This is my second blog of a Pangakupu puzzle in a month …
… and then I commented ‘We have a mix of straightforward clues and others which were rather more complicated, not to say convoluted.’ I’m afraid this one revealed woeful gaps in my mathematical / scientific knowledge at 12ac and 20ac (not the setter’s fault, obviously) and there were several other places where the parsing caused some head-scratching, including 1dn, which I still haven’t managed to resolve, but I know someone will soon enlighten me, so thanks in advance. Edit: please see comments 1 and 3 – I have to go out very soon, so I haven’t time to acknowledge further help.
I’m afraid that the above, plus the mistake at 14dn, meant that I didn’t enjoy this puzzle as much as some others by this setter – but I did have ticks for 11ac LEI, 13ac ANTISEPTIC, 26ac ROSSINI, 19dn CORPSED and 21dn FLEMISH.
Thanks to Pangakupu for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the blog.
Across
1 Immediately suggestive of boater going down? (2,3,4,2,1,3)
AT THE DROP OF A HAT
Cryptic definition, a boater being a kind of hat, the question mark indicating definition by example
9 Fail in attempt to maintain break? (2,2,3)
GO TO POT
GO (attempt) TO POT (to maintain break – snooker, I presume?)
10 Be enough for holding popular strike (3,4)
RUN INTO
RUN TO (be enough for) round IN (popular)
11 Certain to miss holiday handout on island (3)
LEI
LEI[sure] (holiday) minus ‘sure’ (certain): a garland given as a gift to visitors to Hawaii – see here
12 Energy discharging around wharf, making a racket (3-8)
EAR-PIERCING
E (energy) + ARCING (discharging) round PIER (wharf)
(It took me a long time to think of looking up the unlikely-looking ARCING, which I couldn’t explain:
‘Arcing is a type of electrical discharge that occurs when electrons flow between two conductors, usually metal, in an environment with a gas or vacuum. The conductors can be wires, rods, or other objects that are capable of carrying an electrical current.’)
13 Bland caper occurring around start of month (10)
ANTISEPTIC
ANTIC (caper) round SEPT I (start of month)
15 A lot of cane turned into a cot (4)
CRIB
A reversal (turned into) of (a lot of) BIRC[h] (cane)
18 Eat out: get Chinese (just a serving thereof) (4)
ETCH
Hidden in gET CHinese
20 Significant eccentricity observed in bloke in Gulf working (10)
MEANINGFUL
E (eccentricity) in MAN (bloke) + an anagram (working) of IN GULF
I couldn’t see where the E came from but was eventually enlightened by Chambers:
‘eccentricity: in a conic section, the constant ratio of the distance of a point on the curve from the focus to its distance from the directrix (usually represented by e; (geom)’
23 Informal market offering mostly crap, perhaps: footwear, booze (3,4,4)
CAR BOOT SALE
An anagram (perhaps) of CRA[p] + BOOTS (footwear) + ALE (drink)
25 Live backing group appearing in later audition — an historic time (3)
ERA
A reversal (backing) of ARE (live) – also hidden in [latER A[udition]
26 Soprano wrong to interrupt French king and composer (7)
ROSSINI
S (soprano) + SIN (wrong) in ROI (French king)
27 Unruly Second Sex recalled in French fantasy? (7)
RESTIVE
S (second) + a reversal (recalled) of IT (sex) in RÊVE (French for dream, fantasy)
28 Off-colour article repeatedly found amongst lingerie? (5,3,7)
UNDER THE WEATHER
THE (article) repeated in UNDER (THE) WEA(THE)R (lingerie)
Down
1 Pin-up about to tuck into a lot of raw food (5,4)
ANGEL CAKE
Apart from a reversal (up) of LEG (pin) + C(A?) (about), I can’t make anything of this
Edit – thanks to KVa and Alan C: a reversal (up, in a down clue) of LEG (pin) + C in A lot of NAKE[d] (raw)
2 Old left-winger is in grip of drink after upholding the very thing (7)
TITOIST
IS in TOT (drink) after a reversal (upholding) of IT (the very thing)
3 Crowd in rear of brasserie getting very good coffee (8)
ESPRESSO
PRESS (crowd) in [brasseri]E + SO (very good?)
