Guardian Prize 29,153 by Pangakupu

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A first outing in the Prize slot for Pangakupu, who made his debut in the Guardian in 2022.

However, Pangakupu is no novice as a setter, and is perhaps better known as Phi, under which alias he has set puzzles for other publications for many years. As you might expect from such an experienced setter, his clues are smooth, although this puzzle is definitely at the easier end of his range.  If I am mistaken about this being his debut in the prize slot, then no doubt Mitz will correct me. It’s certainly my first time to blog one of his puzzles, as although he has also set some puzzles in the Genius series, none has coincided with my slot on the blogging rota.

 

Timon and I found this reasonably straightforward, with some helpful anagrams, but we did need the dictionary for STOCHASTIC. I now see that the puzzle is nearly a pangram (lacking only Q,V and W) but if there was a theme, it eluded us. I look forward to more puzzles by Pangakupu in this slot.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 SUGAR SNAP
Vegetable makes sleep sweeter (5,4)
A simple charade: SUGARS NAP.
6 SEPTS
Old Irish families providing short items for certain calendar pages? (5)
Cryptic definition; Chambers says this term was originally used in Ireland to denote a division of a clan.
9 COLLISION COURSE
College is following plan to get around one path to disaster (9,6)
I (one) inside COLL(ege) IS ON COURSE (following plan).
10 SITE
Popular film is back in place (4)
ET IS (all rev).
11 ALCHEMIC
Claim he transmuted carbon — hoping for gold? (8)
*(CLAIM HE C(arbon)).
14 BEER MONEY
Porter, perhaps — individual secured by my tip? (4,5)
BEER (porter), ONE inside MY.
15 SEDAN
Editor probing hospital litter (5)
ED inside (“probing”) SAN(atorium).
16 ONSET
Start working before being ready? (5)
ON (working) SET.
18 BIODIESEL
I brought in people with US railway fuel (9)
I inside BODIES (people), EL (as in elevated railroad in cities like New York).
20 PERJURER
Judge, after hesitation, blocking less contaminated source of dodgy evidence (8)
ER (hesitation) J(udge) all insider PURER (less contaminated).
21 FLAN
It’s not enough for side dish (4)
FLAN(k).
25 SUBSISTENCE FARE  WAGE
Carry on after collapse of business etc, getting very little money (11,4)
*(BUSINESS ETC) FARE (carry on). I’m not entirely satisfied with the definition, as the phrase seems to refer to diet, rather than inome. The fact that a “fare” can also mean a payment (e.g. for travel) does not, I think, have any relevance.  WAGE (carry on).  I don’t know how we missed this, as the phrase “subsistence wage” is in Chambers, and “subsistence fare” isn’t.  Apologies to Pangakupu.
26 SODOM
Party occupying most of a remarkable place for orgies and such (5)
DO in SOM(e). I was unfamiliar with this sense of “some”, but it’s there in Chambers, labelled as “(informal, esp.US)”.
27 ABSURDITY
Ridiculous suggestion but diary’s misinterpreted (9)
*(BUT DIARYS).
DOWN
1 SACKS
Dismisses British neurologist (5)
Double definition. Oliver Sacks is perhaps best known for his book “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”, which was the theme of a recent Magpie puzzle by Serpent (known as Jack to Guardian solvers).
2 GALETTE
Sweet cake allowed to be consumed by spectators (7)
LET in GATE.
3 RAIN
Country demoting the leader in downfall (4)
IRAN with its leader, or first letter “demoted” (this is a down clue).
4 NAIF
Unsophisticated in turning up embracing a fellow (4)
A inside IN (rev), F(ellow).
5 PENALTY BOX
Possibly fine component of shrubbery in which there’s a particular spot (7,3)
PENALTY (possibly a fine) BOX (component of shrubbery). Both Timon and I have had box hedges attacked this year by the caterpillars of the box-tree moth. I can testify to their destructive power.
6 STOCHASTIC
Random person not readily moved to accept Charles Trenet at first (10)
CHAS T(renet) inside STOIC (person not readily moved). Had to check the dictionary for this one.
7 PYRAMID
Religious figure in decline turned up in burial site of kings (7)
MARY (religious figure) inside DIP (decline) (all rev).
8 SUEZ CANAL
Petition for zone around North African location at first — this one? (4,5)
SUE (petition) Z(one) CA (around) NAL (initial letters).
12 AMATEURISM
Lack of skill represented as immature (10)
*(AS IMMATURE).
13 IN ABSENTIA
I get ecstatic, I start to admit — not bodily present? (2,8)
I NAB (get) SENT (ecstatic) I A(dmit).
14 BLOGPOSTS
Nonsense from America about job pursuing record website content (9)
POST (job) after LOG (record), all within BS (American slang for nonsense).
17 STROBED
Flashed in street, wearing loose garment (7)
ST(reet) ROBED.
19 SYLLABI
Upset is limiting blooming options for study (7)
BALLY (blooming) (rev) inside IS (all rev).
22 NEEDY
Craving affection, with rise in desire after cuddling of Parisian (5)
DE (of in French) inside YEN (desire) (all rev).
23 ONUS
Leader abandoning extra responsibility (4)
(b)ONUS.
24 JEER
Comedian’s eccentricity not OK when making sarcastic comment (4)
E(ccentricity) inside J(ok)ER; the insertion is indicated by the ‘s.

