface as well as being unnecessary for the wordplay, so might well be an editing error.

  20. poc @18: I think “leaving end of webbing” is the slightly tortuous way of disposing of the unwanted second G from ‘suggest’ so “out” becomes the anagram indicator.

  21. poc@18: ‘leaving’ tells you to remove the end of webbinG the ‘out’ tells you to anagrammise what’s left.

    Have I just invented a new word? (ref. Blackadder, Dr Johnson etc.)

  22. I found this a most enjoyable puzzle to start the week, with some really lovely surfaces, especially for PAGANINI (with an extra tick for the proper use of PANINI 😉 ), EPIDEMIC, CHARTRES, SCALLION and MENAGERIE.

    Many thanks to Pan for the fun and Andrew for the blog.

  23. Fiona Anne@19 et al.: yes, I suppose so. I did think of that but wasn’t happy with an unqualified “leaving” meaning “omitting” instead of “retaining”. I suppose it will have to do.

  24. Thanks Pan and Andrew. Nice gentle start to the week. Fit the bill perfectly for me, with my brain suffering a case of mondayitis.

    poc @18 – I took it to be ‘out’

  25. Re the anagrind at GUSSET, this was the clumsiness I was referring to @2 above. It reads as though “suggest” has to leave “the end of webbing”.

  26. Enjoyed the relatively untroubled solve this morning, but having now seen the discussion about the clueing of GUSSET, I had PAGANINI’s Airs on a G String playing in my head for a while. And like TimC@ I was another chewing on a how many consonants Shallot had before I got SCALLION. Had rather perversely heard of Rapscallion before, but not that spring onion.

  27. Crossbar @10 – no, you’re not alone – especially when Anto is setting the Quiptic! There was an occasion a few months ago when I thought the Quiptic was the toughest of the whole week.

    If the editor actually solved the puzzles himself (which I gather he doesn’t), the mismatch today would surely have jumped out at him, and it would have been a simple job to swap them over?

    Having said that, this was a DNF for me, as I guessed LERONI.

    Nice puzzle though, thanks to Pan and Andrew.

  28. Oh dear. I now realise I left SHALLOOT in, rather than returning to rethink what was obviously wrong (cf TimC @5 and Ronald @26). Apart form that silly glitch, I did find this smooth. Thanks, Pan and Andrew.

  29. Good, entertaining start to the week. Like michelle @1, the NW was the last to yield as I DNK LIMBURGER.

    ‘Leaving’ is difficult in crosswords in that it often means A leaving B, but I think it can also mean B leaving A. If I leave my umbrella on the train, it’s the umbrella, not I, that is being left. Does that make sense?

    I was slightly thrown by the electronic version where 22A seems to be paired (highlighted) with 26A. 22A should read, ‘see 22D’. I liked WALLIS SIMPSON and REWARDING.

    Thanks Pan and Andrew.

  30. Yes, easy but a pleasant solve. Like Blah@12, though, I got so hung up on ‘calico’ for 7d that I couldn’t think of anything else and in my frustration came here to check – after which much kicking of myself. So a shame faced DNF for me.

    Thanks Pan and Andrew.

  31. Robi @29 – the use of ‘leaving’ came up (again) just last week, I think. I’ve never had a problem with it, in the sense of ‘leaving behind’, (like your umbrella), as I commented then.

  32. Robi @ 29 & Eileen @ 31

    What’s the word when the same verb applies with different meanings to two words? “Leaving the train and my umbrella…”

  34. Simon S @32: don’t know the word, but Flanders and Swann were good at it…
    “When he asked ‘What in heaven?’
    She made
    no reply,
    up her mind,
    and a dash for the door.”

    Didn’t know CRINOLINE as a fabric rather than a garment.
    Liked PAGANINI, DELUGE (excellent of its kind), GERMANIUM.
    I read “smart brown”=tan in ORANG UTAN.

  36. Enjoyable with just a nice level of difficulty for those who, as Andrew says, like a gentle Monday.

    I was slightly surprised to find WALLIS SIMPSON described as a “royal mistress” – I know little of such matters but I have always taken a mistress to be the the third wheel on a bicycle made for two. But the royal in that case was a unicyclist surely.

  37. I remember crinolines from my childhood — I had one, a stiff underskirt that made your regular skirt stand out. Anyone else?

    Since Lake Erie is such a crossword favorite, unlike its sisters between the US and Canada, I’ll offer our mnemonic. It’s HOMES, for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. (Actually, Lake Michigan isn’t between the two countries, but is between Michigan and Wisconsin.)

    I thought RN (Registered Nurse) was the American term and that you transatlantics had something different that I never can remember. Shouldn’t there be a US indicator?

    Pleasant puzzle, easier than the Quiptic. Thanks, Pan and Andrew.
    I think in 3d “core” = “essential part,” though it’s also doubly needed for “part of housework.” Can “chore” by itself be housework?

    Alphalpha@36 I think a mistress is a woman who has a sexual relationship with a man, whether or not he’s married to somebody else.
    mistress

  38. Thanks Pan for a pleasant respite between completing Brendan’s prize and starting Buccaneer’s prize in the FT. [Speaking of the FT if anyone wants a chewier Monday check out Leonidas. I’m still working on it.] Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  39. [Valentine @ 37 I remember the underskirts, but I don’t think we called them crinolines. I think you had to wash them in a strong sugar solution to give the net fabric the right degree of stiffness. Uncomfortable and scratchy. ]

  40. [Crossbar@39 You must have had different underskirts. Ours weren’t net and I have no idea how they were supposed to be washed.]

  41. Slight quibble with 8a. Paganini is principally remembered as a violin virtuoso not a composer, although was both.

  42. Thanks for the blog, I thought PAGANINI was neat, EPIDEMIC had a nice use of Eid which I do not think I have seen before, SCALLION was my favourite but I do love the word anyway.
    NEROLI could have been better, pretty obscure so the word play needs to be clearer. I think ORANG UTAN simply works better without SMART , maybe a crossword editor would help occasionally.

  43. Thanks Pan and Andrew
    Nice puzzle.
    [Years ago I heard a story about the Lancashire four-piece folk group The Spinners. When on tour, they paired up in rooms. In Nottingham, one of them bought some Limburger cheese. His roommate refused to have it in the room, so he put it on the outside windowsill. When they checked out, he forgot it.

    The next time they went to Nottingham, the hotel had been demolished….]

  45. An enjoyable Monday puzzle, thanks B & S.

    If I’d have written 3 down I’d probably have added the word “ideally” to the end.

  48. Patients are nursed back to health, not doctored!

    Valentine @37 – RN is pretty much all over the place, here in Oz too and in Britain. Nurses are sometimes called Sisters though mostly now obsolete and only for those who are actually nuns like those of the Little Company of Mary. Always a little confusing though because of the similar abbreviation for the Royal Navy 🙂

    Also, as a long time Hemingway fan, have to put in a dollar’s worth about the popular error in the use of “toreador” interchangeably with actual terms “torero” and more specifically “matador” – actually held me up for a while because I couldn’t fit or parse 🙂

  50. Valentine@37. The two nursing abbreviations I remember from a long time ago were SRN for State Registered Nurse and SEN, which I believe stood for State Enrolled Nurse.

  52. I guessed NEROLI at 4th attempt. URINE was favourite but pale shouldn’t be underlined in blog as definition is amber liquid.
    Thanks both

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