4 I will avoid disturbance, or location of revolution (5)
ROTOR
R[i]OT (disturbance) minus i + OR – and ROTOR is a palindrome
5 I follow it through first bit, but not the last section (9)
PARTITION
I after IT in PART ON[e] (first bit)
The cryptic grammar (I follow) doesn’t quite work here – a pity, since the setter dealt with I effectively in the previous clue and in 8dn
6 Good things to be put on penalty lines (6)
FINERY
FINE (penalty) + RY (railway lines)
7 More convenient, that is, with Chinese doctor coming round (7)
HANDIER
HAN (Chinese) + DR (doctor) round IE (id est – that is)
8 Skimpy swimsuit: object I discarded in favour of nothing (5)
THONG
TH[i]NG (object) with the i discarded in favour of O (nothing)
14 Crews hit out after pressure from Glasgow airport (9)
PRESTWICH
An anagram (out) of CREWS HIT after P (pressure) – but the Glasgow Airport is Prestwick:
Prestwich is a town in Greater Manchester
16 Singer, a large guy, tucking into booze (9)
BALLADEER
A L (large) LAD (guy) in BEER (booze)
17 Submarine dunes are dispersed (8)
UNDERSEA
An anagram (dispersed) of DUNES ARE
19 Large body of French turned up, collapsed in laughter (7)
CORPSED
CORPS (large body) + a reversal (turned up, in a down clue) of DE (of French) – I remember this definition being unfamiliar to some solvers in previous blogs: it’s a word we used often used at school
21 Belgian? Flaw sees Belgium replaced by France (7)
FLEMISH
[b]LEMISH (flaw) with the b (Belgium) replaced by F (France)
22 One repeats surprised comment about dessert (6)
COPIER
COR (surprised comment) round PIE (dessert)
23 Chapter Four about the Durrells’ home? (5)
CORFU
C (chapter) + an anagram (about) of FOUR – I have happy memories of visiting these delightful locations (worth a look) on a holiday in Corfu
The best-known members of the literary Durrell family were writers Lawrence and Gerald
24 It delivers arrival that hurts! (5)
ARROW
ARR (arrival) + OW (that hurts!) – I think this is a reference to the Global Delivery Service
ANGEL CAKE
GEL-Leg reversed-pin up
C-about
NAKED-raw
A +NAKE(d)
ANAKE around GELC (tuck into)
There was some great clueing in this and, after yesterday’s DYNASTY, we have HAN used as a partial, today. I thought 1d ( ANGEL CAKE ) was an extremely clever clue. However, I have three downers !
First downer is that PRESTWICH is a town in the the Manchester conurbation whereas PRESTWICK is the airport serving Glasgow. I wonder how this got through !
Second downer is re 20a. Although I’m a maths grad and I recognise the “below”, imho it’s wrong to include “e” for eccentricity in a cryptic of this nature
Quote
The eccentricity of an ellipse is denoted by e. It is the ratio of the distances from the centre of the ellipse to one of the foci and to one of the vertices of the ellipse, i.e., e = c/a where a is the length of semi-major axis and c is the distance from centre to the foci.
Unquote
Third downer is, while both are involved in corporal punishment, birch and cane are not really synonymous.
Oh dear, I do seem to be moaning this morning.( Good Morning. Good Moaning – the ‘Allo ‘Allo French Policeman’s syndrome
Thank you Pangakupu and Eileen
Eileen, I parsed the AKE in ANGEL CAKE as a lot of raw = (N)AKE(D). Having got AT THE DROP OF A HAT and GO TO POT straightaway, I thought this was going to be a breeze but sadly not. Much to my surprise, I eventually ground it out with a bit of head scratching along the way. I thought LEI was clever and I liked ANTISEPTIC, EAR-PIERCING, CAR BOOT SALE, UNDER THE WEATHER, PARTITION and FLEMISH. Couldn’t work out what group was doing in ERA and whether it was ‘live backing’ = ARE reversed or was just a ha in ‘later audition’. There were some clunky surfaces but I was certainly pleased to have finished this.
Ta Pangakupu & Eileen.
Flea @2: I thought the same about PRESTWICH/K.
GO TO POT
I feel your parsing is fine, Eileen.
Sorry as KVa says @1 NAKE(d) as I should have said.
Thanks to KVa and Alan C for parsing of 1dn. I will amend the blog now.
Well the editor was asleep on the job with this one! In the Guardian blog Pangakupu says that he was mixing up the names of the airports in Glasgow and Manchester, but Prestwich is nowhere near Manchester airport which was previously called Ringway.
Very shoddy error which spoiled the crossword for me.
AlanC@6
Also, you might have noticed ‘A lot of raw’ (A lot of naked=A NAKE).
