Guardian Cryptic 28,441 by Pan

by

Enjoyable and mostly quite straightforward, with a few more complicated parsings to work out at the end. Favourites were 17ac, 5dn, and 16dn. Thanks to Pan

ACROSS
7 FACTOTUM
Odd job man gives fine perform­ance with old tailless mongrel going head over heels (8)

F (fine) + ACT="performance" + O (old); plus MUT[T]="tailless mongrel" reversed/"head over heels"
9 SHOGUN
Star carrying animal to old Japanese dictator (6)

SUN="Star" around HOG="animal"
10 LAMP
Light close to central current unit (4)

"close" or end letter of centra-L + AMP=electrical "current unit"
11 PARLIAMENT
Late MP ran frantically round independent part of government (10)

anagram/"frantically" of (Late MP ran)*; around I (independent)
12 TISSUE
Introduction to timely subject in paper? (6)

first letter/"Introduction" to T-imely, plus ISSUE="subject"
14 STAGNATE
Stand in part of theatre, including nationally acclaimed trio, initially (8)

definition: "Stand" can mean to remain still or unchanging

STAGE="part of theatre", around the initials of N[ationally] A[cclaimed] T[rio]
15 SPLICE
Join priest cutting piece of cake? (6)

P (priest) cutting into SLICE="piece of cake"
17 REGENT
Man succeeding retired queen as interim ruler (6)

GENT="Man", after ER (Elizabeth Regina, "queen") reversed/"retired"
20 ODOMETER
Do remote changes to measuring device (8)

anagram/"changes" of (Do remote)*
22 TURN IN
Hand over vessel with metal coating (4,2)

URN="vessel", with TIN="metal" around it
23 CHANDELIER
Cleaner hid broken light (10)

anagram/"broken" of (Cleaner hid)*
24
See 2

25 LINEAR
One-dimensional retro part of transport infrastructure crossing small space (6)

reversal/"retro" of all of: RAIL="part of transport infrastructure", going around EN="small space" in typography
26 TUNGSTEN
Metal cask German sent abroad (8)

TUN="cask" + G (German) + anagram/"abroad" of (sent)*
DOWN
1 VAGARIES
A grave is disturbed causing unexpected changes (8)

anagram/"disturbed" of (A grave is)*
2, 24 across STOPCOCK
Valve in vessels raised angle (8)

POTS="vessels" reversed/"raised"; plus COCK as a verb="angle" as in 'cock one's head'
3 STAPLE
Basic recycled plates (6)

anagram/"recycled" of (plates)*
4 ESTIMATE
Judge has teatime altered to accommodate beginning of sentencing (8)

anagram/"altered" of (teatime)*, going around the beginning of S-entencing
5 COMMANDEER
Comrade mixes with men, as appropriate (10)

definition: appropriate as a verb

anagram/"mixes" of (Comrade men)*
6 PUNNET
Boat detailed to get container for fruit (6)

PUN-T="Boat" with its 'tail' letter removed i.e. "de-tailed"; plus NET=verb meaning 'gain'="get"
8 MOROSE
Surly animal crossing river (6)

MOOSE="animal", around R (river)
13 SALAMANDER
Chap tucked into dish, then returned soldier’s portable grill (10)

definition: a type of small culinary grill

MAN="Chap" inside SALAD="dish"; plus RE (Royal Engineer, "soldier") reversed/"returned"
16 CATHEDRA
Animal heard about 22 down (8)

definition: a bishop's throne

CAT="Animal" + anagram/"about" of (heard)*
18 TWITCHER
Check for second time in social media platform for one watching birds (8)

CH (Check, in chess), replacing the second T (time) in TWIT-T-ER="social media platform"

the T being replaced is the third T of the word TWITTER – perhaps "second… in" means the second of the inner T letters
19 ARTIST
Performer in cart is terrific (6)

hidden in c-ART IS T-errific
21 DAHLIA
Writer given one American plant (6)

Roald DAHL="Writer" + I="one" + A (American)
22 THRONE
Bishop’s seat moved north-east (6)

anagram/"moved" of (north)* + E (east)
24 CAST
Get rid of slight squint (4)

double definition

60 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,441 by Pan”

  1. Nothing enormously exciting (this morning’s Anto Quiptic had some really nice ones) but a pleasant enough start to the week. 22d and 16d were neat.
    Thanks to Pan and manehi

  2. Enjoyed this.

    Got LINEAR and even remembered that en = small space but didn’t notice the reversed rail. Also got ARTIST but didn’t spot that it was hidden……

    Favourites: CATHEDRA, SALAMANDER (both new for me) REGENT, FACTOTUM, TWITCHER

    Thanks Pan and manehi

  3. Came across factotum recently with that same definition, so an easy start, and there was nothing gnarly in the rest of it. Cock for angle was slightly oblique, but the def was clear, and salamander was a ‘what the…. oh yeah I remember’, and cathedra a bit similar. Still took the brekkie hour though… think my brain, a plodder anyway, slows down more to make them last. Thanks Pan and manehi, nice week all.

