Apologies for the late blog.
The puzzle would not load for me originally. Was it worth the wait? I'm not sure – some of the clues were quite clever (OCEANOLOGY, IN TOTO etc), but I felt there were a lot of anagrams and some repetitions. Would have to go back to the crossword to validate those comments, but the blog is late enough as it is.
Thanks, Pangakupu.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DISGORGE |
Daughter is chased by pig that’s let out (8)
|
|
D (daughter) + IS chased by GORGE ("pig") |
||
| 5 | BOLERO |
Here’s a surprise about the French overture from Ravel? It’s not an overture (6)
|
|
BOO ("here's a surprise") about LE ("the" in "French") + [overture from] R(avel) |
||
| 9 | SPOKENFOR |
Rung number? Most of class engaged, possibly (6,3)
|
|
SPOKE ("rung") + N (number) + [most of] FOR(m) ("class") |
||
| 11 | FICHE |
Feminine reserve about husband’s file (5)
|
|
F (feminine) + ICE ("reserve") about H (husband) |
||
| 12 | GO DOWN THE PAN |
Set subsequently including father has to fail (2,4,3,3)
|
|
GO DOWN ("set") + THEN ("subsequently") including PA ("father") |
||
| 15 | EROS |
Love to have sex, not about to retreat (4)
|
|
<=S(c)ORE ("to have sex", but not C (circa, so "about"), to retreat) |
||
| 16 | STRUCTURAL |
Star culture mostly irregular of form (10)
|
|
*(star cultur) [anag:irregular] where CULTUR is [mostly] CULTUR(e) |
||
| 18 | ROSE WINDOW |
Argument about curtailment of embroidery to finish church feature (4,6)
|
|
ROW ("argument") about [curtailment of] SEWIN(g) ("embroidery") + DO ("to finish") |
||
| 19 | PONG |
Scent trace of oranges in country near Australia (4)
|
|
[trace of] O(ranges) in PNG (Papua New Guinea, a "country near Australia") |
||
| 21 | HAUTE CUISINE |
Dislike about university’s hint to suppress one crime? What’s cooking, seriously? (5,7)
|
|
HATE ("dislike") about U (university) + CUE ("hint") to suppress I (one) + SIN ("crime") |
||
| 24 | DRIVE |
Motivation beginning to recede in downmarket bar (5)
|
|
[beginning to] R(ecede) in DIVE ("downmarket bar") |
||
| 25 | SEE DOUBLE |
Feel something of a blow to experience second sight thus? (3,6)
|
|
Cryptic definition |
||
| 26 | AGEIST |
Discriminating person is engaged in a purchase (6)
|
|
IS engaged in A + GET ("purchase") |
||
| 27 | IMMORTAL |
Wrong to besiege Troy without end (8)
|
|
IMMORAL ("wrong") to besiege T (troy) |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DOSH |
Ready to cheat mum (4)
|
|
DO ("to cheat") + SH ("mum") |
||
| 2 | SLOT |
Small quantity in narrow opening (4)
|
|
S (small) + LOT ("quantity") |
||
| 3 | OREGON |
US state with mines mostly worked out? (6)
|
|
With all the ORE GON(e) [mostly], the "mine" will be "worked out" |
||
| 4 | GIFT OF TONGUES |
Suggestion to ditch leader unfortunately blocked by eccentric toff with the ability to speak unknown languages (4,2,7)
|
|
*(uggestion) [anag:unfortunately] blocked by *(toff) [anag:eccentric] where UGGESTION is (s)UGGESTION with its "leader ditched" |
||
| 6 | OFF-WHITE |
Little item in proposal not entirely complete, not entirely pure (3-5)
|
|
WHIT ("little item") in [not entirely complete] OFFE(r) ("proposal) |
||
| 7 | ESCAPE ROOM |
More space arranged around old game venue (6,4)
|
|
*(more space) [anag:arranged] around O (old) |
||
| 8 | OCEANOLOGY |
Green picked up correspondence — nothing to replace a study of the sea (10)
|
|
<=ECO ("green", picked up) + AN(a>O)LOGY ("correspondence" with O ("nothing") replacing A) |
||
| 10 | RUN OUT OF STEAM |
Dismissed old fellow leading second eleven to finish exhausted? (3,3,2,5)