Is it relevant to anything that the word KOROUA, which I find is M?ori for an old man, appears in the central row of the puzzle? It can hardly be accidental, but I can’t see how it links to any theme, nor any other hidden words, though my M?ori is non-existent?
KVa @: Yes that was my drift, you just explained it much better 🙂
Good fun, plenty of smiles. My favourite was UNDER THE WEATHER.
I couldn’t parse GO TO POT, CRIB nor TITOIST. An arrow delivers? Hmmm. “E” for “eccentricity”? Really? I could only find Prestwick with a “k”. The clues for RUN INTO and ANGEL CAKE were a bit ordinary, I thought. My French was inadequate to parse RESTIVE without help.
Something of a curate’s egg, I’m afraid. Even seeing the parsings I remain unhappy at 1D as well as one or two others.
And I join the Greek chorus on Prestwick/h.
@Eileen, you have a typo for 13A, “anti” should be “antic” (of course)
I found this straightforward but couldn’t parse 1d and couldn’t work out 14d which I thought was Prestwick but already had the H in the across clue: so grateful to Eileen and other bloggers for sorting them out. I hadn’t heard of Prestwich!
Thanks, Jacob – will amend now.
I have a hospital appointment very soon, so I hope there are no more typos – or that folk will ignore the obvious ones. 😉
Bit of a curate’s egg, IMHO. Some clues were a delight, notably, I think, CAR BOOT SALE which is almost an &lit.
Some are distinctly clunky, I think ERA being the worst offender, with ANGEL CAKE not far behind. Flea@2 particularly liked the latter; that, I suppose, just shows that one man’s angel cake is another man’s poison.
And one or two are just plain wrong. As others have said, a birch is not “a” cane (it’s a hell of a lot of them, all at once). I missed Prestwich/Prestwick, so feel bad about criticising, but I do think the setter should have checked, and the clue as it stands is simply unsound.
Thanks both
Interesting puzzle. 1ac was a write-in for me but I couldn’t immediately make much at all of the top half. So I started at the bottom (another write-in for 28ac) and worked up. Some clever clues here, though a bit wordy in places.
I understood ARROW as charade + extended definition.
PRESTWICH is a faux pas par excellence.
Thanks to P and E
Surprised myself by finishing this quite quickly (partly because 1d was obvious from the crossers rather than working out the parsing).
Am tickled thinking of Elvis P’s only visit to these islands as being when his plane touched down at Prestwich.
Pangakupu’s addition to the suite of compilers augments the eclectic collection of styles.
Thanks to her/him and Eileen
Sagittarius @10: well-spotted. I like finding hidden gems such as this and as you say, surely not accidental. There’s also OPTASE spray for dry eyes down the middle but that is definitely accidental 🙂
Flea@2: on BIRCH, if used as a verb it can be synonymous with CANE. In an old fashioned school story, the miscreants are often “birched”, which could also read “caned”. Usual thanks to setter and blogger.
ERA
I have the same doubt as AlanC @3 regarding ‘group’.
Is there an ERA group? Or does it indicate something else?
Eileen – 3d – the SO = very, and the definition is ‘good coffee’ (though, for me, the latter phrase is an oxymoron). We found this difficult, and entered too many answers not sure of the parsing. On the other hand, while we could parse ANTISEPTIC, we wondered if it really means bland. Mind you, there were some goodies: CAR BOOT SALE, ROSSINI, UNDER THE WEATHER. Thanks, Pangakupu and Eileen.
Well I just bunged in PRESTWICH with never a second thought until I came here, despite the fact that I’ve booked flights involving Manchester and Glasgow (not Prestwick, the other one) soon. Hope I don’t end up in the wrong place.
No problem with e for eccentricity. Not only is it in the BRB as a valid abbreviation but I remember it from research in Tribology many moons ago.
CAR BOOT SALE would be better known as Garage Sale to Aussies.
LEI was nice when the penny dropped. Also ETCH. Shame about the airport.
Shirley at 8: mixing up the names of the airports in Glasgow and Manchester,
I thought he was saying this at first, but he actually said “Mea culpa on confusing Glasgow and Manchester”. So I think he meant he got the wrong spelling and wasn’t referring to Manchester airport being near Prestwich.
Thanks Eileen and P
Seems I’m never on this setter’s wavelength. This wasn’t too hard, but just not very enjoyable – though I don’t really know why! I did like BALLADEER and GO TO POT.