63 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,153 by Pangakupu”

  1. I was held up by putting chemical instead of ALCHEMIC and not knowing SEPTS.
    Nice fairly easy puzzle.
    Thanks both

  2. For 25a, I had SUBSISTENCE WAGE – ‘carry on’ as in wage a campaign. Check now being available conforms this as the intended solution.

  3. I actually thought the answer to 25a was SUBSISTENCE WAGE (‘wage’ meaning ‘carry on’ as in wage war), but I haven’t seen the published solution yet.

    I enjoyed this crossword very much, finding it pitched at pretty much the same level as most Saturday puzzles, that is, not too easy.

    Thanks to Pangakupu and bridgesong.

  5. Regarding the US usage of “some” referenced in SODOM, it may perhaps be familiar to readers of E. B. White’s classic Charlotte’s Web, in which Charlotte the spider weaves the message SOME PIG in the web above Wilbur the pig’s stall to impress the humans.

  6. I wasn’t too bothered by that use of SOME in SODOM, as that went in early, and also had SUBSISTENCE WAGE.

    I found it slightly chewier than recent prize crosswords getting held up in the southwest corner for a bit, for no real reason when I finally rumbled BLOGPOSTS, my last two in. I hadn’t parsed BIODIESEL or IN ABSENTIA, but couldn’t see anything else that fitted.

    Thank you to Pangakupu and bridgesong.

  7. Thank you bridgesong. Needed your help for IN ABSENTIA and JEER. Another E to add to the repertoire of single letter symbols or abbreviations in crosswords. And another one to please the maths and physics geniuses here.

    I had SUBSISTENCE RATE , thinking (hoping) that rate was like prate =carry on

    SEPTS what are the short items for certain calendar pages? September somethings? or just Septs, a bit of a pun?

  8. I came here hoping to have an explanation of the particular spot in PENALTY BOX. For a moment I thought bridgesong’s anecdote about the caterpillars in the hedges was the explanation. But then decided to do what I should have done last week. ie taken a guess it was soccer and looked it up. We may have just had the Women’s World Cup in Oz, but apart from watching a semi and the final, my knowledge of soccer… sorry…. football is extremely limited.

  10. Thanks to Spooner’s catflap and Alan B for pointing out my egregious error at 25 across, now corrected. Memo to self: if you doubt the soundness of an answer to a clue set by an experienced setter like Pangapuku, then perhaps you’ve got it wrong – check the annotated solution!