  4. A pleasant change for a Monday and some neat anagrams, if rather a lot of them. Isn’t FACTOTUM a splendid word? And I liked the clueing for TUNGSTEN. Favourites are the two linked bishop clues – THRONE and CATHEDRA which felt as if they were in a different league to the rest. I also got a tiny tickle out of the NE with a hidden DEER, an anagrammed GNU and a MOOSE as a container. A Møøse once bit my sister… No realli!

    I had not encountered SALAMANDER as a portable grill. The ones I’m used to are the super hot grills in restaurant kitchens.

  6. A gentle start to the week. Salamander as a portable grill was new to me. Have heard of people described as general factotums but not for many years.
    Thanks Pam and manehi.

  7. 9ac – I thought that dictator was a slightly harsh description of SHOGUN = military commander-in-chief in feudal Japan.

    New: SALAMANDER = a metal plate heated and placed over food to brown it.

    Favourite: COMMANDEER.

    Did not parse 25ac LINEAR.

    Thanks Pan and manehi.

  8. Only real problems here were COCK for angle (but it had to be) and SALAMANDER (LOI and DNK). Thanks for confirming these for me manehi.

    Enjoyed CHANDELIER as an anagram which really worked with the surface and the beautifully over-complicated surface of LINEAR. Thanks Pan.

  9. Slightly chewier than last Monday (and Chewsday which wasn’t…) but a quick start with some lovely clues.

    PostMark @4: My local branch of FACTOTUM shut many years ago – there is a still a DomumCastra but that is due to shut soon as well.

    Thanks Pan and manehi!

  10. gif@3 “my brain … slows down more to make them last” – I must remember that one!

    Bottom left held me up at the end: TISSUE (I took “Introduction” to be TI, so couldn’t parse the rest), SALAMANDER and LINEAR the last three in.
    Thanks manehi and Pan

  11. It seems that, like me, hardly anyone had heard of SALAMANDER as a grill, and I didn’t know where EX CATHEDRA comes from, so this was quite educational. Liked FACTOTUM. Thanks to manehi and Pan.

  12. Thanks manehi & Puck. A gentle start to the week, though I had trouble parsing LINEAR and PUNNET (trying to fathom the insertion of NE in PUNT, doh!)

    CATHEDRA is a new word for me. Nice clue though.

  13. Pleasant start to the week. SALAMANDER and CATHEDRA were new and my fave was TWITCHER.

    Ta Pan & manehi.

  14. Thanks Pan and manehi
    Yes, a good Monday puzzle. I had heard of SALAMANDER as a grill, but, like PostMark, only as the intensely hot ones in restaurant kitchens – hardly portable!
    I missed the NET part of PUNNET.
    Favourite CHANDELIER.

  15. Took a good hard stare to parse PUNNET, the SALAMANDER grill was new to me too, and I managed to remember the en space for once. Did anyone else waste time trying to solve CHANDELIER as something meaning broken, “hid” inside CHAR=cleaner?

  16. Mostly straightforward for me, but FACTOTUM took a while, as did THRONE – I was looking for the name of a diocese with NE at the end.

    I knew of SALAMANDER as a portable grill – a quotation from Maria Rundell in Jane Grigson’s recipes for crème brûlée. These days chefs use a blow torch instead.

    Thanks to Pan and manehi.

  17. gladys@15. I had the H and R crossers of CHANDELIER and also wasted time trying to work out what NDELIE was an anagram of…

  18. Struggled a bit with COCK = angle and failed to parse the rather clever anagram of north + E for THRONE.

    All fairly straightforward otherwise.

    TUNGSTEN made me wonder…now that most people have woken up to the benefits of LED lighting, is there now a world glut of that metal?

    Nice week, all.

  19. Gervase @16: me too. Was trying to remember if there was a Bishop of TYRONE.

    PM @4: we are amøøsed.

    Thanks Pan – I agree with MB this was on the chewy side for a Monday; the last two mouthfuls for me were LINEAR and TUNGSTEN, which I think now are my CsOD. And thanks manehi, especially for parsing PUNNET.

  20. drofle @11: if you’ve watched any of the myriad identi-kit TV cooking programmes (with/without celebrities, politicians, axe-murderers, etc.) then the word SALAMANDER is used quite frequently.

