Guardian Cryptic 28,798 by Pangakupu

62 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,798 by Pangakupu”

1. Thank you manehi for putting me out of my misery. I just couldn’t work out why the R in ASPIRIN = Take.

   Two others took me a while to parse – BY HOOK OR BY CROOK and EARTHY, but I got there in the end. Now I’ve got it I really don’t know why it took me so long to get the first, but for EARTHY at first I thought the definition was Lusty.

2. Enjoyed this offering from the Mauri.

   One question; is BETROTH really marry? I always thought it was too engage to marry.

   Didn’t spoil anything though, many thanks both.

3. Ooh! First!

4. Pleasant enough and my only quiblet is Nile=source of hydroelectricity is rather vague. It’s not exactly the first thing you would associate with the Nile. Berg seemed a bit obscure, but to me that’s fair enough if the wordplay is clear. I forgot r=recipe despite having noted it several times in the past! Thanks Pangakupu and Manehi.

5. William@2 – I think it means ‘Is To Marry’

6. I thought this was going to be easier than it turned out to be. BY HOOK OR BY CROOK was fun and I liked CHANNEL ISLANDER

7. Oh, and I thought the other European country in BERG was GB. So BERG IS G(RE)B all backwards.

   We are still physically in Europe after all, despite Brexit.

8. The left side fell in readily and the rest soon followed.
   Thanks for parsing BERG, manehi.
   And thanks to Mr/Ms “Crossword”.

9. Thanks Pangakupu and manehi
   Odd one for me – 3/4 filled in rapidly, but a very slow finish,. STOOPS (unparsed) LOI. Next to last was GORY, as I associate it with “bloody” rather than “graphic”.
   I loved BABY BOOMER!
   I think the country in 5d is GB too – RE in GB all reversed.

10. Excellent puzzle to end the week, from a setter I have not seen before.
    Thanks to both setter and blogger for help with parsing a couple.
    Hope to see more in future!

11. Thanks for the blog. I too failed to parse the r in Aspirin. I wondered if there was going to be a theme with Baby Boomers (loved that clue) and Lost Generation but can’t see anything else.

12. I parsed BERG like Moth @7. Bulgaria never came to mind – despite the recent Wombling excursion. And, also like Moth @1 (you’re all over the place 😀 ), I equated EARTHY with lusty for a while.

    With others here, I enjoyed BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, MOOING tickled me, BABY BOOMER had me IN STITCHES and I did like the substitution in INSTRUMENT. I didn’t get the definition for LOST GENERATIONS so did resort to the Anagram Helper having worked out the likelihood of an …ATIONS ending.

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi (Goodness me, now there’s a combination that’ll feature rarely in Google searches!)

13. muffin @9: ‘the gory details’ don’t necessarily mean the bloody ones – unless we’re talking about government bureaucracy in which case you might have a point,

14. Thanks for clarifying Moth and Muffin. But I’m not sure – is GB a country in its own right and a member of the United Nations (c Richard Osman)? It contains three nations (E, W & S) and is part of the UK (GB&NI) which is a country.

15. I may be wrong of course, but I took GB to be one of those vague definitions that are totally acceptable in crosswords (imho). After all the UK Olympians are referred to as Team GB. It does bother me a bit, and I suspect narks people from NI more. But I think we can say it is in common usage as a country.

16. Another vote for GB in BERG, although I can imagine the response that the UK, Scotland, England etc are countries but GB isn’t maybe?? It seems to me that because the ‘after upset’ is at the end it therefore applies to the whole.
    I liked INSTRUMENT for the nice substitution and MOOING to remind me of my youth and being gobsmacked by J.S.Bach on a Moog. Here is a later instrument I think, but just as good.

17. I agree – this was a good mixture of clues and I enjoyed it. Don’t think I’ve seen this setter before.

    Not seen R for take/recipe before – must note in book. Also needed help parsing another couple.

    The long ones helped although it took me way to long to get CHANNEL ISLANDER – laughed when I did get it.

    Other favourites included LIGHTNING, IN STITCHES, NITROGEN, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, MOOING

    Thanks to both

18. Ah, the responses preceded my slow typing.

19. Hoki mai an?. Hard to forget a moniker like Pangakupu.
    At first I tried to fit CONTINENCE into the 6 anagram so I was relieved to put in PROTECTION MONEY. I also thought of reversed GB rather than Bulgaria but I had the same question as bagel@14. Is GB even in Europe now?

20. Oooops. Just checked my notebook and I have seen R = take before – quite a long time ago but had completely forgotten it.

21. Me @19. Clearly I haven’t worked out how do do a macron with this editor. Was supposed to be ano, with a long o (meaning again).

