Guardian Cryptic 28,696 by Pangakupu

88 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,696 by Pangakupu”

1. It may seem nit-picking, but in 16a doesn’t SP stand for for ‘special’ and C for ‘constable’, rather than your parsing?

2. I stared at FILAMENT for ages, utterly unable to parse it. Thanks for making the light dawn Peter. Not sure I Was a big fan of this puzzle; seemed to be a few devices used a bit too much, such as shifting letters.

3. Is the definition for RIDGEPOLE a bit lacking? Does it have to be timber (not in a tent surely these days). I also never know which direction ‘moving back’ is in an across clue.
   I did enjoy PHONETIC and TOWPATH.

4. TimC @3 I think maybe the setter is following definition 1 of RIDGEPOLE in Collins: “a timber laid along the ridge of a roof, to which the upper ends of the rafters are attached”

5. thanks petero and pk! my experience was quite the opposite — managed the bottom-half fairly quickly and then stuck on the northern hemisphere. And thanks for parsing IMMERSION, couldn’t unpack it (unsurprising since the term RSI was unfamiliar).

6. Thanks for parsing EXPIATORY (I had an unparsed EXPIATION which didn’t help, and I don’t think I’d ever have spotted TOPIARY).

   Maybe it’s because Pangakupu is a new setter, but there were a lot of clues requiring me to think of an unfamiliar synonym (lame= unsuitable?) and then perform complicated manoeuvres on it – and I don’t think I’ve seen the trick used in TYPE before. But in general I liked it, though I didn’t find it the walkover that PeterO obviously did. Liked RATLIKE and TOWPATH.

   Willbar@1: I think it works either way. I imagined an abbreviation of SPC for the whole thing, but who knows?

7. Yes Spooner’s catflap@4, Chambers has the same, but my complaint is that they’re not always timber. They may be in the UK but there are such things as metal framed houses which have ridgepoles. Timber just defines the material they’re (mostly) made out of, not the thing itself. They would be better replacing the word timber with beam as they do in things like joist.

8. Well that was fun! Loved TYPE (like Gladys, I’ve never seen that trick before) and EXPIATORY which held me up far too long and GRAPNEL and SOLUBLE. Thanks PeterO and Pangakupu.

9. I liked this, in the main – especially the indirect hidden answer in TYPE. I could only see an anagram of ‘name’ in FILAMENT so couldn’t understand where the L came from, thank you for your explanation PeterO.

   One question though – it seems to me in EXPIATORY the letters TO are moving forwards, rather than backwards – aren’t they?

   Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO

10. Me @9 – sorry I mean it seems they’re moving forwards, rather than backwards, to me… (D’oh!)

11. Oh lord, it’s too early in the morning for me ?

12. Conrad @9, 10 and 11
    You have to start with TOPIARY then move the TO backwards to get PIATORY to attach to EX.

13. Clever. In particular, I like the wordplay in TYPE, which, like gladys @6, I don’t think I’ve seen before. PHONETIC, PANTHEAN, ENDORPHIN, IMMERSION and TOWPATH were neat, too.
    I share the doubts about RIDGEPOLE, and was not too happy with SEWAGE, either as to the definition itself or the ‘spiritual range = New Age’ definition in the wordplay, but that’s a minimal cavil.
    Thank you Conrad @9 for confirming that it wasn’t just me with FILAMENT.
    Thanks P and PO.

14. Welcome to the Cryptics, or should I say “Kia Ora”, to Pangakupu. I enjoyed 11a LADYBIRD, 21a PANTHEON, 27a ENDORPHIN and 7d IMMERSION, but of all the clues 18d CONCORD was my top favourite. [I chose to spend several days in Massachusetts when I last travelled overseas (to the US in 2019), although as PeterO has said it’s pretty obvious that this clue referenced the New Hampshire capital city and not the town of Concord Ma. I visited.]
    Now that I’ve seen how 22a SEWAGE works, it joins my favourites list too. I needed help with understanding a few clues fully and am still not sure that I buy “PHONE” as a synonym for “calling” in 15a PHONETIC.
    Thank to Pangakupu for the puzzle and PeterO for the parses.

15. [We crossed in more ways than one, NeilH@13, or I would have acknowledged some common “likes”.]