    [As a total aside, I was a student at City University in the late 80s and lived in Finsbury & Heyworth Halls, near the Barbican. The last-but-one incarnation of MasterChef used the halls as ‘MasterChef HQ’ and the kitchen was our refectrory.]

  21. [MB @20: I have often wondered where they theoretically base MC HQ. It could so easily be an anonymous studio somewhere. I suspect your last word is a typo though you might have meant refractory which is certaonly what’s needed when I’m at the stove.

    eb @19: We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti…]

  22. I just loved the image of some poor cleaner trying to hide all the broken bits of a chandelier. Good crossword. Thanks Pan and manehi

  23. THRONE was a massive time waster for me: I really, really wanted to find the name of a famous bishop which anagrams the letters S-E-A-T and ends -NE. Er… The Right Reverend Tesane? And then along came CHANDELIER! SALAMANDER went in quickly as soon as I had some crossers — I have vaguely heard of such a culinary device. What a lot of anagrams there were in this puzzle! I enjoyed it though, and finished it off quite swiftly, as befits a Monday.
    Thanks to our setter and blogger.

  24. Salamander and cathedra were both new words to me so thank you, Pan, for a lovely puzzle and for increasing my vocabulary!

  25. [PostMark @21: {Fat Fingers – ‘refectory’ although I am prone to the odd melt-down in the kitchen as well…}

    We used to have monthly Formal Dinners in the open-plan area MasterChef used and the food was astonishingly awful although booze aplenty. The duty warden (live-in academic) was always at the head of the table and gave an address – on the 28th April 1986 this was particularly poignant given that he was a nuclear chemist…

    I’ve stopped watching TV of-late but I believe that MasterChef HQ is a TV studio somewhere out near Bow Church…]

  26. Obviously not many of us watch those dreary cooking programs – I was another with no idea that a SALAMANDER could be a grill. I parsed LINEAR as ‘liner’ (transport) around ‘a’ – but it wasn’t convincing even to me. As my LOI, though, I was happy to take it. Thanks, Pan and manehi.

  27. [Postmark @21: what’s with the medial minusculation? (or have those responsible been sacked? 😉 )]

  28. Couldn’t parse PUNNET at first, either. And Pan could I suppose have chosen Petals or Palest or Pastel as anagram fodder for 3d. And lots of anagrams there were this morning. TUNGSTEN was the last one in, reminding me of the Uncle Tungsten title of a remarkable book by Oliver Sacks I read recently…

  29. Pleasant start to the week.

    LOI was LINEAR, where I thought maybe ID was an abbreviation for one-dimensional, doh! I had to check the fiery SALAMANDER.

    I liked TUNGSTEN, COMMANDEER and THRONE.

    Thanks Pan and manehi.

  30. Thanks Pan and manehi.

    Was glad to foxtrot through this given the unfriendly grid. Favourites were VAGARIES (has it gone out of fashion?- been a long time since I heard it) and COMMANDEER for the misleading surface.

  33. Good with some clunky parsings. CATHEDRA is best known in the phrase “ex cathedra”. And the SHOGUNs were not dictators (even if some of them were a tad unpleasant).

  34. I wanted to verify that CAST meant slight squint, so looked it up in several online dictionaries, and was surprised at how many different meanings the word has. That in turn reminded me of the Latin “poem” Malo malo malo malo: I’d prefer to be/up an apple tree/than in bad/diversity.

  35. Dr. WhatsOn @ 34: That reminds me of the apparently correct sentence “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” that I still can’t parse despite having read the Wiki several times.

  36. [Thanks Dr W and MarkN @34/35. From now on, every time I see one of Picaroon’s yoda-type clues, I shall think of buffalos 😉 ]

  37. Thanks, Pan and manehi. Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    Why does P = “priest”?

    I’ll have to look into malo malo and Buffalo x 8.

  38. The only use of 1d I can ever recall is
    “We’re called gondolieri, but that’s a vagary,
    It’s quite honorary the trade that we ply.”

    I’m sure I’ve seen it elsewhere, but it hasn’t stuck. I’m still boating on the canals. So I’m never sure of the pronunciation.

  39. After the prize crosswords in the Guardian and FT this weekend my brain needed this refreshing break. Even though I failed at PUNNET (new word for me) everything else fell into place. Favourites included TUNGSTEN and THRONE. Thanks to both.

  40. CAST – does it mean get rid of? Surely it should be cast off or cast away.
    Nice puzzle. Thanks to both setter and blogger.

  41. trishincharente @40. My thought exactly, but it’s in Chambers: ‘to throw off, get rid of, drop or discard’. It still doesn’t seem right to me, but that’s just the two of us against Chambers, so what chance do we have?

