Guardian Cryptic 28,471 by Pan

86 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,471 by Pan”

1. Definitely a slightly-chewier Monday puzzle!

   Absolutely loved HOOKAH. Only one DNK – ATROPINE but easily gettable from the wordplay so no complaints!

   I surprised myself by getting the plant at 23a as a write-in; as has been demonstrated this weekend with the horribly-high pollen count (I managed to lock myself inside and work all weekend in my study bar one outing for about an hour to meet friends for a drink outside which was a BIG mistake) I am of the non-horticultural variety but this is a green (and red) thing that I’ve heard of and may indeed have had.

   Thanks Pan and manehi!

2. A very likeable puzzle with some good clues at 9a REHASH, 17a ASHTRAY (took me ages to see) and 21d HOOKAH, two of which you have already highlighted, manehi. Just typing that, I thought there could be a mini-theme of drugs with HASH in the first, H for heroin in the second, and a bit of drug paraphernalia in the third, but I might be seeing more than Pan intended? Today my almost 93 year old mother-in-lw gave me a beautiful pioinsettia bloom as a gift from her garden, so I had to smile at the coincidence of 23a. Thanks to both setter and blogger.

3. [Crossed against your mention of HOOKAH, MB@1.]

4. By chance happened to print out the cryptic and quiptic together, and then by mistake first started on the former – when solved thought ‘wow, what a great Monday cryptic’ – then tackled the real cryptic and when solved (and realizing my mistake) – thought ‘wow again, perhaps the best Monday cryptic in, well, perhaps this year or more. So kudos to both,
   Solving the latter was a smooth journey of many delights, and all but had me purring. Favorites included ENTROPY, MAGISTRATE & ASHTRAY. Last-two in were CHIPMUNK and TRAGIC, and tragic was indeed how I felt when all the fun ended.
   A very special thanks to PAN (and to Hectence for originally setting the mood).

5. Ticked all the boxes for me.
   Elegant surfaces with misdirection and wit puts her in danger of joining the Girlpower setters like Arachne and Nutmeg

6. Delightful from start to finish. POINSETTA, PERIWINKLE, ASHTRAY and HOOKAH were top notch.

   Ta Pan & manehi

7. Thanks Pan and manehi
   Very enjoyable, with ENTROPY favourite. Only quibble – “kit” is a rather odd definition for PROPERTY.

8. I always manage to miss those annoying en and em spaces. And the h-in-astray for ASHTRAY also gets me every time. But that’s a criticism of me, not this very nice Cryptic from Pan. Favourites the stolen mobile in CHARLESTON, and the clever JAPE.

9. Yes, a great (and witty) puzzle to start the week. Agree with muffin @7 that kit = property is questionable. Faves were PIPPIN, ASHTRAY and DIABETES. Couldn’t parse MAGISTRATE for the life of me. Many thanks to Pan and manehi.

10. [PS: who is going to do the jokes about the chippie at the local abbey, starring the Fish Friar and the CHIPMUNK?]

11. gladys @10 – I’m sure you won’t have to wait too long for the usual suspects to turn up . . .

12. Thanks, Pan, for an enjoyable puzzle with some great surfaces. And to Manehi. I think, by the way, that 7 down is anagram of set around set with the meaning of regular- ‘at set times’ (though they could be irregular, but set, if one was being picky!)

13. [gladys @10: ‘I asked my wife the other day if she wanted me to pick up Fish & Chips. She’s never forgiven herself for letting me name the twins…’ (Tim Vine)]

14. Lovely and smooth, and a pangram to boot (I think, haven’t really checked, but it has j, q and x). Something loose, like ‘That AMG Merc’s an expensive bit of kit/property’ might do for 16d. Nice one Pan and ta manehi.

15. … PS always thought tea was cha and cleaner was char, but whatever …

16. Missed the pangram…is there a Z? Must have missed it.

    Dnk PERIWINKLE as the colour, only the flower.

    Thought PROPERTY = kit was a tad loose but otherwise all fair.

    Many thanks, both, enjoy the weather (in UK for once!)