|
|
RUN OUT ("dismissed" in cricket) + O (old) + F (fellow) + [leading] S(econd) + TEAM ("eleven") |
||
| 13 | TETRAHEDRA |
Heartbroken to block dubious trade in pyramids (10)
|
|
*(heart) [anag:broken] to block *(trade) [anag:dubious] |
||
| 14 | MOISTURISE |
One amongst majority to get prominent about source of ugly work with cosmetics? (10)
|
|
I (one) among MOST ("majority") + RISE ("to get prominent") about [source of] U(gly) |
||
| 17 | TWEEZERS |
They’ll carefully select social media users getting variable for time (8)
|
|
TWEE(t>Z)ERS ("social media users") getting Z (variable) for T (time) |
||
| 20 | IN TOTO |
Keen on repeating second half, considering everything (2,4)
|
|
INTO + TO ("keen on", repeating second half) |
||
| 22 | OBIT |
Passing comment? Nothing had an effect (4)
|
|
O (nothing) + BIT ("had an effect") |
||
| 23 | WELL |
German composer I overlooked successfully (4)
|
|
(Kurt) WE(i)LL ("German composer") with I overlooked |
Thanks for the parsing of EROS, which I couldn’t quite see.
Lots of anagrams of words minus their last letters.
Thanks, Pangakupu. I really enjoyed this one, even if our esteemed blogger wasn’t so keen (but thanks for the blog none the less, Loonapick). Particular favourites were the inventive and funny BOLERO and OREGON. Nicely balanced in terms of difficulty – the two long ones came quickly for me but there was plenty to chew on. EROS was by some distance my last in – quite a tricky one to parse but I got there in the end.
Very enjoyable and especially liked RUN OUT OF STEAM, GIFT OF TONGUES, IMMORTAL and GO DOWN THE PAN. Guessed the German composer and couldn’t parse OCEANOLOGY.
Ta Pangakupu & loonapick.
My LOI was 1dn as it took me an age to see both the def and the component parts. I found this a bit of a struggle but looking back I wonder why. For a long time I had All at the start of 10dn which didn’t help.
Thanks to P and L for a good challenge this morning.
I, too, really enjoyed this. I still feel pleased to spot a “lift and separate” like “heartbroken” and I quite like the slightly surreal notion of a trade in pyramids. I count 4 anagrams. I’ve definitely seen more.
I find Pangakupu quite tough and this was no exception. All eventually in and parsed, with the intimidating looking GIFT OF TONGUES being the hardest nut to crack amongst others that needed a lot of thought and – let’s be honest – crossers to help out.
OREGON and OCEANOLOGY were my favourites.
Thanks to Pangakupu and loonapick
A new setter to me, and very enjoyable ( to me anyway ) thanks all concerned.
Ages since researching using a microfiche, had to stare hard at 11ac. Likewise many a decade since thinking of it as scoring, so Eros not an instant parse. And, without even looking properly at the grist, stupidly bunged sculptural in at 16ac, until tongues needed its tee. Bit of a stumblebum effort, but hey ho, fun anyway, thanks both.
I was thrown by ready = dosh. Is that right? I’d always thought it was ‘readies’ plural but mainly from old episodes of Minder.
Anybody else have RAN OUT OF STEAM for 10d?
An enjoyable challenge, thanks to Pangakupu and loonapick
Hovis@10 – Not me
@eric @9 I feel your pain – it’s a pet hate of mine 🙂 it’s read cash or readies but never just “ready”. Unfortunately it comes up a lot so the horse has already bolted
I enjoyed this more than previous offerings from this setter. OREGON, PONG & HAUTE CUISINE all got ticks
Cheers P&L
Ready!!
Competing earworms this morning, Torvill & Dean or Kurt Weill? Here’s Weill (warum? weil !_) with a song sung by his missus Rosa Klebb.