  42. trisincharente @40 & sh @41: there are references out there to CAST without either off or away in the sense of creatures with an exoskeleton or shell that they cast or shed.

  43. Valentine @38 – re. VAGARIES, it is a word that I am sure I have occasionally used, although in what context/s I cannot now bring to mind. Perhaps it has a slightly old-fashioned timbre. I am pretty sure that it features in Scott’s novels, but at this late stage in the commenting day I think that my chasing it up would bring little benefit or amusement to the 15-squared community. However, I did last week come across it while fitfully rereading ‘Middlemarch’ after a gap of many years. Here is Edward Casaubon reflecting on the growing attachment between his younger wife, Dorothea, and Will Ladislaw: “In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at small cost. In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facile echo of Dorothea’s vagaries.” If there is anyone still out there who can come up with more contemporary instances, I would be interested.

  44. Thank you SH and PM. Hmmm. Cast their shell or cast off their shell? Yes, I guess casting a shell works. Anyway, I agree we have to give Chambers the casting vote.

  46. Spooner’s catflap @43 & widdersbel @45: I haven’t reproduced a specific example but a quick search for the word on Google Books with a qualifier of 21st Century results in a lengthy list of examples drawn from books and the media. It would seem the word is alive and well. But, if Chambers and/or Google’s access to a global cache of references is not enough, then of course we can turn to the eternal arbiters that are HMHB…

  47. Well, widderbel@45 – that is a terrific citation. I was aware of Half Man Half Biscuit by name but unfamiliar with their oeuvre. Chapeau!

  48. Nice one widders@45 I was tempted to point out the HMHB link but am on a yellow card from the forum fun police so thought better of it. I really enjoyed this – maybe I’m one of Pans People?

  49. I think “vagaries” is much commoner than “vagary”; “the vagaries of the situation” is often used to indicate uncertainty.

  50. muffin@49: I think you are right, but here is a snatch of dialogue from Herman Melville’s story, ‘Bartleby’:
    “Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.”
    “I would prefer not to.”
    “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?”
    No answer.

    As with my earlier posting of the ‘Middlemarch’ example ‘vagar/ies’ seems more often, in my experience, to suggest ‘unfixed, whimsical, perverse notions’ than ‘unexpected changes’. But I am sure Chambers can be cited to support Pan on this.

  51. Does anyone understand the “IN” in 14ac? I understand that to STAND is to STAGNATE…and I understand that INCLUDING instructs the insertion of NAT. What is the IN doing?

  52. AndrewTyndall @ 51: I believe the “IN” is just saying that the definition is IN the wordplay. You will find the answer IN there somewhere. Without it, it wouldn’t make much sense, and it wouldn’t have a surface.

  54. Also, just dredged this one up from memory (after the buffalo). Apparently a perfectly legitimate sentence.

    “James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.”

    I’ve got partway along this so many times before having to admit defeat. An absolute monster.

  55. Hi MarkN, The version I’ve seen has 14 consecutive “had”s…
    While writing their essays, James when John had had “had”, had had “had had”; had had “had” had had “had had”, both students would have been correct.
    Very silly and contrived, but hey, it’s fun.
    Thanks P&M for your much appreciated contributions.

  56. Dr Whatson
    The last two instances of ‘malo’ in Benjamin Britten’s use of the rhyme in the libretto of ‘The Turn of the Screw’ are translated as ‘than a naughty boy’, ‘in adversity’.

  57. Ronald @53 – my thought exactly. It’s a phrase we use when there (see me @ 13 on the Quiptic blog). When there… won’t be for a while yet!

  58. JF@56 the first of those was what I remembered, but that was from 1965 so quite possibly misrembered. The second was a typo.

  60. …I know VAGARIES because of Eartha Kitt’s song “Snuff Out the Light”, which was cut from The Emperor’s New Groove fairly early on. ‘It was always my ambition / To use Papa’s tuition / And gain some small remission / From the vagaries of time.’

    On the other hand, I’ve appended the definition of FOUNDLING onto FACTOTUM for a while, thanks to D. M. Cornish. The first book is called Foundling, but I misremembered the title as Factotum, which is the third’s title.

    Never heard of SALAMANDER as grill, but I knew the myth associated with the salamander, so it was reasonable enough to guess.

    MarkN@35 – “New York bison, who are bullied by other New York bison, in turn bully other New York bison.” Buffalo buffalo (NY bison) (that) Buffalo buffalo (NY bison) buffalo (bully) buffalo (bully) Buffalo buffalo (NY bison)

Comments are closed.