22. I believe that Ukraine and United Kingdom both wanted UK. So the powers-that-be gave them UA and GB, respectively.

23. I rather liked NILE. Hydroelectricity may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but the Aswan Dam is the world’s largest embankment dam, and its construction in the 1960s attracted worldwide interest, not least because a great many archaeological sites had to be relocated, including Abu Simbel. It’s also the reason why Spain ended up with an ancient Egyptian temple (the Temple of Debod), plonked rather incongruously in the middle of Madrid.

    Many thanks Pangakupu and manehi (yep PM @12, that’s quite a combo) – the latter also for parsing STOOPS. I had lazily assumed that a stoop must be low-down drinking dive language for a low-down drinking dive.

24. Not sure I’ve encountered Pangakupu before. I found this a pretty easy fill, but some of the parsing was pretty challenging. The long downs were nice, especially 7d.

25. [Paul @21 – see here for macrons. ō is &#333 plus a semicolon]

26. Maybe I just got out of bed on the wrong side but for the first time in ages but I had no ticks at all by the end of this. It just seemed a bit pedestrian – more akin to something you might find in the torygraph or the daily m*l

    On the plus side it did make me thankful for the generally excellent standard of setting we get in the Guardian

27. I liked PROTECTION MONEY, with the “accidents” in inverted commas. Like SueB @11 I noticed the very mini theme of BABY BOOMER and LOST GENERATIONS. (I always thought the Lost Generation referred to the young men who died in the First World War, but Wikipedia seems to have different ideas.)

    I was another who went for GB rather than BG in 5d but either would seem to work. As to GB as a country, “Great Britain” is strictly a geographical rather than national term, but it is very widely used as shorthand for “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, so I think it’s fine.

    Many thanks Pangakupu and manehi.

28. What a funny week it’s been! Mon and Tues were too chewy for me; Wed/Thurs were good but straightforward. Today was relatively easy again, although I got quite a few by definition and couldn’t parse until I came here. Never come across R = TAKE before.

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi

29. Not quite sure what to make of this. Some very smooth surfaces, especially for the long gettable anagrams LOST GENERATIONS and PROTECTION MONEY. But I’m afraid found this rather too easy for a Friday challenge. Couldn’t parse BABY BOOMER, as I didn’t know Bitterns did that, and more animal sounds with MOOING later on. I’ll probably now get a resounding boo-ing from others on here about my negative reception for this new? setter…

30. Thanks ever so for that link, Tim C @16, fun sound, and those graphics are super cool! This puzzle is pretty cool too. Agree with Moth et al re is to be married”, and agree too re “re in GB” all upset, Brexit nwst. Can’t remember when or where I last saw stoop for a bar, many decades. Whereas Moog, while going back at least to Emerson, Lake and Palmer, is a bit of a regular. All good, thanks both.

31. … [st]oops, should read blog first, hey ho…

32. I’ve not encountered a Pangakupu before. This was fun, despite a couple of awkward stretches (R=’take’, via ‘recipe’? Hmmm. Nile = source of hydroelectricity). I really liked the neatness and challenge of the clue for STOOPS, and BABY BOOMER was clever.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

33. Minor quiblet: BETROTH means to contract or promise to marry so should the definition be expanded to include the TO or even the IS TO? But then the grammar feels a bit off …

34. Thoroughly enjoyed this after the last two days’ offerings. Nice surfaces esp NITROGEN

    Another vote for GB as the country in 5d.

    The long down clues were all excellent.

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi

35. I really like puzzles that mix some fairly easy clues with chewier ones. This certainly fits the bill. It has prompted me to listen again to the Berg violin concerto (one of the few Second Viennese school compositions I can appreciate.). Poor old Berg was so poor that he couldn’t afford a doctor. His wife tried to remove a boil from his back with a knife. He subsequently died of sepsis. Thanks be to free health care, and antibiotics.

36. A new compiler to me and most enjoyable – more please! Favourite was BY HOOK OR BY CROOK and good to see MOOG make an appearance. Could start an analog v digital debate and guess which I prefer…. Thanks m and p, a lovely end to the week.

37. I liked this and I do recall a very similar clue to 18 in a crossword here in Australia. Instead of bittern hatchling we had, I believe, joey – same answer of course.

38. Maybe as someone from the Antipodes who has to stand on my head to solve many UK cryptic clues, I ‘get’ the Pangakupu maker, Pangakapu. He’s a master of the rules, but also likes to bend them, just like other Guardian setters. We’re very fortunate in having such a wonderful stable of compilers.

    GB, and familiarity with the abbreviation down this way, whether correct or not, was how I parsed it in BERG.

    Favourites were TINKERED, GORY, and CHANNEL ISLANDER (even though I had turn my head upside down and go back to the northern hemisphere.) INSTRUMENT, tricky, but tickled me.

    I like the increasing unpredictability of expected or perceived difficulty of Guardian crosswords for each day of the week. As a BABY BOOMER, (learnt something about bitternes), being forced into early retirement, it’s a lovely surprise to find something different each day, although I’m a bit trepidatious about who might be setting the Prize this week.