I’m another who enjoyed this more than our blogger, but grateful to loonapick for some parsings I missed, and in any case it was worth coming here to be introduced to ginf @8’s stumblebum 🙂 Thanks both.
Essexboy – That’s super, thanks for sharing. You might appreciate this clue of mine that was published elsewhere recently:
Ecstasy for Kurt’s leading character in new version of Mack the Knife (7)
slanglish fur klutz …
I needed help with the parsing of GO DOWN THE PAN (and I’m still thinking about set=go down) and EROS, and I stupidly missed the DO (should that be doh) in ROSE WINDOW.
I did wonder about the equivalence of Pyramids and TETRAHEDRA, as the pyramids that immediately spring to mind (the ones in t’Egypt) are not tetrahedra, but then I discovered that “pyramid” is a more general term that covers solids with triangular faces that can have 3, 4 or n-sided bases. I still have much to learn even after a working life of using tetrahedral, pentahedral and hexahedral finite elements for structural analysis.
Favourite was IN TOTO.
Like PeterT @5, I was very pleased with myself for spotting the “lift and separate”! And yes, Hovis @10, I had RAN for a while for 10d, but then it would have to be “BECAME exhausted”, I decided.
I’m new to cryptic crosswords and I’m quite happy with anagrams, partial words, hints that some letters have to be reversed, hints such as “leader” might mean just use the first letter of something, but I don’t get how it is okay to use any old letter(s) as an abbreviation (e.g. s for small, of for old fellow). Standard abbreviations yes, but just any old letter from any old word???
@12&13
I’ve also wondered about “ready” in the singular for money. I’m not sure if I’ve come across it outside crosswords myself or not, but it’s definitely in Chambers and Webster’s. The OED says “now chiefly in plural”. It would certainly make sense if “ready” for “ready money” came first and then evolved into “the readies”.
Like JerryG @4, we had ALL OUT… for a while, and were struggling to parse TALK IN TONGUES. Still, they came right in the end. There were a few others that were hard to parse. OREGON, though, was a pure delight. BOLERO, IN TOTO, IMMORTAL, TETRAHEDRA – all lovely. Thanks, Pangakupu and loonapick (thanks for persevering with getting the blog up).
Yes – I imagine the difficulties this morning might have dampened your ardour; I thought it was rather good.
Is the Maori sounding moniker a clue that this an incarnation of Phi?
In what sense is an ESCAPE ROOM a game venue?
SadDonkey@19 I would share your exasperation if it was true that the abbreviations are “just any old letter” but they are not. It is the case that cryptic rely on conventions and codes and some of them are steeped in time and we sometimes need to remind ourselves why they are legit. I think every single letter used as an abbreviation today is justifiable. For eg, T for Troy (unit) is fine, S for small (think off buying clothes in S, M, L, XL etc) is fine; F for fellow is too – as in abbreviation of Fellow of the Royal Society etc etc? It might still annoy you but I think you will find Guardian setters are top notch and can usually always stand by their ploys. Keep on solving. It’s bloody good fun and good for the grey cells, too.
I forgot to add I rejoice in a struggle and thoroughly enjoyed the battle this morning. Thanks to the setter and thanks, loonapick, for the parsing of Eros which was the only one that eluded me.
Pyramids are not TETRAHEDRA. They have 5 faces rather than 4.
Auriga@23, it’s an entertainment thing now like murder weekends
I enjoyed that. Nice level of difficulty; started off with not very much on the first pass, but got a foothold with RUN OUT OF STEAM and then it was steady away until the end. Some were easier to spot from definitions + crossers than they were to parse, but the ones I missed check out with the notes here, and I found many of them to be rather clever with interestingly misleading choices of synonyms.
I liked OREGON, SPOKEN FOR, AGEIST and OFF-WHITE.
Cheers both.
poc @26, see my comment @17.