[I spent the first 18 years of my life in and around PRESTWICK (with a K) and if anyone had called its airport “Glasgow Airport” we’d have thought they were taking the mickey – Glasgow Airport is in Paisley, close to Glasgow, while Prestwick is at least 30 miles away – I think it was Ryanair who first started claiming it was Glasgow Prestwick, and the name now seems to be official. The airport’s main claim to fame is being the only spot in the UK where Elvis Presley ever set foot.]
Thanks Eileen and Pangakupu.
nametab@19 – you got in first regarding Elvis.
KVa @21 and AlanC @3 the “group” in ERA surely refers to the group of letters ‘appearing’ in (lat)ER A(udition), hence 1 definition (an historic time) and 2 wordplays, ‘live’ reversed and included letters (group).
Thanks Pangakupu for a tricky puzzle, and Eileen for a tricky blog!
TassieTim @22 (and Eileen), I think “so” = “very good” because either can be a spoken response meaning “OK, that’s agreed then”. No need for an opinion on espresso.
TimC@27 Thanks.
Quirister@28 I agree. Seen ‘so’ being clued by ‘very’ in some puzzles and ‘very good’ in some.
In today’s puzzle ‘so’ is ‘very good’.
TT {@22 – I had the same thought about ANTISEPTIC but … ‘it’s in Chambers.
I really am going now.
I’m feeling rather pleased that for a change, I was familiar with a word (ARCING) that was a mystery to the blogger, but OTOH, I think it’s getting a bit much to expect those of us that don’t live with France more or less next door to know off the top of our heads what the French word for ‘dream’ is (even if plausible from its resemblance and no doubt common derivation to the English word REVERIE).
A real melange this morning.
Some downright mistakes already mentioned; some strained defs needing specialist knowledge; and some very nice clues…LEI, the triple def of ERA, GO TO POT to name a few.
Not the most fun I’ve had in a crossword but thanks, both.
TimC @27: Ta.
Like beaulieu@25, Pangakupu and I do not get on. Worked out TITOIST from the wordplay but have never heard the word (and I’m old enough to have been around when Tito was). I’m a linguist not a scientist, so E for eccentricity is far outside my knowledge, but I know French reve=dream. ANTISEPTIC=bland? If you say so. Couldn’t parse ANGEL CAKE of course.
Antidotes to grumpiness: LEI, UNDER THE WEATHER, GO TO POT (a write in for a snooker fan: makes a nice change from cricket). Now that Flea@2 has said Good Moaning, perhaps we could have a THING -THONG?
How does so=very good?
Gladys, I assumed that “good coffee” was the definition, and so = very.
Hmmmm. This wasn’t a smooth and tidy compile from Pangakupu today, was it? I spent a couple of years commuting from B’ham to Glasgow, taking a black cab up and down the M8 from the airport at Prestwick. So the error here really got to me. But, of course, there were one or two really nice clues, so all credit to our setter! Thanks to Eileen, too, for a tough blog.
Unbothered by the mistake in 14 down, as I didn’t know either of them. ?
Managed to parse everything although as people have pointed out, some were quite tricky!
I don’t see the problem in the cryptic grammar of 5 down, Eileen – isn’t it just as you said, “I after IT in PART ON[E]” = PART-IT-I-ON?
Thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen (and I hope your appointment is uneventful).
I must be missing something about 14d as I can see absolutely no reference to any airport. Prestwich is a suburb of Manchester just off J17 of the M62
Surely it’s simply PRIEST + W(elsh) + C(hurc)H.
Where’s the K for PrestwicK come in?
Enlightenment please?
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen
In 9, I had ‘to’ straight from the clue and ‘pot’ as ‘maintain break’ – if you pot you carry on, if you don’t the break is over.
BaldyB@39
Sorry, forget all that – just noticed the remark above the crossword about 14d being amended. Arrived too late I assume
Thanks to P and E
GeoffDownUnder@36: yes, that’s how I parsed ESPRESSO. But there are posts here saying that’s wrong, because “very good” = SO. Not an equivalence I understand.
BaldyB@39: yes, the wordplay gives PRESTWICH with an H. The trouble is that the Glasgow Airport is PRESTWICK with a K. It’s a mistake by the setter.
Sagittarius@10. I am sure that the Maori word is deliberate. Pangakupu is a Maori word that roughly means crossword and Pangakupu is an alias of Phi who lives in New Zealand. The same compiler did the same thing with 2 other Maori (KORIPO and MARAMA) words that appeared in the columns of his crossword on the 18th January this year.
