Guardian Quiptic 964/Pan

13 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 964/Pan”

1. Thanks Pan and Pierre

   Very nice; I particularly liked HISTORIAN.

   One quibble – the majority of “ions” aren’t “atomic particles” (by which I suppose Pan means ions such as Na+ and Cl-), but groups of atoms, such as sulfate SO4 2-.

2. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

3. Of course ions are ‘atomic particles’, muffin.  Na+ is an ion, Cl- is an ion and both can be described as ‘particles’.  The fact that the majority aren’t doesn’t make the clue invalid.  If you are going to insist on writing comments on 225 displaying your extensive knowledge of every subject under the sun, rather than focusing on the crossword, then at least get it right.

4. Thanks Pierre and Pan.

   Like many, I have doubts about setters using the initial letter of more or less any word as a valid abbreviation (even if it is in some dictionary somewhere). I wasn’t very keen on 6d for that reason, but I have to admit to having seen ‘r’ for ‘rare’ in botany field guides.

5. Pierre @3

   I take your point that, although the vast majority of ions aren’t atomic particles, an ion could be one (though, as a chemistry teacher, I would never say “atom” when I meant “ion”, except in the definition “an ion is a charged atom or group of atoms”).

   Pan could have avoided the problem by leaving out “atomic” altogether (or saying “Charged particle…”)

   The rest of your post was a bit unfair, I thought – mine was a comment on a clue in this puzzle.

6. I could not parse 28a

   My favourite was BLISTER.

   Thanks Pan and Pierre

7. Thanks Pan and Pierre.

   I’m not sure why “backing” is needed in 25, since Alabama would work fine. I suppose it could be argued that the surface is better as it is, but, personally, I think the state (of the test system) is more likely to be included in a lab test, than (political) state backing is.

8. A fun puzzle in which I found a few clues which I very much enjoyed. I think I parsed them all with the exception of MUDDLED (last in) so thanks very much for the blog. I admire the ability of setters such as Pan to build the appropriate puzzle for the venue. This was perfect for a Quiptic.

9. On the whole, a quick, gentle, and satisfying puzzle, just as a Quiptic should be.

   There is one thing I didn’t quite understand. In 1d, I was puzzled by the use of “ceremonial” to indicate POMP: the correspondence of meanings seems pretty loose, and the parts of speech don’t seem to match. Chambers does have noun usages of “ceremonial”, but they seem like a bit of a stretch to get to POMP. But this is a minor complaint.

10. While I do agree that is a nicely pitched Quiptic as we may expect from Pan who some time ago was promoted to the First Division (even if (s)he didn’t make the same impact there as Nutmeg and Arachne did), why is it that there is always something that is really not right. Is it because this is The Guardian?

    Today we had W for ‘woman’ (in 8d) which is not supported anywhere.

    Personally, I am not keen on ‘engineer’ as an anagram indicator positioned after the fodder but, yep, seeing it as the imperative of a verb it is justifiable.

    I wondered whether Pan did think of making 5d/6d into an ellipsis – there is potential for it. And the contruction of 23d (DATUM) is a bit unfortunate as ‘at’ appears in clue and answer. Not wrong, though.

    Altogether, a good and very doable Quiptic.

11. It seems that you are not intending to respond, Pierre (can’t say I blame you!)

    An analogy did occur to me, though, allowing a bird link. Defining an ion as an “atomic particle” is rather like defining a swan as “A large black aquatic bird”. They do exist, but the vast majority are white!

12. (To clarify, when I said “can’t say I blame you”, I meant that you might be trying to avoid a protracted argument…)

13. After much pondering and hesitancy, I am still unable to understand how one gets Dab from Pat turned up in 15 down. .

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