16. I suppose a lot of general knowledge seems obscure if you don’t know it, but “nickname of the spouse of a president of the US in the 1960s” seems to me like a very obscure fact to know.

    Enjoyed the crossword overall however.

17. Interesting puzzle, which I found mostly straightforward but with a bit of knottiness in places. I failed to parse TYPE (clever!) and EXPIATORY took a while to disentangle, though the solution came immediately to mind. I missed the vagueness of RIDGEPOLE because I was thinking of ‘lodgepole’ (pine) = ‘timber’ instead.

    Alan @16: To those of us of a certain age, the First Lady LADY BIRD Johnson was surely familiar – more so than that meaning of DOMINO, which I hadn’t come across and was therefore my LOI.

    Whakawhetai koe (I looked that up!) to S&B

18. As Spooner might say, a fresh offer on the timepiece as far as the Cryptic is concerned, but I, for one, enjoyed the puzzle.

19. Thanks Pangakupu
    I enjoyed this, with NOISE, GRAPNEL, IMMERSION, and TOWPATH favourites. I didn’t parse EXPIATORY.
    What would you call 26a – an indirect hidden?
    I agree with Alan @16. I had no trouble with LADYBIRD Johnson, but then I’m old enough to have been there; not a fair clue for younger solvers – a president’s wife, not even the president.

20. I found this a bit of a struggle, but managed to fill it all in. Needed the blog to explain EXPIATORY (clever, but quite difficult imo) and IMMERSION (where I just didn’t see me = writer d’oh).

    Is New Age really a spiritual range? I’ll bow to other expert knowledge on this.

    Pleased with myself for getting TYPE, and understanding the parsing. And a backward kilt was very crafty in RATLIKE. It was a very unlikely set of letters to fit into anything. So these two are my favourites.

    Overall I’m not sure what I thought of the whole thing. Some clues hard but others like CELLAR very easy. Alan @16 LADYBIRD Johnson was more like a Quiptic clue for me. But maybe you’re too young to remember her.

    So thanks PANGAKUPU. I look forward to your next one to see how I get on. And thanks PeterO for my missing parsings.

21. More or less what NeilH said (except that I know so little about ridgepoles that I took that as read).

    One more tiny niggle: I parsed 1ac as NIGH (close) + T(CL)UB) (bath full of chlorine).

    Thanks (and welcome) to our new setter and thanks to PeterO, too.

22. muffin @19 We crossed on LADYBIRD. Some presidents’ wives are fairly well known and I thought LADYBIRD was one of them. She was always called that rather than her proper name. Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan might also qualify.

23. Liked TYPE.

    Guessed from definition and did not parse 13d, 22ac.

    New: RIDGEPOLE.
    Did not know about DOMINO = cape but solved it from the clue.

    Thanks, both.

24. Crossbar @22
    Yes, at the time, but it was over 50 years ago!

25. I think PeterO is parsing 1ac the same way as you, Eileen – just expressed slightly differently?. This crossword took more time than was possibly justified just because of the unfamiliarity, I suppose – but is that not a mysterious thing? The devices are not really very different. It seems to be a difference in tone rather than approach? Any road up (as we used to say in West Yorkshire) it was an impressive crossword with lots of head scratching and satisfactory denouement. (I googled the setters name and wa tickled pink to find the Maori meaning.)

26. muffin @24 What about Jackie Kennedy? I can just about remember that Mrs Ford was Betty (I think), but apart from the most recent ones that’s about it!

27. I thought EXPIATORY was good. I was tricked into trying different versions of the first couple in the garden (would you Adam and Eve it, as Cockneys say). IMMERSION was great, too. I wasn’t convinced by SEWAGE. I didn’t see new age and looked up SWEAGE to see if it meant anything.

28. [Trying to be clever I tripped up on my Maori grammar. The pronoun should have been ‘korua’ (second person dual) rather than ‘koe’ (second person singular). Those Polynesian pronouns! 🙂 ]

29. [Crossbar
    Betty Ford is remembered for the rehab clinics. Jackie Kennedy remained in the public eye long after JFK’s death.
    I remember an Eleanor Roosevelt story. She was delighted when a rose-breeder named a new variety after her; less so when she read that it was not much good in a bed, but great up against a wall!]