Basic factual mistakes in professionally published crosswords really get my goat. There are at least two, possibly three, checkpoints where they can be spotted and fixed. First, the setter themselves (I am but a humble amateur setter, but the best piece of advice I got early on was Check everything, especially the things you’re sure about!); secondly and perhaps optionally, one or more test solvers; thirdly, the publication’s crossword editor. I know the Guardian has a reputation for mistakes but it’s just sloppy.
Now that’s off my chest: I actually found this mostly enjoyable and a touch easier than previous from the same setter. I needed help with TITOIST (would never have got there on my own, to be fair) but almost all the rest was a steady, reasonably challenging solve, albeit with some solutions from definition and crossers without really understanding the parsing til I got here. I noticed three Frenchisms which suited this Francophone but may have been a little trop for some…
Thanks both!
I enjoyed this; it’s easy to make a mistake or two in a crossword, so, though regrettable, it shouldn’t detract from the rest of it.
I liked MEANINGFUL (as others have pointed out, it’s in the BRB, so fair game) and UNDER THE WEATHER for the surfaces, ANGEL CAKE for the pin-up, and PARTITION, although as Eileen says, the cryptic should read I think ‘I follows’, which wouldn’t make sense in the surface.
As I have mentioned before, I hate ‘an historic’. It’s a hotel, horse, house and historic book as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen (especially for the parsing of LEI, which I missed).
Thanks both and this was for me, as for others, a bit of a chore.
In particular I bridled at LEI – another one of those Bilbo Baggins (what have I got in my pocket?) clues (it seems I can’t stop wincing at them though I try; I do try). On the other hand some nice clues enumerated elsewhere and I would add the two long ones as being clever and friendly.
Many (many) years ago a local rag contained a small ad offering EAR-PIERCING manicures. On another occasion it was offered in a shop window among other ‘while you wait’ services. (I am easily amused.)
Found this a very uneven solve, though thought it might be fairly straightforward when the two long clues at 1 and 28 ac whooshed in early. Quite a bit of GK required re The Durrells, the green baize of the snooker halls, the French language, left wingers and South Sea islands. Last two in EAR PIERCING and PARTITION, but by and large I enjoyed the experience…
…and Robi@45, for whatever reason I’m in the other camp, and feel that something’s not quite perfect if “historic” is not preceded by “an” rather than “a”!
“Special instructions: 15/3/2023 Orignal (sic) clue for 14 down has been replaced”
StevieC@43: yes, I am sure that Pangakupu put in Kaoura on purpose . My question is whether it’s simply there because including a Maori nina is going to be a trademark for this setter, like Qaos’s hidden themes, or whether there’s any particular reason for its being this word in this crossword (nobody has yet suggested one).
14d Priest upset with Welsh occupying church in Mancunian town (9)
I think the answer to 14D might be PRESTWICH! 😉
The main problem I had with PRESTWICH (the online version as quoted by Abc_Bot@51) was to justify W=Welsh. Glad to be enlightened.
Ronald @48; this might interest you.
Rob @ 44 I agree with you – the mistakes should not appear. However,…..I used to set the crossword for a Northern University Magazine and made an identical mistake, having the wrong letter at the end of an answer. Next time I apologised and based the crossword around such (deliberate) errors.
I was not on this setter’s wavelength which made the puzzle quite a tough slog but eventually it became more enjoyable.
Favourite: RESTIVE, PARTITION.
I could not parse 11ac and 9ac which I guessed as go = attempt +to+pot = something to do with billiards?
14d Glasgow Prestwich airport was new for me (but google seemed to more often call it prestwicK) – and I see that the setter apologised for his error in the Guardian Blog
“Mea culpa on confusing Glasgow and Manchester. Can’t even blame my handwriting (where H and K are pretty interchangeable).”
New for me arcing = discharging (for 12ac).
[23d I really enjoyed the ITV series about the Durrells when they lived on Corfu. I must check if I watched all four series]
I parsed 1D as rev of LEG + C in A NAKE{d} and 3d as PRESS in E SO
Thanks, both
Could not do any of this…Pangakupu’s puzzles are beyond me…
Even revealing all, I have no idea of the parsing.
Thanks both.
A big thank you to Eileen, and others, for explaining so many of the answers I filled in but failed to parse! I hope your appointment was on time and went well.
I think this setter takes some getting used to, as the clues vary so much from fun to obscure in the extreme.
Abc_Bot @49 — hilarious that the erratum contains a typo!