    Paddymelon @7 and 8: SEPT might be the shortened form of September you might find on a calendar. You’re right that PENALTY SPOT is indeed a reference to football (soccer). It’s the white spot on which the ball is placed when a penalty kick is taken.

  11. Thanks Pangakupu. My top picks were BEER MONEY, PERJURER, STOCHASTIC, and PYRAMID; I needed outside assistance to solve BIODIESEL and I didn’t fully understand PENALY BOX so thanks brigdesong for the blog.

  12. Thanks for the blog, very clear set of clues, my annotations have no quibbles at all .
    STOCHASTIC is very hard to define concisely for a crossword, I see that Chambers93 goes for “random” so the setter has chosen wisely. STOCHASTIC cooling is very important for particle beams in accelerators and won the Nobel prize for Simon van der Meer.
    Yes PDM @7 , nice to see E= eccentricity. A useful quantity for orbits. E=0 is a perfect circle, the Earth about 0.017 , Halley’s comet E=0.97 a very narrow , elongated ellipse.

  13. Many thanks, all. Took me the full week but was deeply impressed by PYRAMID, SYLLABI, JEER and STOCHASTIC … when they tumbled. Really neat.

    Was held up (stupidly) by CHEMICAL in place of ALCHEMIC but more reasonably by BIOMASSES in place of BIODIESEL. [I inside B+O (US railway of old?) with MASSES clues by people. Guess it might not be a legitimate plural.]

    Somehow failed to see FLAN having stuck BLIN in when LEAN no longer fitted. And I was another with SUBSISTENCE RATE. SEPTS was new to me but fine.

    Will certainly try another Pangakupa prize.

  15. Like Shanne @ 6 I got stuck in the south west for a while – took me ages to get BLOGPOSTS but did manage to parse it once solved. Also did not parse IN ABSENTIA or BIODIESEL.

    Enjoyed this and liked SUGAR SNAP, PERJURER, STOCHASTIC

    Not seen E for eccentricity before – one to add to my lists.

    Thanks Pangakupu and bridgesong

  17. Thanks, bridgesong. I finished this over the weekend, and was surprised it did not quite complete the pangram.
    At 26a, I had no problem with ‘some’ as ‘a remarkable’, thinking of Churchill’s reply to the prediction in 1941 that England would have her neck wrung like a chicken – ‘Some chicken …… some neck!’ I am surprised Chambers says especially US, but I have just checked, to find he was speaking to the Canadian parliament, and he was of course half American, so perhaps it is less used in the UK.
    At 11a, I would parse it *(CLAIM HE) and then C(carbon). It comes to the same thing, but explains why CHEMICAL will not work.
    Thanks to Pangakupu also.

  18. I also made the lazy error of entering CHEMICAL but even when rectified, I failed on SEPTS and STOCHASTIC. I had filled in the CHAST bit, which helped me find the trademark Maori word, TAITAIA, as highlighted by FrankieG @9. I also failed on BIODIESEL but really enjoyed the rest, especially SUEZ CANAL and SUBSISTENCE WAGE. Roz @12, I will have another cup of strong coffee before I re-read your eccentric post.

    Ta Pangakupu & bridgesong.

  19. Of course, had I entered WAGE instead of FARE at 25 across, I would have found the W in the grid, leaving only Q and V.

  21. AlanC@ 18 it is fairly simple , next to KPR in the results you will often see zero. It depends how this is written , O or o or 0 . The first one to me looks close to a circle, very low eccentricity , E is a low number. The second is an ellipse ( oval ) E is higher. The third is a more extreme ellipse so E is higher still.

  22. Favourites: SEDAN, FLAN (loi).

    New for me: EL = elevated railway (18ac); STOCHASTIC; SEPT = Irish clan (for 6ac); neurologist Oliver Sacks; SUGAR SNAP.

    I did not fully parse 5d.

    Thanks, both.

