Guardian 29,168 / Pangakupu

69 comments on “Guardian 29,168 / Pangakupu”

1. Really enjoyable challenge, helped by eventually getting 1ac/d, when everything then flowed reasonably quickly. Lots of ticks but favourites were PANTOMIME HORSES, POOCH, SOAP OPERA and LOOK DAGGERS. The trademark Maori word ARAARA, meaning fish (noun) and to raise (verb) is down the middle of the grid.

   Ta Pangakupu & Eileen.

2. I rwally enjoyed this too and the Maori word is also a New Zealand island (no, I didn’t know, I checked).

   Thank you to Eileen and Pangakupu.

3. I got off to a poor start. Having put in LYCHEE and having some of the crossers for 14a, I rashly concluded that the theme was likely to be fruit, so put in CLEMENTINE (definition parsed as woman). After that it was a grind. However, looking ar it again with Eileen’s help I can see much to like, especially DANTE, PUDS, ONSIDE.

4. I reckon the Maori NINA is a fish and lies in the central column, one left of a clued light involving “crazy fish” . It’s ARAARA

   https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=araara

   Thank you Pangakupu and Eileen.

5. Sorry AlanC ; I’m a slow typist/preparer. We crossed.

6. PUDS was clever. I wondered if “parody” was the anagram indicator for PANTOMIME HORSES. Thanks for the lovely Catullus poem.

7. I wondered about that, too, Petert.

8. Some nice clues here: the guidance system positioning the vehicle in the wrong direction; the definition (“still able to achieve goal”) for ONSIDE. And I liked AMERICA, which reminded me of Boatman’s classic of a few years ago: “Where organised crime penetrated society that rejected drink (7)”.

   On the other hand, a few quibbles. I’m not sure that RECENCY quite works – shouldn’t it be something like “Novelty in religious education provided by part of Catholic encyclopaedia”? And is the question mark in PANTOMIME HORSES sufficient to indicate the anagram? I wondered if “What may parody” was intended to do this, though I’m not really sure that works either.

   Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen.

9. Tough puzzle. I don’t think I was on the setter’s wavelength. Top half was easier for me.

   New for me: RECENCY.

   I did not parse 2d and 19ac VETO which I still do not fully understand except that it is a weird reversal of it as V + OTE?

   Thanks, both.

10. Thank you Eileen. Needed your help with LINGO. So obvious now. And being fixated on that clue, I must have transposed the ‘reduced’ from LINGO unconsciously and wrongly to FLAMING, which I thought was LAM(B) inside FING (Cockney/English article thing. : -( But it amused me. No insertion indicator either, I know, I know. So glad I decided to stayed at home today as I knew it wasn’t safe to venture out when I struggled with this.
    As well as your picks I also liked TRAPDOORS and HOLIDAY CAMP. Not clear on VETO either.

    Thanks for the Maori AlanC and Flea.

11. Is VETO a reversal of most of the letters of VOTE, ie the last 3 letters, OTE, after the V. Is that what you were saying Eileen?

12. No issue with VETO. Didn’t care for RUTLAND as a down clue. Normal convention leads to LANDRUT.

13. Hi paddymelon @11
    Yes, that is what I was saying – but not very happy!

14. I’m with Lord Jim@8 in thinking that the ‘cency’ of RECENCY is rather iffy.
    But I enjoyed the rest of it. A rather conventional and straightforward approach to the clueing, and none the worse for that. Jolly good.
    Thanks to the Eileen and the setter.

15. Thanks, Pangakupu and Eileen!
    PANTOMIME HORSES
    I see it as an &lit.

16. VETO
    I am fine with the wordplay.

17. I parse RECENCY as RE + C (atholic) + ENCY which is in Chambers as an abbrev.

    I liked the panto horses and spent an age trying to justify DONNE as the poet

    We had ADAMANTINE so I guess it’s ADAM ANT TIME

    Cheers P&E

18. RECENCY
    RE, catholic=C, ENCY=encyclopedia.

19. Bodycheetah@17
    Took ages to type. 🙂

20. Got HOLIDAY CAMP straight away which helped a lot with the top half. Like Michelle @9 I struggled with the bottom half. And I failed to get 1d even with all the crosses – haven’t heard the term before.

    Liked LOOK DAGGERS (which took me a while to get as I first tried M and then G for 1000 in the anagram fodder), PUDS, ADAMANTINE, CLIENTS, ONSIDE

    Thanks Eileen and Pangakupu

21. bodycheetah @17 (and KVa @18
    I wasn’t happy with 10ac – but it never occurred to me to look up ENCY – what a curious abbreviation! I’ve certainly never come across it. I’ll amend the blog.

22. POOCH
    After H, should we consider just ‘house=COOP; rather than ‘hen house’?

23. me@22
    That’s what the blog says, I think. Sorry for repeating it.