🙂
Broadcast media move unwillingly to part of Manchester (9)
David @60
Very good….but SALFORD is only (7) 🙂
A propos nothing, an anagram (broadcast) of media move happens to be made movie…
By the time I got to this, the clue for PRESTWICH had already been emended. So I found myself looking up a list of places in Greater Manchester. Other than that, I solved this without aids. I’ll say, though, that this one was a bit too far into the territory of assuming we all know French. (Roi is just this side of fair game, I’d say; reve is just the other side of not.)
LEI is one of those short words with as many or more vowels as consonants that turn up with numbing regularity in American-style crosswords. So “Handout on island” is enough right there to get ‘er done, over here.
mrpenney @63
I knew the French for “dream” from the Faure song Après un rêve.
10ac I thought “run to” meant “amount to” rather than “be enough for,” as in “The cost for these repairs could run to thousands.”
Thanks to Pangkapu and Eileen for a pleasant evening and morning.
Tediously the print version retains the error in 14d.
I’m with you Robi@45 – using an before a word beginning with h just encourages the dropping of the h. Has anyone ever wished anyone else an happy birthday?
I don’t regard myself as easily offended, but the thoughts of a boater going down (as in 1a) in these troubled times rather upset me.
Thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen, no thanks to the crossword editor (if s/he exists).
A few I didn’t parse. Didn’t notice NAKE(d) and let myself be convinced I had misremembered Prestwick. I lived in Prestwich from 79-81 and it’s actually just in Bury.
Also I don’t see how ESPRESSO separated the SO without an indicator to split an S from PRESS.
Thanks for the various parsings Eileen and thanks Pangakupu.
Rob T @59 I suppose that a typo in an erratum note is akin to Muphry’s law. Wikipedia says:
Muphry’s law is an adage that states: “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”
The name is a deliberate misspelling of “Murphy’s law”.
Not a particular fan of this setter – but this was better than usual, I thought – lots of good clues. As a Scot I was disappointed to see the misspelling of the airport – and it’s not really Glasgow – it’s on the Ayrshire coast. It has long been eclipsed by Glasgow Airport. Was the one place in Britain that welcomed Elvis – he stopped off on the tarmac for a cigarette I believe.
[CalMac @70
There’s a rumour that Presley’s manager, “Colonel Tom Parker”, had a dark secret and was terrified that he would be arrested if he ever spent time in the UK.]
Muffin @71: I didn’t know that! Found this after a little investigation:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/colonel-parker-managed-elvis-career-but-was-he-a-killer-on-the-lam-108042206/
I grew up in Prestwich and away from home when I replied to the question “Where are you from ?” often got the response “Oh, that’s where the airport is.” Oh no it isn’t!
Back to the crossword. Enjoyed 1ac, 28ac, and a few others but struggled with the rest. DNF as per usual but we go again tomorrow. (Unless it’s Paul of course.)
Pangakupu (aka Phi): ‘However, one thing I have is horror vacui, and anything that gets me a toehold in the grid is to be welcomed. So perimeter messages, lists of thematic titles and so on are trotted out purely as words to be clued.’
Maybe he was having eye trouble and feeling old when he started this one off with OPTASE and KOROUA.
Rob T @ 44
Your maxim “Check everything, especially the things you’re sure about!” strikes home with me – not that I claim to be a setter, but as a blogger. It is even more difficult for a blogger to live by it, because of time constraints.
Apart from the regrettable error at 14d, I really enjoyed this. Some neat and succinct clueing.
Particular fave was CAR BOOT SALE which perfectly encapsulates those events.
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen
I got EAR-PIERCING from the wp and crossers but am I the only one to find the def dodgy? A loud noise might be piercing or ear-splitting, but not ear-piercing … which is something they do in the back room at the jewellers.
Thanks Pangakupu, I enjoyed this with ANTISEPTIC, UNDER THE WEATHER, ROTOR, BALLADEER, and FLEMISH being favourites. I hadn’t heard of either PRESTWICH or PRESTWICK so the error hadn’t registered with me — blissfully ignornant as some would say. CAR BOOT SALE was new to me until several weeks ago when it appeared in another crossword. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
Dodgy in places, I dislike clues where you have to take ‘some’ of a word or a ‘bit’ and then mess around with it even more. Only a few of those however, and enough genuine crypticism to pass muster.
And how does ‘eat out’ mean ‘etch’ please?
With AT THE DROP OF A HAT the possibility of a Flanders & Swan theme occurred to me, seemingly reinforced by FLEMISH (from Flanders) and UNDER THE [song of the] WEATHER. But there it stopped. I wonder if there are any other F&S references, or if I was just overthinking it.