39. Like others, I had GB for BERG.
    For ASPIRIN I parsed “I take” as Inland Revenue!

40. I quite liked BETROTH and MOOING and By Hook -but generally underwhelmed for a Friday especially

41. As far as I know Pangakupu has one previous Genius puzzle and one previous daily one.

    I particularly enjoyed the surfaces for EARTHY and LOST GENERATIONS, and the clever replacement for INSTRUMENT.

    For those of you wondering, the UK athletics team is called Great Britain & Northern Island (or Team GB, code GBR) to distinguish from that of Ukraine (UKR).

    Thanks P&M.

42. Paddymelon @38; it’s Paul in the Prize crossword tomorrow.

43. Robi@42. It’s been a great week. 🙂

44. Thanks manehi as I had the same misapprehension as essexboy regarding a spit and sawdust STOOP, and had ATE for “worried” in 17d with no idea how “Mostly” led to the initial E. My initial guess at 6d was something POTTY but luckily got 11a fairly quickly to put me right. I found this a very satisfying steady challenge and was especially happy to spot R=Recipe for a change – though I prefer Lyssian@39’s interpretation – so thanks Pangakupu. And thanks Nuntius for the story of Berg’s sad demise.

45. As Copmus @40 said – generally underwhelmed for a Friday. Seemed like most of them were write-ins, especially after the long anagrams went in early on. Thanks for the parsing of ASPIRIN, I’d forgotten that latin “R” abbreviation.

46. Moth@5 and 7 and muffin@9. “Is to marry” isn’t a definition of BETROTH. You can’t make a sentence where both work.

    Did most of the puzzle last night, but half a dozen had to wait for morning and (in some cases) the check button.

    Thanks, Pangakapu and manehi.

47. Found this most enjoyable and several clues made me laugh, so no complaints from me. Pleased to see a new compiler.

48. For those unfamiliar with R as a Latin abbreviation of TAKE, you might nevertheless recognise the R with a slash through its tail on a doctor’s prescription to a pharmacist.

49. Apologies William @2 – just realised I duplicated your query on BETROTH

50. Certainly didn’t parse it all; needed to come here to understand four solutions; nevertheless found this an enjoyable excursion with quite a few ticks. Thanks to Pangakupu and manehi.

51. Sorry, Gert Bycee, but my doctor’s prescriptions are all printed in a standard font on computer-generated forms these days. Does anybody’s doctor still use R=take? I’m sure it’s In Chambers, but this is a piece of clue shorthand that IMHO is way past it’s set-by date.

52. Started enjoying this once the long ones began to fall. BY HOOK OR BY CROOK was the fave.

    This is probably more a coincidence than anything else, but if you look up EARTHY in WordNet (the lexical database from Princeton), while “gross” is given as the first sense, another sense is given as “hearty and lusty”.

53. Thanks for the blog, a good set of clues and some nice long anagrams . BABY BOOMER is very neat and pairs up with MOOING. INSTRUMENT is clever , first time would have made it more precise.
    Nobody seems to have mentioned the theme?

54. This was easiest of week here. I also had GB in BERG.
    Thanks both

55. Thanks both,
    Anybody else have ‘neck’ instead of ‘peck ‘at 12a? It sort of works.

56. Very enjoyable puzzle indeed!

57. I only solved two across clues on my first pass. I was helped greatly by the 4 long down clues.

    Liked BERG, BETROTH, STOOPS, GORY (loi).

    I could not parse 16ac apart from I in A SPIN; 14d apart from STRUM, 17d apart from MAN

    New for me: The larger kinds of bitterns are noted for the deep booming call of the male in the breeding season.

    Thanks, both.

58. Roz @53: I’ve only just looked at the blog for the first time since posting this morning. i see you raised the idea of a theme and 5 hours later no one seems to have bittern! If you are still around, pray tell.

59. Just checking before I go out so cannot add to this.
    Start at the L at the top of 1D, do a Knight’s tour of the grid putting each letter you land on in a circle clockwise. Using a Fibonaccii sequence go around the circle three times anti-clockwise. The letters you land on will spell out all the hadrons in the eight-fold way.

60. Thanks setter and blogger. I needed help with the in…..ent in 14 down. Clever! There’s a theme?.

61. A brain twister to be sure! (Had to reveal 18a even with BABY in place).

    In the UK do you still get written prescriptions? My doctor’s office calls my pharmacy and I pick up the meds with instructions in plain English. I seem to recall that when I did get a written prescription, it was an unreadable scribble.

    For 21 down, I think of graphic violence, which can be very bloody.

    Tim C @a6: That link is my favorite discovery of the puzzle.

62. Interesting to see so many people surprised by R = “take”. There was a time when it was a completely standard crosswordism. I learned it early in my apprenticeship, along with GEN = “information” and other such obscurities. Useful for setters, but perhaps a little too artificial for my liking. Judging by the comments, maybe it has been gradually phased out in recent years?

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