24. I found this more straightforward than most puzzles from this setter but no less enjoyable. Favourites have already been flagged up – I particularly liked the long anagrams and I took ‘parody’ as an anagrind in PANTOMIME HORSE. I failed to parse RECENCY properly, missing the unmarked inclusion.

    My knowledge of Polynesian languages is far to exiguous to look for the inevitable Nina (all I know is their restricted phonemic inventories and their complex pronominal systems, with clusivity distinction 🙂 ).

    Thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen

25. KVa @15 – I toyed with that, too – but I left someone else to say it. I’m rather wary these days. 😉

26. Lord Jim@8
    PANTOMIME HORSES (I feel it works this way):
    What may parody ‘SOME PINTO MARES H’ (is P H).
    And the clue works as a def- What may parody some pinto mares (source of humor)?

27. Eileen@25
    We crossed. Sorry.

28. @26
    …..(source of humour?) *

    *Made an error. The ? is strategically placed. That’s important, I think.

29. Enjoyed this a lot. I couldn’t parse VETO, but no doubt Eileen is right. Were it not for the question mark, it could be just a double definition.

30. A grid of two halves here, with the top going in surprisingly quickly and the bottom half decidedly less so. I didn’t know HAIL AND FAREWELL but pieced it together with bits of wordplay, crossers and some tentative bung-checking then confirmed with Wikipedia – so I feel educated, which is one of the nice things about crosswords 🙂

    I originally parsed RECENCY as a combined charade + hidden per original blog, which I wasn’t keen on, but the RE + C + ENCY explanation @17 @18 lowered the eyebrow on that, so thanks. I’m still not happy with RUTLAND – like Hovis @12 I see the direction of the wordplay as wrong. I know there’s a technical argument that ‘on’ can mean ‘underneath’ (in rather specific contexts, e.g. ‘on the ceiling’) but that’s a tenuous and rather inelegant justification for a clue that could easily have been rewritten to make more sense.

    Liked TRAPDOORS, AL CAPONE (nice to see him in the solution rather than the clue), PANTOMIME HORSE, POOCH and HOLIDAY CAMP.

    Thanks both!

31. Thank you to Pangakupu and Eileen.

    Bodycheetah@17: “spent an age trying to justify DONNE as the poet” – me too!

32. And me!

33. [Gervase@24. Thank you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_phonology. Australian Aboriginal languages also have clusivity distinction.]

34. Thanks bodycheetah @17 and KVa @18, that makes sense. Quibble withdrawn.

    Rob T @30: I was fine with the “on” in 17d. The SOED includes for “on”: “Expressing contact with any surface, whatever its position”.

35. Thought this might be more of a struggle than it turned out to be, as I’m not usually on this particular setter’s wavelength. Wondered whether 10ac might be the hidden word Licency, but wasn’t that content with RECENCY as a word that fitted the eventual crossers I then had in place, once I had YARDARM. Thereafter it was very much filling the grid thanks to the fairly helpful definitions within the clues. I thought HOLIDAY CAMP to pick today…

36. …the pick of the bunch…

37. Catullus 101 – an appropriate number for an introductory lesson and a fine poem, but the one that’s stuck in my memory is 97 – splendidly insulting and obscene.

38. The only gripe was for VETO which I thought could equally have been VOTE were it not for the crossers.

39. Tim C @38 — how would the wordplay work to arrive at VOTE rather than VETO? I can’t see an alternative parse that fits VOTE…

40. FrankieG@37 is that the one that in translation includes “…give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a second thousand then another hundred…” for which the notes in the back of my O-level Latin book said “…Catullus was probably thinking of the abacus here…”? Yeah, right.

41. Pantomine horses, acts up, soap opera, trapdoors, farce – almost a performative theme today. Incidentally 22a includes ‘star’ and there is a ‘star trap’ popularly in pantos and melodramas for instant appearances of characters <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/star-trap.

    Thanks to Eileen and P

42. …popularly used…

    One of those days…

43. I wonder how Hungary feels about having its international vehicle symbol not be the letter for its own name for itself, Magyarorszag.

    I see I’m not alone in trying LICENCY in the forlorn hope that it had something to do with education. Anyone else?

    Eileen, thanks for parsing SPACECRAFT (I hadn’t a hope), SOAP OPERA (I hadn’t a pope) and LINGO.

    Thanks, Pangakapu and Eileen.

44. I don’t quite get where ARAARA is. I can see ARDARM

45. Valentine @43 😉

46. Filled in the grid eventually but many unparsed (so thank you Eilleen). I think I am just going to accept that I am not on Pangakapu’s wavelength, unlike many others here.