Also
“pyramid n…… a solid figure on a triangular, square, or polygonal base, with triangular sides meeting in a point….” (Chambers)
Panic stations when the only clue I had solved on first pass was DRIVE. However, GIFT OF TONGUES got me going. Had Exit instead of EROS for a while, and like JerryG@4 my LOI was DOSH after much impatient head scratching. Another appearance for OFF-WHITE if I’m not mistaken, and thought TETRAHEDRA a satisfying clue to solve. A bit of a toughie today…
SadDonkey@19 It’s not usually just any old letter abbreviation. They have to appear in a comprehensive dictionary e.g. Chambers, Collins etc as an abbreviation for the said word.
Did anyone else try to shoehorn in rood screen for ROSE WINDOW? I was convinced it had to be that at first, from the definition and enumeration. Also couldn’t parse EROS. Totally forgot about score.
Thanks loonapick and Pangakupu.
Auriga@9 Escape Rooms, where punters solve clues and find keys ( normally on a team basis ), are marketed as games so the suites of rooms are “games venues” indeed.
We don’t get ANY love from Russia these days and certainly didn’t get any from Rosa Klebb. For you Kurt Weill experts, it’s a good job her SMACK THE KNiFE attempt on our beloved James Bond failed in “From Russia with love”.
Nice puzzle this morning. Thanks Pangakupu and loonapick.
@Sheffield Hatter hoping you will look in today, just to say thank you for solving my puzzle boom puzzle (per last Nutmeg)!
I really enjoyed this. The struggle was mainly in the parsing but eventually it all fell into place.
I particularly liked BOLERO, TETRHEDRA and RAN OUT OF STEAM.
Thanks Pangakupu and loonapick
Enjoyable overall, with some rather verbose clues, so thanks loonapick for explaining the more convoluted elements I overlooked. 4 Down seemed particularly wordy, but when seen as a possible dig at Rees-Mogg, suddenly seemed most commendable.
Fun puzzle, despite some clumsy surfaces – but those for DISGORGE, OREGON and OBIT are particularly well composed.
I also liked OCEANOLOGY (although oceanography is the more usual term), TETRAHEDRON and PONG. The two long entries went in for me from a few crossers – I doubt whether I would have solved them from the wordplay alone!
Thanks to S&B
Crossbar Yes. Me too. When I had a four-letter word beginning R, followed by a 6-letter one, rood screen was what immediately came to mind. Couldn’t parse it, of course. Then got the W and had to regretfully dismiss it. Only got “rose window” very late on.
imagine opening a bottle of La Mission(say)and getting a PONG!
But think I would get one hell of a SCENT on opening a bottle of Bollinger RD(recently DISGORGED)
End of.
Had some fun with this one. Thanks to Pangakapu and loonapick. I needed the blog to help with some of the parsing. I particularly liked 17d TWEEZERS and some others already mentioned by others above.
Easier than yesterday’s thankfully and only a few I couldn’t parse.
Thanks both
Widdersbel@15 [That’s really good. I think I have seen it clued as “Axe revolutionary in China 7” before, but I guess it’s somewhere between a knife and an axe.]
I found this both quite hard and very enjoyable. Even the intimidating long clues yielded with a bit of persevering. I found myself misdirected initially in almost every clue, which added to the pleasure when cracked. I don’t know if it was the setter’s skill or my own lack of it today, or both, but thanks Pangakupu.
I was not really on the setter’s wavelength. I solved but could not parse 9ac, 15ac, 25ac (I still don’t get it), 3d, 8d.
Liked RUN OUT OF STEAM, IMMORTAL, IN TOTO, PONG, OBIT.
New for me: GO DOWN THE PAN.
Thanks, both.
6a How does spoke = rung? The spokes of a wheel are radial, the rungs of a ladder are parallel. The rungs of a chair just are.
How could I not have seen that “go down” = “set”? I’m not so embarrassed at not having seen the meaning of “score.”
10d Cricket defeats me once again. Run out, eh?
ginf@8 I was tempted by “structural” too.
Got most done last night, had a few left this morning to chew on. Thanks Pangakupu and loonapick.
Widdersbel @15 – great clue, many thanks (although I confess I got it from Petert’s before yours!)