30. [Thanks for sharing that muffin 😉 I think]

31. I found this tough and had to cheat a little to get there. Did anyone else wonder if there were a word EXGNOMES, or some variation on it? Unlike PeterO, but like Ilan Caron @5, the bottom came much quicker than the top, especially the NE. I share some of the misgivings expressed by some above (especially New Age), but also many of the likes. Thanks, Pangakupu and PeterO.

32. I struggled with this, but eventually teased it out. It’s probably because a new setter has a clueing style that I am unused to. But there were definitely some details that I thought were a bit iffy: the ‘spiritual range’ = ‘New Age’ could only be arrived at post-solve, surely? And I don’t agree that lame=unsuitable. In what context? “A lame excuse”? That’s an excuse which is not strong, rather weak, not convincing.
    Anyway, it was rather fun. The “penalty penalty” trick was really neat.

33. Is Pangakupu new? Could it be Phi?

34. I first encountered this setter last November with the Genius puzzle (mentioned by PeterO), which I enjoyed very much. I enjoyed this one too but needed a bit of help with parsing OUT-TAKES, EXPIATORY and GREEN. All is now clear.

    PHONETIC has been mentioned a few times. I don’t think we have to make ‘calling’ equivalent to PHONE – surely the whole phrase ‘Involuntary response when calling’ simply indicates a ‘phone tic’.

    Thanks to Pangakupu and PeterO.

35. Welcome Pangakupu; nice to see some new blood. I enjoyed this.

    Unlike PeterO, I filled in the bottom half first, and got a bit stuck on the NW quadrant, where I got trapped by the incorrect name* parsing in FILAMENT. I particularly liked PHONETIC, DOMINO and TOWPATH [I assumed there was a ‘pat’ there, taking longer than I should have to see the ‘cowpat’].

    Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO.

36. I liked this one, particularly the challenge the new setter and their style brought. It was refreshing having to think in different ways.
    We also considered ‘exgnomes’ (TassieTim @31) and ‘exflamingoes’ (!) but that went nowhere. We were also convinced that ‘unsuitable’ was an anagrind on ‘name’ and looked high and low for a definition for ‘filt’ (to no avail). Agree with Alan B – in parsing ‘phonetic’ we didn’t separate ‘involuntary response when calling’ – we considered that a sort of silly definition for a phone tic (whatever that might be!).
    Although we were shelling peanuts while we did the crossword, it didn’t help us get 10ac any faster!
    Thanks to Pangakupu and PeterO – and everyone else!

37. Enjoyably different.

    How is SKIM “milk?”?

38. Steve69 @37
    I took them both as verbs meaning, roughly, “exploit”.

39. Just like paddymelon @33, I wondered if this could be Phi in another guise; the country is correct anyway.

    I found this a real challenge and made a mess of the SW corner. Might have helped if I’d remembered DOMINO for ‘cape’ which I’d come across quite recently but of course had forgotten. Even so, defeated by EXPIATORY and so missed the neat TYPE.

    Thanks and welcome to Pangakupu and to PeterO

40. Steve @69; I think it’s an example of milk; SKIM milk is the American form of skimmed milk apparently.

41. … or even Steve69 @37…

42. paddymelon@33, WordPlodder@39, there is a maori nina, which Phi has used before.

43. James @42
    Kai tiaki? Or is there more?

44. muffin @38 That did cross my mind, but then it wouldn’t have have a question mark?
    Robi @40 That seems more likely I guess, if there’s such a thing as “skim milk” – seems very ungrammatical!

45. Thanks to PK for a smooth, enjoyable and pleasantly challenge. I enjoyed it. Thanks too to James@42 and AlanB@43 for pointing out the Nina, which I most certainly would not have noticed. It means Guardian, I see. Very nice!

46. ‘pleasant challenge’…..

47. DP @45
    Re Kai tiaki: that meaning of ‘guardian’ is appropriate also for the Genius puzzle by Pangakupu that has been mentioned here, as the Genius series is also in The Guardian.

48. Steve69@44: maybe that’s what they call it in New Zealand, grammatical or not. I took it as an example of a type of milk (though it does sort of work as a verb).