  23. I’ve only done a couple of Pangakupu puzzles before this, but they left me thinking that I needed to be particularly mentally flexible to finish them. I can’t quite put a finger on why, but I think a clue like SEPTS is a good example – it was my LOI, I didn’t know the word, and stared at S_P_S for some long time before I saw the calendar connection. But I got there, and even with them all parsed – although I needed the blog to explain how the eccentric E got into the middle of the not-OK joker; clearly I’m still not flexible enough to see how that ‘S worked. An enjoyable challenge, very well blogged.. Thanks to both..

  24. BIODIESEL was my my last in, too. JEER was my favourite. While wondering about a presumably non-existent theme, I checked to see if ABSURDITY also had a scientific meaning – strangeness and eccentricity do, but not, as far as I can see, absurdity, though there are surds in Maths, I think.

  25. Thanks to bridgesong and Timon for the blog, which helped me to understand a couple of the parses more fully. I’ve enjoyed reading more here about the word SOM(e) in 26a SODOM as well as the significance of the “particular spot” in 5d PENALTY BOX. Thanks to Pangakupu for a puzzle that tested me in places but also consisted of some fun clues like the one for 1a SUGAR SNAP. As mentioned by several others, 6d STOCHASTIC was a new one on me, but fortunately the wordplay helped me to solve that one, confirming it via Chambers. I see now that I have jotted TAITAIA/TAITAI? in the margin and I recall being pleased at that little bonus at the end.

  29. Bridgesong@10: “if you doubt the soundness of an answer to a clue set by an experienced setter… then perhaps you’ve got it wrong”: a similar thought helped me to see why CHEMICAL would be wrong, as pointed out by sjshart@17. The C from carbon comes after the anagrind.

    Choldunk@14 is surprised that NAIF was clued as unsophisticated, but Chambers has ingenuous and simplistic for naive, and simple and ingenuous for unsophisticated, which is surely close enough.

    I knew STOCHASTIC from Robert Silverberg’s novel The Stochastic Man, so that was a gimme after seeing the crossers and CHAS for Charles. Like Julie@25 I found this testing but fun, and I too remembered to look for the trademark Maori word!

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  30. KeithS@23
    JEER
    (I’m still not flexible enough to see how that ‘S worked)
    My understanding:
    JOKER’s E, not OK—>JOKER has E, not OK—>JOKER has E in place of OK.

  32. KVa@30 – Thanks. I’d not originally considered that the possessive implied insertion (as bridgesong put it), so I saw it as Joker+e -OK -> Jere and you could use these to ‘make’ JEER, which is how I justified it to myself at the time, but that made the clue an indirect anagram (albeit it very easy one) with ‘when making’ as the anagrind. Which was OK by me, but seemed a bit over the top.

  33. I managed to fill it in during the week, but 3 answers centre left didn’t make sense and, as I suspected, were wrong. One of them was SEED MONEY instead of the obvious answer, BEER MONEY. Overall, a reasonably satisfying puzzle despite my mistakes. I liked the appearance of STOCHASTIC and ALCHEMIC, but I am a physical scientist. I also liked PENALTY BOX (Ho! Ho!) and also SUBSISTENCE WAGE, a horrible thing in reality of course. I don’t use Chambers, but the SOED has SEPT and the US usage of SOME which I knew anyway, and SAN as an abbreviation.

  34. Thanks Pangakupu and bridgesong. I had JEER but only in pencil, otherwise no problems. So, if O is e=0, is I e=1? (And how does KPR feel about that?)

  36. For some reason me@35 came out garbled , maybe the inequality signs.
    Circle e=0 .
    Ellipse e between 0 and 1 .
    e=1 is a parabola , cannot be a closed curve or bound orbit.
    e greater than 1 is a hyperbola.

  38. Unlike just about everyone I found this very difficult and gave up after only half done. Reading this blog I can’t see why I didn’t get any further, but I was absolutely stumped.

  39. How come COLL = “college”

    bridgesong, thanks for parsing FLAN(K), PENALTY BOX and ONUS.