[Flea @32, glad to see we share a Bond bond. She* nearly got him at the end of Fleming’s novel – in fact she did get him, as Fleming was getting a bit fed up in 1956 and looking for a way of winding up the series after five books. But by 1957 Bond was back, and Dr No starts with 007 recovering from the seemingly fatal poisoning. Hmm… I wonder if Barbara Broccoli is thinking along similar lines for Bond 26?]
[*She being Rosa Klebb, played by Lotte Lenya in the film version, who was married to Kurt Weill… in case anyone was wondering.]
Thanks to Pangakupu for the workout, we thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Thanks also to loonapic for parsing a couple we couldn’t.
Favourites:
8dn Oceanology
14dn Moisturise
16ac Structural.
Best comment of the day from TerriBlislow@24
Thanks both.
Like many (it seems) I found this tough going but that would be a wavelength thing I suppose. I found SEE DOUBLE to be a bit watery, for all that it was saved somewhat by the clever ‘second sight’ as the definition. BOLERO was just great.
[Dr. WhatsOn if you drop in I replied to you at the end of yesterday’s Nutmeg.]
Valentine @ 44
From Chambers:
“spoke2 /sp?k/
noun
1. One of the radiating bars of a wheel
2. One of the rungs of a ladder”
[Alphalpha@47 Thanks for that. I was just trying to distinguish between foreign words, loan words I think they’re called, that you just learn, and having to do translation on the fly. Maybe it’s not such a big difference.]
My first experience of Pangakupu. Liked some clues (eg STRUCTURAL, OCEANOLOGY); but I mentally deduct points for clues that seem to me to be verbose or over-complicated – such as HAUTE CUISINE, GIFT OF TONGUES. Quite a few clues went in quickly from definitions plus crossers, then took a while to parse. But competent and enjoyable enough.
Thanks loonapick and Pangakupu.
All good for Why does GO DOWN = SET?
JBanana@51. The sun sets at 6 … The sun goes down at 6.
I enjoyed it but failed at DOSH. Not sure I can think how “sh” = “mum” though they are linked with mute, however it is commonly used.
Thanks both.
Thanks for the blog, I did enjoy this even though I prefer clues that are more concise. Spoke/rung was in very recently .
TETRAHEDRA are definitely pyramids , perhaps the real true pyramid being a Platonic solid, the Egyptians used a square base because it is much easier to build. Ziggurats are even easier.
I remember micro-FICHE in the science libraries.
[ MrEssexboy – an interesting article on languages in the Guardian Journal today by Danica Salazar , probably easy to find. ]
Thanks JimAZ@27 and Flea@32.
[I also learned today that “alpaca walking” is a thing. Who knew?]
[ AlanC @3 your comment is so insightful it has also been claimed by the Nutmeg blog, I note that you are pacing yourself for the Christmas number 1 ]
tim the toffee @ 53: I agree about sh ? mum (although I got the answer) in that I can’t think of a phrase in which they would be interchangeable. If you were to say “Keep mum” you wouldn’t say “Keep sh”; and similarly instead of “Shhh!” you couldn’t say “Mum!” !!
Thanks both,
As well as being short for ‘obituary’, ‘obit’ could be short for ‘obiter dicta’ – passing comments by a judge.
My (mis)parsing of ‘eros’ ran along the lines that you wouldn’t enjoy sex if it made you sore!
[Many thanks Roz @55, I thought I’d give a link to the article here, as the phenomenon of ‘World Englishes’ is one that may well be of interest to our worldwide community of solvers. But I do also agree with Rachel Connolly about the OED’s choice of ‘goblin mode’ as word of the year. “It does feel… like the OED has donned a back-to-front baseball hat and skateboarded across the news.” 🤣 ]
[ I like the idea of gifting a word from one language to another, I love Gedankenexperiment and bremsstrahlung .
I always find this dictionary word of the year thing is basically just a ruse to get lots of free publicity for the publisher so they are deliberately “edgy” . ]
Not for me, this one. Too many wordy tortuous surfaces and ‘oh well’ answers. Not enough tea tray moments. A bit joyless, I feel. But well received in general, so what do I know? Peace and love.