49. Thanks Neill97 @12 – you’re absolutely right of course, and now that I’ve woken up a bit I’ve no idea why I was having such an problem with the clue (or with posting something without looking like an idiot…).

50. Same experience as TassieTim @31. The top half was almost deserted until I got NIGHTCLUB but ultimately had to cheat to finish. TOWPATH was very good. A very welcome addition and hope I’m on the setter’s wavelength more next time.

    Ta both

51. This was a very enjoyable and well clued weekday debut from P. Likes as others.

    Knowing the odd FLOTUS is one thing, knowing their nicknames was a step too far for me. However, I found the definitions came to the rescue when the wordplay was beyond me and vice versa.

    Thanks P & P

52. I was whelmed once or twice with this, but in the main an underwhelming solving experience for me. As others have said, it felt a little odd here and there, and sometimes rather awkward. As a result I can’t really pick a clue that I really like, though the whole thing seemed on the soft side for a Friday.

53. So yes, skim milk is the usual term for nonfat milk here. It doesn’t even strike me as odd.

    Like Julie in Australia, I was thinking of Concord, Mass. (cradle of the Revolution and home of Walden Pond), not Concord, NH, and thought it was a bit of a small town to feature in a British crossword. I guess the capital of New Hampshire is a bit fairer, if only a bit larger.

    I found this a tough slog, though in hindsight I’m not sure why. I guess it’s sometimes hard to get on a new setter’s wavelength.

54. Eileen @21
    Unless I am missing your point, like TerriBlislow @25 I do not see any substantive difference between your parsing of 1A NIGHTCLUB and mine. Expanding to use the formula I generally adopt, I read yours as “A charade of NIGH (‘close’) plus an envelope of …”. I would use that form when the wording of the clue requires it (as 27A ENDORPHIN here), but when, as in 1A, either form fits the clue, I will go with mine as the simpler. Of course, my form has the ambiguity that “plus TUB (‘bath’)” can be read either as part of the envelope cover, or as a separate element in the parsing, but I think in this case it is obvious that the former is the right one.
    Willbar @1
    Take your choice. I chose mine because Chambers does not list C by itself as an abbreviation for ‘constable’, whereas it lists both S and SP for ‘special’

    I have evidently been too long on this side of the pond to realize that SKIM milk is not a thing in the UK.

55. PeterO@54: I deliberately did NOT enter SKIM for a while, despite having the leading S, just because it seemed too US-centric.

    My biggest hurdle was seeing waves as an anagram indicator. But then it was after midnight.

    It’s always good to see a new setter with new (or newish) approaches. I looked up the supposed Nina, and found that as one word it does indeed mean Guardian, so that can’t be a coincidence, but that as two words it means “food preservation”. Just thought I’d share.

56. LADYBIRD was the only name I’ve ever heard used for Pres. Johnson’s wife. In fact I sort of thought it was her “real” name. It barely qualifies as a nickname. And it often pops up in quizzes. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable bit of GK for a crossword.

    Also thinking about 11a, “crawler” rather underestimates that lovely beetle, as it also flies.

57. [One of our occasional posters here, Marienkaefer, translates as “ladybird”.]

58. [muffin German? Does that translate as Mary’s beetle? The Polish for ladybird is boza krowka, which translates as God’s little cow. I’ve left of the diacritics on the z and o as I don’t think they’ll work properly here.]

59. Thoroughly enjoyed this, including the ‘handle’ of the new setter. A nice range of clues types and difficulties – looking forward to more.

60. [Crossbar @58
    Google, as far as I’m concerned (as with the translation from Maori of today’s compiler) – I have no German (or Maori, for that matter…)]

61. Lady Bird counts as a name, not a nickname. I never saw or heard Mrs. Johnson called anything else.

    Thanks, Pangakupo and PeterO.

62. Skim milk masquerades as cream – W S Gilbert

63. I took both milk and skim in the sense of siphoning off money illegally

64. PeterO @53 – I haven’t been ignoring you: I had to go out, so have only just seen your comment.

    As I said, it was only a tiny point – I only really noticed because it was the first clue – and so I didn’t respond to Terribislow. ‘Bath full of chlorine’ leaped out at me from the surface but it certainly isn’t worth arguing about. 😉

65. Thanks for the blog, nice to see a new setter and lot of good clues. I also like to solve all the clues in order without any jumping around so this made a nice change.
    I will pick out EXPIATORY , RATLIKE and TOWPATH all three neat and clever and original.