    How long has it been since SENT = “ecstatic”? And even back then, did we use the participle or just say “You send me”?

    Iroquois@5 I thought of Wilbur too, but ‘SOME PIG” doesn’t mean “most of a pig.” I can’t think of a case where “some” means “most of.” It just means “some of.” In fact SOM is most of SOME = “a remarkable.”

    Lots of fun. Thanks Pangakapu and bridgesong.

  40. I enjoyed this, more in fact than previous Pangakupu puzzles. A few quibbles, but probably just me being picky.
    6a I thought “providing short items for” was a clunky way of indicating that SEPTEMBERS needed to be shortened to SEPTS if that’s how it was meant to work.
    14a I liked the wordplay for money but I don’t think that beer money is a tip. It’s spare cash, irrespective of its source. A tip is given notionally for good service and for many recipients is needed for subsistence.
    8d I wasn’t familiar with Z = zone, though I’m told TZ for Time Zone is common usage amongst writers of code, and the “for” is superfluous though needed for the surface. (I’m in a different town from my Chambers today)
    Thanks to Pangakupu and bridgesong

  41. Iroquois @5: I thought of SOME PIG while I was solving this last week. For those unfamiliar with American children’s literature, that usage of “some” is I think more common in the phrase “quite some”: referring, say, to Versailles, one might cheekily say, “that’s quite some house Louis has there.” Also for those unfamiliar with American children’s literature, you owe it to yourself to go read Charlotte’s Web, which I think resonates for adults too.

    I was surprised to learn that “el” for elevated train was an Americanism. Living, as I do, in the city most renowned for its el, I was mildly surprised to see the blog single out New York instead of us. In New York you say you’re taking the subway even when it’s elevated; here in Chicago, you take the el even when it’s underground. (My commute to work on the Red Line el is about half of each–elevated where I get on and for the next 2.5 miles, then descending into a tunnel for the last 2.5 or so to my destination in the Loop.)

  42. Valentine @39: Coll. as an abbreviation for “college” is in Chambers. It can also stand for colleague, collective, collector, or colloquially.

    I agree that “sent” is now dated slang; not sure about whether the participle was used.

  43. Mrpenney@41: I bow to your superior local knowledge, but I can confirm that Chambers denotes “el” in this sense as “US informal”. No disrespect to Chicago intended!

  44. Pino @40: again, Chambers confirms that “beer money” can mean a gratuity, so “tip” seems perfectly fair.

  45. I’m still baffled as to why “particular spot” = PENALTY BOX. Even given that we’re talking about the PENALTY BOX in football/soccer rather than hockey, what makes it a particular spot?

    Today I learned that the Chicago Transit Authority officially calls its elevated railways the L rather than the El! I’m a bit afraid to post this where a setter might see it. However “El” seems to be more literary.

  46. Matt@45: for those not familiar with the pitch layout in Association Football (to give it the correct name), there is a rectangular area 44 x 18 yards in dimension immediately in front of each goal. You can see a diagram here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pitch. This is the “penalty area”. Fouls committed inside this area by the side defending the adjacent goal may be punished by a penalty kick, which is taken from the penalty spot, 12 yards from the goal.

    So there is a particular spot within the penalty area; I admit that as a definition, it is somewhat allusive, but the wordplay is clear enough.

  47. mrpenney@41 I said, “Chicago” to myself too, but then I thought of the late(?) lamented Second Avenue El of New York, which ended in 1942. I never saw it, but I’ve certainly heard of it. bridgesong @43 No quarrel with your “US informal,” but why introduce New York, which Chambers apparently didn’t? Since you’re invoking Chambers, I’m guessing you haven’t heard of the El yourself in either city?

  49. Pino @40: In France a tip/gratuity is (I’m fairly sure) known as a ‘pourboire’ which can be taken to mean ‘to buy something to drink’ which more or less equates to BEER MONEY. I don’t say that it justifies the clue but it does offer some support (no pun intended).