With regard to ‘mum’=SH, I think I’ve seen teachers, for example, making a closed-mouth “mmm” to their group of children when “ssssh” would be even louder than the noise they were making, so it works for me.
I mostly enjoyed this, though ‘rung number ‘ in the surface of 9a grated, and perhaps some of the clues were a little verbose.
Thanks to setter and blogger (whose slight grumpiness is excusable, with IT problems creating stress early in the morning).
Tim @ 29, about a month ago several people were insisting that a cone is a pyramid. (I wasn’t.) It arose when the clue for the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris was clued as a cone, if I remember correctly.
Thanks loonapick and hope your IT issues are over for a good while. I liked this a lot despite some wordiness (but I think largely justified by some clever spots for anagrams and so on), in fact I would have liked one more word (a “second” in 17d just before the end) but that’s just me being picky. Nice to see a fairly new term like 7d too, thanks Pangakupu, still no ivory/bone/beige (nor ecru) though!
Thank you Roz and essexboy for the nod to the Guardian article on borrowings from other languages. Interesting that one example was from Pangakupu’s neck of the woods, ”wh?ngai (an adopted child and the adoption itself) from M?ori”. M?ori people have a strong cultural tradition of ‘adoption’ of extended family members for various reasons.
I’m pleased that Pangakupu clued PONG as a ‘scent’, so as not to offend another of our mutual neighbours, PNG.
Following a link from the Guardian article about discrimination in employment etc based on regional variations in British English, I felt there was something missing, ie discrimination based on perceived gender differences, with respect to sounding authoritative. I’ve read that the late Queen, Margaret Thatcher, and Theresa May, while having acceptable RP, all consciously lowered their register!
Online applications get around the issue of regional variation, and voice register.
The thing we’ve got here is Postcode discrimination, so people use someone else’s address.
Thanks, Pangakupu – I’ve not come across you before. And thanks, loonapick, for explaining the two I couldn’t parse, namely EROS and GIFT OF TONGUES. I never considered the latter involved an anagram of UGGESTION!
I loved your last paragraph, Tyngewick @59!
I really did not enjoy this and for the first time in months couldn’t finish a guardian cryptic. Fairly stunned to read the pleasure others gained. A setter to avoid in the future, for me.
SadDonkey@19: I felt exactly the same when I first started. Now I just assume that initial letters are possible fodder in the wordplay. Even if you don’t see how it can be, someone will be able to come up with an example. Another tip: just about any two or three letter word is a legit term in cricket. Don’t know how that happened.
Like most others here, I really enjoyed this puzzle. The first time through, I thought it was too hard but once a few pennies dropped, there were clever clues everywhere.
Rather lazily, I took the verb rung = called = spoke (on the phone). But the noun rung = spoke is probably better.
Strange how different setters and solvers hit it off or not. I found this the easiest (or least difficult!) crossword so far this week and probably the most entertaining…
Just to add my voice to what seems to be the majority and say I really enjoyed this.
Thanks Pangakupu & loonapick.
[pdm @66: Curiously, I was just reading an article on the BBC website about the death of the ‘last Hawaiian princess’ Abigail Kawānanakoa, when this para caught my eye:
“After the prince [her grandfather]’s death in 1908, his widow adopted their grandchild through the traditional Hawaiian custom of “hānai”, which strengthened Abigail’s claim to the informal title of princess.”
Just as whāngai has been gifted to NZ English, it appears that hānai has come into US/Hawaiian English. Wiktionary gives the example of “This is Kimo, my hanai brother”, and this wiki article confirms the link with NZ whāngai. Since Māori and Hawaiian both belong to the Eastern Polynesian group of languages, I guess it’s not surprising that both the words and the customs are similar. Our Kiwi contributors may be able to shed more light (or indeed any Hawaiians out there), but I realise I’m now seriously off-topic – sorry!]
[Never ”off-topic” essexboy. You know how many of us appreciate your contributions.]
essexboy@72 I just found this! This is terrific.