If it’s ‘ get below the surface’ then that’s very farfETCHed indeed.) I’ll get my coat.)
Etch as in preparing a copper plate for printing “etchings” by dissolving or “eating out” the unwaxed surface with acid.
blaise @69 – haha, ‘Muphry’s Law’ gave me a chuckle, not seen that before 🙂
monkeypuzzler @67 – people wouldn’t say ‘an happy birthday’, because the stress is on the ‘hap’. ‘An’ was used (and still is by some) before an unstressed syllable beginning with ‘h’.
Fowler’s says: “Before words beginning with h […] the standard modern approach is to use a (never an) together with an aspirated h […], but not to demur if others use an with minimal or nil aspiration given to the following h.”
In other pronunciation news – “arc-ing” is one of those words that really ought to have a hyphen. When I write a dictionary I shall put one in.
Thanks P & E, and David Sullivan @60 for the superb clue and evocative surface 😀
‘Corpsing’ for laughing is common for theatrical folk, and supposed to come from the actor playing a dead person laughing
Prestwich for Prestwick confused me!
Keith@66 – Yes, I’ve been staring at the back page of my paper for hours now, and that clue refuses to change! 🙂
I think 14d is editorial oversight. Compilers are human and may err. What are editors for? It’s also a danger of including gk. perhaps the editor was not familiar with Scottish airports. Hell, I had to look it up. But editing process should involve a test solver.
Thank you Pangakupu for an enjoyable puzzle and thanks eileen
Collins:
Definition of?’ear piercing’
‘ear piercing
in British English
NOUN
1. the making of a hole in the lobe of an ear, using a sterilized needle, so that an earring may be worn fastened in the hole
ADJECTIVE
ear-piercing
2. another word for ear-splitting’
American English only has the adjective. What do you call the piercing of the earlobes over there in the USA?
Abc_Bot @89
That would be “making holes in yourself to hang things off”….
Too many comments to read in detail. My note on the Guardian site was merely to point out the broad geographical confusion not anything airport specific.
And birch = cane as verbs, of course
…but seriously the PDF & Accessible versions have been changed but still not the Print. You can always print the PDF.
Back home now and catching up – not at the hospital all this time: I stayed out for lunch then went straight on to the cinema.
Kristi @@ 38: I hope you saw Robi’s response (thanks, Robi) @45, which explains what I meant.
Valentine @ 65: one might say, ‘I’m afraid funds won’t run to a night out this month.’ I think I would say ‘run into thousands’ in your example.
MattS @75 – I had the same first thought as you about EAR-PIERCING but, once again, it’s in Chambers – and then I realised that I had, in fact, heard it.
Thanks to everyone else for comments and links.
… – and to Pangakupu for dropping in while I was typing,
And apologies to Abc_Bot for crossing re EAR-PIERCING.
I found it quite tough to get going, but parsed almost all except RESTIVE and ANGEL CAKE (poor French and stupidity being the reasons, respectively).
Some definitions required a bit of thinking about. I assumed ROTOR = location of revolution, as opposed to Stator which doesn’t move. Also section = partition as verbs in 5, similar to the cane/birch question above. Good to learn that e = eccentricity is a Chambers allowed abbreviation. In 9, I saw the phrase “attempt to maintain break” being synonymous with GO TO POT as a whole, rather than split into parts.
Thanks, Panga and Eileen.
Why can celebrities get no privacy in Bury? Because if the Prestwich is there.
Because of.
I agree with Alphalpha@46 about 11a LEI. To me the clue tells to take holiday out of certain, and not the other way around.
I have only a very small smattering of French, but like muffin@64, reve was not difficult because of its appearance in music titles and because it is the source of “reverie”.
As an exercise I sometimes look for clues to be offended by. This time I found GO TO POT (body shaming) and ROSSINI (Italian opera triggers me), but somehow I missed AT THE DROP OF A HAT.
Thanks Panagapku for the challenge, and Eileen and others for much-needed elucidations.
…tells us…
Hi Cellomaniac @99 – I can’t see the comment re 11ac @46!
There’s often comment on clues involving ‘leaving’, which some think are the wrong way round but I always say that they work if you think of ‘leaving behind’. In this case, to explain ‘certain to miss holiday’, I’d say, that if you missed a bus / train, you wouldn’t be in/on it. 😉
Rob T @ 44 … “mistakes in professionally published crosswords really get my goat.”