66. Yes, Jim@63, I think you’re right.
    I really enjoyed this. Welcome to Pangakupu. Hope to see you again soon. Loved the double penalty. I’ve not seen that device used before.

67. Nothing much to add, but I enjoyed the puzzle. Thought the clueing was very precise, which allowed me to solve both GRAPNEL and DOMINO despite not being aware of the relevant meaning in either case. Think I’ll nominate NIGHTCLUB as my favourite because, in my hometown, there was indeed a cinema pretty close to the swimming “baths” which were heavily chlorinated. The cinema also morphed into a nightclub later on, so the story fits nicely.
    Thanks, Pangakupu and PeterO. Thanks also to posters for pointing out the Nina. Well spotted!

68. It was quite a struggle for me today, as I started to solve it on the train(s) back from the Lake District, but there was a group of middle aged “lads” out for a weekend in Leeds who provided quite a distraction and made it very difficult to concentrate on synonyms. I still had about half to do when I got home and managed to knock it off over dinner, with DOMINO last one in as I vaguely remembered it cropping up last year as a type of ‘cape’, when all the while I’d been thinking of Trafalgar and Farewell.

    I thought ‘crawler’ was a little unkind to the poor LADYBIRD – but I remembered the president’s wife because her nickname gave her the same initials as her husband (and their daughter as well, I seem to recall): LBJ.

    PHONE TIC was clever, but SPORADIC took a long time to drop, as periodic and episodic also seemed to fit, but of course would not parse. As others have mentioned, the (seemingly) innovative implied inclusion of TYPE was a particular favourite for me too.

    Thanks to PK and PeterO.

69. Dr. Watson @55
    Thanks for that bit of enlightenment concerning ‘kaitiaki’. If I had read a bit further when I looked it up I would have seen that sense of guardian (or guardianship) coming from the Maori word in that form. And it was good of James (@42) to give us a pointer to that nina.

70. [Sorry, I typed ‘Dr. Whatson’ (@69), but it got auto-corrected to the name of someone who might be even more well-known, I’m afraid.]

71. Thanks both.

    A new setter always opens up the possibility of discomfort but all in all I enjoyed this, albeit with some parsing help required (‘figures in garden’).

    Crossbar@58: The Irish for LADYBIRD is ‘Bóín Dé’ which also means ‘God’s little cow’. Go figure.

72. Clues rather wordy. Less is more.

73. JimAZ @63 – Yes, agree with your assessment of SKIM/MILK.
    Crossword was an unequal struggle, new setter and small brain, a lethal combination.
    Thanks both.

74. LBJ’s wife was called Lady Bird Johnson (not Ladybird as in the beetle). Their daughters also had the initials LBJ. She was known for having wildflowers planted by the interstate highways and all over her home state of Texas.

    There are numerous Concords spread across the country, including California and North Carolina!

    In California, we have “non-fat” milk, but in the eastern states, it’s always “skim”.

    Thanks, PeterO for all the parsings — for instance, I couldn’t figure out how [c]OWPATH became TOWPATH, in spite of growing up near a cow pasture covered with cow patties!

75. Thanks, Peter0. I found some of the clues admirably clever (EXPIATORY), others unsatisfactorily imprecise (lame for unsuitable, spiritual range for New Age). The number of interrogation marks (five, if I’m counting correctly) was rather unwelcome, as they generally indicate some idiosyncrasy in the clueing. That said, I enjoyed this enough to look forward to the setter’s next outing. Welcome, Pangakupu!

76. Thank you PeterO for the large waving (hmmm) and shifting Topiary, James for the the NINA and various for extra flavour above.
    I had to slightly cheat to check definitions for a couple and echo a couple of mini gripes (add RATLIKE = despicable, surely when Doyle described Lestrade thus it was not meant to be so disparaging?) but overall enjoyed this, first time I have seen the TYPE trick but getting it gave me a warm feeling, though not as much as knowing LADY BIRD thanks to a jog round “her” reservoir in Austin, Texas one muggy September day.
    I lean towards muffin on SKIM as verb vs skim milk – here it isn’t even allowed to be called milk but rather “Drink” – Father Jack would get a nasty shock!
    Thanks, welcome and congratulations Pangakupu.