17. Enjoyable and a bit more chewy than the usual Monday fare.

    Most of the clues were smooth but one or two not so. I couldn’t make sense of 16, for example (can anybody offer an explanation?) I liked MAGISTRATE, ASHTRAY, DIABETES and ATROPINE.

    grantinfreo @14, I can’t see the q or x (or the v and z).

    Thanks Pan and manehi

18. gladys & MB…you’d batter not go on with this.

19. grantinfreo @14; CHAR from Chambers:

    char3 /chär/ (slang)
    noun
    Tea

    ORIGIN: Cockney spelling of cha

20. Robi @17, A PROP is a rugby player, then an anagram of TYRE gives property which as others above have agreed is not a very good definition for kit.
    And I agree, no q, v, x or z.
    But a big improvement on the Prize for me, I could not even find a starting point! Hey ho! (I did finish the Everyman though…)

21. [William @18: OK – I’ll leave it until Fryday]

22. Very pleasant morning solve and I have, in common with earlier posters, ticks for ASHTRAY, ENTROPY, MAGISTRATE, DIABETES and HOOKAH. FRACTION got me thinking; given that 99/100ths is a fraction, I wonder why it’s become accepted as a reference to a small part rather than just a part. As for the kit/Property debate, all I can contribute is that my boys’ sports kit ended up in Lost Property at school on almost a monthly basis over the last 15 years or so!

    [MB @21: I think you’ve given that mini theme the battering it deserves, you little scamp 😉 ]

    Thanks Pan and manehi

23. Tough but enjoyable to solve.
    Liked CHIPMUNK.
    New: PROP = rugby player; TRENCHER.

24. muffin @7 (and others). “kit” is a rather odd definition for PROPERTY. How about as in kit and caboodle? Defined in Collins as “the whole lot of persons or things; all of something”. So, everything you own? Yes, I’m not really convinced myself.

25. [michelle @23: fresh from introducing you to the (slightly dated) pleasures of Saki, I’m tempted to post a link to a classic England home rugby match so you can make sense of Twickenham, centres, props and hookers – but not HOOKAH’s. But I find it’s been some time since there’s been a classic England rugby match as our solvers from the Southern hemisphere will be only too aware. (Along with those from Ireland, Scotland, Wales…) ]

26. [Things, usually me, get on Mrs P’s PIPPIN, but she did like Pippin and Tog from Pogle’s Wood. A reminder that ‘There’s nothing so nice, for Pogles or mice, as bread and butter and honey’.]

    Thanks Pan and manehi

27. sheffield hatter @24: That’s a very spirited defence and to your great credit…still not buying it.

28. [I think some posters are looking in the wrong place for the pangram…]

29. Yep you’re right muffin, think I was combining both of today’s with yesterday’s (and even then I don’t know if there’s a z), duh.

30. Dia = dire ?? I’d be in the mia if I shouted fia! Fia! when my house is ablaze

31. [Oh, don’t get us Scots started, JackC @30: we have enough to get agitated about with the game against the Czech Republic coming up this afternoon, when we hope that the national side will not be a dia as we fea.]

32. I was on a trip ship, in the mid 70s, no cruises then, from Sydney to Southampton.. Eleven days without fresh water and everyone got the bug. The fancy dress gig had people dressed up with toilet paper. A Welshman’s aft.

33. I’m with rodshaw and muffin in loving ENTROPY.

    Thanks Pan and manehi

34. Hookah is a pipe used for smoking, not a water pipe.

35. SinCam @20; I understand the parsing, but what does the surface of the clue mean? How can a ‘kit for rugby player burst tyre?’

36. VDS Prasad @34
    The smoke in a hookah is passed through a water basin before it’s inhaled, so “water pipe” is OK. See here.

37. To everyone hunting for j, q, x and z….
    It’s Hectence’s Quiptic that’s the pangram.

38. muffin@36. Thank you, noted.

39. This felt throughout like a truly cryptic challenge, practically every clue. No easy giveaways. And on a Monday, too! Couldn’t parse MAGISTRATE, and some of the others took a bit of head scratching. A thorough work out today. Many thanks Pan and Manehi…

40. NIP = pop?

    The only use of PERI I’ve ever come across outside of crosswords is in the subtitle of Iolanthe, The Peer and the Peri.