If it makes you feel any better, in my experience they happen more frequently in our Australian ones.
Tim C @ 23, we have car boot sales quite often in this part of Oz! Garage sales too, but they’re two different animals.
[Petert @97/8: 🙂
Why do Essex people have bad spelling and pronunciation but a good sense of humour?
Because of the ‘Ha!’ which is there.]
They changed the clue for 14D to Mancunian town but they also changed the wordplay when they didn’t need to. Or am I missing something?
Anyway, I still loved this puzzle. My only holdups were POT, W=Welsh and the parsing of LEI (which seems so obvious now). I even got CORPSED, which is a term I learned on this very site.
[Here’s a great example of corpsing]
Enjoyed this. Didn’t notice Prestwick/h, but the Guardian effectively has no editor these days. Thanks goodness the setters are good enough without a proper line of defence, or else we’d have have far more errors. They – and we – deserve better. What’ll it take?
cardamom@106, and all the others who seem to think that the editor is fair game for continual criticism:
Editing is a tough job. If you catch nine out of ten mistakes, there’s still that 10% that will sneak through. We as readers/solvers have no idea how many interventions the editor makes. But we seem to expect perfection from Hugh, while forgiving setters for their errors.
I happen to think that the quality of the Guardian Cryptics is very high, and that is at least in part because of the work of the editor, who (I presume) recruits the setters, vets their submissions, and decides which ones to print, (and on what days). I am grateful for the effort that Hugh puts into this, and I hope that he is not put off by the carping that crops up on this site from time to time.
Agree with cellomaniac@107. Making a mistake or letting one get through is not a hanging offence in my book. Always better to look for the good rather than get annoyed by an error. Actually as a result of the mistake, I learned a lot about Glasgow and Manchester from this crossword (and the comments), and I enjoyed my solve. However that NW held out for far too long and I had to sleep on it, thus my very late post. TITOIST at 2d was my last one in. I like Pangakupu’s puzzles and I also like the fact that people have spotted Maori words in the grids, which must be intentional. Thank you to the setter, and of course to Eileen, whose thorough blogs make it a delight when I come to this site and find she is the scheduled blogger.
Thanks Eileen and others above, sorry this is late but although I solved with the original clue, I also couldn’t justify the W=Welsh as per Alphalpha’s request@53 – it is in Collins Online but I can’t think of an actual example. Wouldn’t “women” work better (perhaps not in dictionaries but on many toilet doors and clothes labels), and maybe enhance the surface too? Anyway I enjoyed the parsing contortions and especially MEANINGFUL and LEI, thanks Pangakupu.
Agree cellomaniac@107 and Julie in Australia@108. We in Oz have (mostly) very boring and poor quality cryptics and no crossword Editor that anyone knows of. That’s why some of us are here enjoying the Guardian. I think Hugh must have pretty thick skin, and also a non interventionist/censorial approach. If Hugh went, what or who would we have? Robot generated crosswords? They already exist.
I don’t know who, apart from Hugh. may be defending investment in cryptic crosswords in the Guardian, print version or on-line. I doubt it translates into numbers of subscriptions or sales of the dead tree version.
Robi@45, Ronald@48, monkeypuzzler@67, essexboy@85, Pangakupu@91,
’25 Live backing group appearing in later audition — an historic time (3)’
@https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-h
Guardian and Observer style guide: H
Note that it’s “A” not “an”, unless directly quoting: “an historic” is considered old-fashioned, and in modern English “a historic”, “a hotel” and so on sound more natural. Before silent H, the opposite applies: an heir, an honest man, etc
Look at it this way: we got two extra bonus clues to solve. Not just a BOGOF, but a B1G2F
1. Crews hit out after pressure from Glasgow airport (9)
2. Priest upset with Welsh occupying church in Mancunian town (9)
3. Broadcast media move unwillingly to part of Manchester (9)” – © David Sullivan@60
1 would have been a nice enough clue if only… 3 stars but disqualified.
2 A clumsy obvious rush-job because they don’t have air crews in… Null points.
3 A “…superb clue and evocative surface…” complete with misdirection “[but Salford is only (7)]” – 5 stars COTD.
I like jokey aural wordplay © cellomaniac
I wonder how long this will take to get into the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column.
MEDOCgate took 3 weeks: ‘A cryptic crossword was too cryptic. The clue for 6 across in crossword No 28,987 (7 February, Journal, p8) failed to give a definition for the whole answer. It should have read: “Pompous dwarf’s question about his identity and wine (5).”