47. I parsed VETO as a double definition: [to] stop and [being a] setback for majority of poll – who presumably voted a different outcome forcing the veto

48. This yielded steadily after a slowish start. But I struggled with parsing RECENCY and VETO. Thanks for the enlightenment re “ency” and now I think I’m just about ok with “setback for majority of poll”. Just.

    Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen

49. I struggled to get going on this, and needed a break to finish.

    I liked the tower in SOAP OPERA (not tug this time), the wordplay in AMERICA and AL CAPONE, and the good reversal to give TRAPDOORS. No doubt we’ll again get ‘the spider on the ceiling’ justification for the ‘on’ in RUTLAND, but most setters would think that ‘on’ means ‘on top of’ in a Down clue. At least that way, it is easier for most solvers. I guess the Maori words are just entertainment/inspiration for the setter.

    Thanks Pan and Eileen.

50. Astonishingly, some 100 trillion NEUTRINOS pass through each of us every second, and within much less than a blink of an eye they exit the other side of the Earth….A lovely puzzle. Very enjoyable. Though some tricky parsings. With thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen.

51. I justified the ? as being the assumption that the majority of the poll are upset at the veto being used

52. Robi@49 you’re right that ON in a down clue often indicates a word will be on top but it doesn’t have to. And I’m not sure setters are interested in making clues easy for us. Amongst the many meanings of ON in chambers you’ll find “against” so no need for spiders

53. Thought this was a very nice puzzle. PUDS, POOCH and (my favourite) ONSIDE particularly good.

54. Deezzaa@40 – No, that’s…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_5

55. Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen
    I struggled – not on the right wavelegth. For several hours I just had IONISED (OK, I was out for most of those hours!)
    I’ve never heard of the abbreviation ENCY, and find it difficult to believe.
    I really can’t see how VETO is supposed to work.

56. Muffin , most of VOTE can be OTE it is 3/4 , this is returned ETO , giving VETO. A clever idea.

57. Thanks Roz

58. Valentine @43: for that matter, shouldn’t Austria be Ö?

59. 11ac reminded of beloved Leonard … Jesus watching from his lonely tower …

60. … nothing soapy about it though …

61. Eileen, it’s good to see that I’m in good company with this setter and the wavelength thing. But when I eventually figure out a sticky clue, I almost invariably say “Of course, why didn’t I see that earlier” – the sign of a setter of meticulous clues. This was a good one – not a single quiblet from this solver. Thanks, P&E for the excellent p&b.

    And thanks, ginf@59 for the shout out to my countryman Mr. Cohen, who was far more deserving of a Nobel Prize than that zimmerframe guy. LC was a poet first, a songwriter second (except monetarily, of course).

62. To me, a HAIL of bullets is a noun, while to pepper with bullets is a verb.

63. [wherein Cello Maniac @61 risks the wrath of the masses with casual slurs against the immortal Zimmer Frame Guy. Idiot Wind!]

64. As usual I found it very hard to get on this setter’s wavelength, and had to pop out to my local for some lubrication. This enabled me to see that LICENCY was (obviously) wrong, and with YARDARM the hitherto recalcitrant NW corner finally yielded.

    For some reason I never could parse DONNE, so a dnf for me. 🙂 A hint that both poet and synonym were Italian would have been helpful. But I don’t mind being beaten from time to time.

    Thanks to Pangakupu, and to Eileen for the help with parsing those few that the lubrication didn’t enable me to see for myself.

65. Andrew@62. Chambers has HAIL as a verb: to shower vigorously and abundantly. Even without that, I think that “pepper with bullets” and “a hail of bullets” are close enough to give us the right answer by allusion, even if they’re not exactly substitutable in a sentence.

66. Andrew Tyndall @62

    In this context, both hail and pepper are verbs:
    Collins: ‘pepper: to pelt with small missiles’
    ‘hail: to fall, or call to fall, like hail’
    Chambers: ‘pepper: to pelt, to shower liberally, to discharge shot, etc’
    ‘hail: to shower hail, to shower vigorously or abundantly’

    Sorry, sheffield hatter @65 – I took so long looking up and typing that I see you’ve already covered this but – since I’d taken the trouble – I decided to post it anyway. 😉

67. Struggled to get going and answers like RECENCY didn’t help. New word for me with new abbreviation ENCY : yuk.
    Also don’t see why TREAT is a surprise as a treat may me planned and a surprise something horrible.
    Anyway, just before next crossword available … thanks both

68. Sorry Rob T @39, I’d gone to bed. It’s a bit of a stretch, but veto=stop, setback for majority of (of referring back to veto) =ote, poll(definition)=vote. Yes, I know it’s a bit Yoda speak, or maybe my brain is just wired strangely.
    Valentine @43, yes me as well with licency.

69. Needed some help here, but I enjoyed PANTOMIME HORSES.

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