77. Thanks to PeterO for the blog, and to Pangakupu for your pangakupu and the fun workout. Please come again.

    And another thank you to James and Alan B for the nina.

    FWIW I parsed 1A as Eileen did. But I was more interested in why bath didn’t have a capital ‘b’. I would have thought the surface would read better as ‘Entertainment venue close to Bath’ It struck me that might have been the intention.

    Learned some M?ori, and some Latin associated with DOMINO (as cape, which I didn’t know), and the theory that from the black and white of the cape we get the name of the game dominoes, which originated in China.

    Thanks to Crossbar @58 and Alphalpha@71 I’ve been around the world with the LADYBIRD. I asked the question and landed on a post on Quora with the origins of the name for this insect in possibly a hundred different languages. I had no idea it was so significant to so many cultures. I’m certainly happy to see them in my garden, but will give them an even greater ‘reverence’ now.

    It’s been a very spiritual journey today with domino/es and ladybirds.
    Not being New Age, or in any spiritual range, ‘Rubbish’ made me laugh in 22A.

78. [Alphalpha @71 I don’t suppose you’ll see this now, but thank you for sharing the Irish ladybird. Now isn’t that strange? I don’t think Polish and Irish languages have much in common, nor has there been much association between the countries. They are or were both strongly Catholic of course.

    And paddymelon @77 Glad you enjoyed your ladybird world tour 🙂 ]

79. [Crossbar/Alphalpha/paddymelon/muffin:

    In French bête à bon Dieu is an alternative name for the coccinelle. Our ladybird/ladybug (in olden days also called ladycow) is a similar idea to the German Marienkäfer, because the lady is ‘Our Lady’.]

80. [essexboy/paddymelon/muffin/Alphalpha/crossbar – in Schwyzerduutsch the term “Glückskäfer” (lucky beetle) is common and you can buy foil wrapped chocolate specimens at bakeries etc. I had never considered why the Ladybird was so named, thank you all for the various contributions. I remember some rhyme, possibly American, about ladybirds worrying about their houses being on fire while they were away, also (spoiler alert) the ladybird in James and the Giant Peach married the chief fireman in NYC, interesting that these creatures are so culturally significant in various ways!]

81. [Gazzh @80 – thanks for that. The German-speaking world has an extraordinary number of regional words for ladybird – according to wiki there are over 1500. One of them is Marienwürmchen, which features in a well-known poem in Des Knaben Wunderhorn. I wonder if it’s the one you’re thinking of? The second verse is as follows:
    Marienwürmchen fliege weg,
    Dein Häuschen brennt,
    Die Kinder schrei’n so sehre.
    Die böse Spinne spinnt sie ein,
    Marienwürmchen, flieg’ hinein,
    Deine Kinder schreien sehre.
    I would translate but it’s pretty nightmarish if you’re a ladybird, and I wouldn’t want to give any coccinellid cruciverbalists bad dreams.]

82. [Sorry MrEssexboy but I can’t translate. The rhyme I know from childhood is –

    Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
    Your house is on fire, your children are gone,
    All but one who is little John,
    And he lies under the grinding stone.

    Always said when you found a ladybird and let it fly from your hands. ]

83. [Roz – the German version is the same up to ‘your house is on fire’, but then takes an even grimmer turn, with a spider spinning a web to trap the ladybird’s children in the burning house. Not a nice spider.]

84. essexboy@83. ‘grimmer’, pun intended? Somewhere in my travels I found the Grimm Brothers wrote the Marienwürmchen.

85. [ eb, or is that the one you posted at 12:21?]

86. [eb, sorry, I mean @81. I’d better go to bed. These scary fairy tales are doing my head in]

87. [pdm @84: yes;
    pdm @85: that was Brentano, the Grimm version ends with the children screaming;
    pdm @86: sweet dreams 😉 ]

88. I never heard anything beyond “your children will burn,” but when I googled it I found not John but Ann. “All but one, and her name is Ann, And she hid under the frying pan/baking pan/pudding pan” (in various versions).

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