  50. bridgesong @46: Ah. That seems pretty vague to me, almost anything could be a “particular spot.” But I was able to work out the phrase from the crossers.
    @48: There are still elevated railways in New York City as well, such as the 7 line in Queens. I don’t think New Yorkers today call it the “El” much because it would be confused with the L train which runs between Manhattan and Brooklyn and is not elevated.

  51. bridgesong@48 The highline was never part of public transportation. In the 30’s ir replaced a street-level freight line that kept killing people, but fell out of use with the growth of trucking. Work began in the 80’s to make it into a park, which it is now. Nobody ever calls it the “El” — that’s reserved for the long-gone one on Second Avenue, though as has been said there are other lines that are elevated for part of their run.

  52. Failed to get SEPTS or BIODIESEL.

    I think I should have got the latter but I don’t really understand exactly how the second part of the clue for SEPTS leads to the answer and didn’t know the primary meaning.

    Didn’t know E for eccentricity, either, and I wonder how many non-scientists/mathematicians would? Is it in Chambers? I answered JEER on the basis the setter knew e was a relevant abbreviation, even if I didn’t.

  54. The elevated railway in Chicago is iconic in scenes from movies (Blues Bros and The Sting etc) but I didn’t know “EL” was a thing. Isn’t there elevated railway in NY in The Warriors?.
    We have some EL here in Syd, most regrettably above Circular Quay.

  55. MikeS@38 I also gave up on this one. It is quite dispiriting to then come to the blog for help and find it described as straightforward!

  57. MikeS@38 and Lin@55. As I said at 13: “Took me the full week”. So I found this puzzle really hard.

    But I couldn’t fully understand why in retrospect. Maybe I was having a bad week. But maybe I struggled to adjust to an unfamiliar (to me) setter. But I still enjoyed the challenge.

    [It pays not to be disheartened by the reported alacrity of other solvers. Some weeks I try really hard not to resort to word wizards. Other weeks I either don’t need to, or am happy to use some aids. I don’t know why my performance and attitude vary so much week-to-week. I suspect that I rely on inspiration rather a lot …and occasionally get on a really good roll. I think “distraction therapy” is part of the story for me. My brain can sometimes work really well when I know I ought to be doing something important! Seeing a particular setter’s name undoubtedly influences my confidence and thinking. Conclusion: Brains are weird things and all different.]

  60. [GrahamH@58 – I do wish you’d follow our helpful convention of referring to a clue by its SOLUTION IN CAPITALS (BLOGPOSTS) rather than its number (14d); otherwise, those reading 15² on their ‘phone are obliged to spend ages scrolling up and down, or, more likely, will simply ignore your contribution. Do think of others, dear chap, and enjoy the remainder of this Bank Holiday Monday ….. ? ]

  61. An enjoyable puzzle from our man in Stokes Valley; for those unused to his ‘style’ bear in mind that, like Imogen (who was a Times crossword editor) and others here, he is a regular Times setter so invokes an exactitude that may be missing in others (I’ll mention Araucaria solely, lest it be unpolitic to name the extant!)
    He’s erudite and smart and neither afeared of classical nor scientific conceits and believes that “every clue should be a little story” so right up Eileen’s street!
    And, as Phi in the Indy on Fridays (especially a few years back), a master of the Nina and other hidden ‘extras’; I couldn’t help spotting, as one or two others have, the Maori in the unches of row 6 – but was it “taitai” or “taitaia” I wonder….? And what can it mean – precisely?

    Many thanks to Pangakupu and Bridgesong (with Timon!)

  62. William F P@ 61: because I haven’t previously blogged a puzzle by Pangakupu, I wasn’t aware that he usually includes a Maori nina, but I infer from other comments (see e.g. 9 and 18) that he does.

  63. Bridgesong@62 – it’s as Phi that I’ve known him to brandish his Ninas, I wasn’t making that claim about Pangakupu – though it may be so….. !

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