    How can CHAR be Cockney “cha” in a non-rhotic dialect?

    This is the picture in my head when I read “hookah.”

    Since chipmunks are probably as exotic to many of you as hedgehogs are to me, here is the little guy who inhabits many of our drystone walls.

    Thank you Pan and manehi for a pleasant evening and morning.

41. Valentine @40
    Perhaps you don’t use the expressions “I’m going to nip/pop out the shops”

42. Maybe it’s the heat but I made heavy weather of this although I loved PIPPIN, TUNDRA, POINSETTIA

    However I’m 2/3 of the way through the Prize – and it’s Vlad (my crossword bete noire) albeit with lots of use of aids. And just a bit more of Everyman done – without aids. So making progress – slowly. Will return to both during the week.

    Thanks to Pan and manehi

43. [me @41 pop out to….]

44. Valentine@40: I suppose one might say “I’ll just nip (or pop) down to the shops”, but am not keen on it.
    The only other instance I recall is Dukas’ La Péri

45. Valentine @40 & peterM @44: it somehow escaped my notice but last year apparently saw the publication of Peri the Awesome COVID Fairy by Morgan Duffy! Not lots of other titles but I did discover The Crow Peri – a Turkish Fairy Tale (children’s story), The Peri – or The Enchanted Fountain (a fairy opera written in America in 1850) and Camaralzaman and Badoura, Or, The Peri who Loved the Prince (an English operetta of the same period)

46. valentino@40
    Not all slang is cockney, cha is not cockney, Rosie Lee is cockney rhyming slang for tea
    The British slang word “char” for “tea” arose from its Cantonese Chinese pronunciation “cha” with its spelling affected by the fact that ar is a more common way of representing the phoneme /??/ in British English. It is a loanword.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea

47. Great puzzle. It wasn’t just chewier than the usual Monday fare – it was the toughest solve on any day of the week for me for ages! And I also forgot about EN and EM as space – again. Thanks to Pan and manehi.

48. Above the usual Monday fare. I took a bit longer than I should have, stumbling for a while onASHTRAY and DIABETES.

    I blame the heat

49. Thanks to Pan and manehi

50. Valentine @40
    It looks as if you have left out the hyperlinks in your comment. My guess is that your image of the hookah is the Tenniel ; if so, the bottle contains the water. There are many images of those endearing little guys, the chipmunks; here is one.

51. Thanks Pan, this was great — several times I said to myself, “this is not easy.” Fortunately it was not impossible. It turned out to be my favourite Guardian crossword in quite awhile. Loved SHOWDOWN, TRESPASS, CHARLESTON, TSETSE, IN STOCK, and TRAGIC. Even kit meaning PROPERTY was OK by me. Thanks manehi for fleshing out some of the parsing I’m didn’t see.

52. [ ENTROPY is a measure of disorder not the disorder itself but close enough for a crossword ]

53. It’s ropEy, not ropy, it’s not dia, it’s diRe, don’t like ‘nip’, gist isn’t meaning, just a whiff of meaning, didn’t like lot-chance, action-operation, kit-property of course, and worst of all, bade isn’t ordered, it’s asked.
    Deeply irritating

54. Oh dear, hilt @53: I think Chambers might put you out of some of your misery. It gives ropy or ropey as alternatives; defines ‘gist’ as the general meaning or main point of something said or written; and for bid gives (with an imperative) to command someone (to do a specified thing). The Chambers Thesaurus gives operation and action as synonyms. Kit/property has been discussed at length so I can’t help you there. Nor with the fact you don’t like ‘nip’. And dia/dire is the usual rhotic argument that pops (or nips?) up at least once a week. I do see some possible looseness around lot/chance – I took it in the sense of fate or destiny but since a lot can be a stick to be drawn to determine a decision randomly, might ‘by chance’ be equating to lot?

55. PM @ 54 (and JackC @3 SC @31 hilt @53)

    But does anyone really say dia when they mean dire I mean really

    I have never heard my English friends pronounce it like that – looks more like deah (for dear by posh folks)

56. Fiona Anne @55
    I was on a bird-watching holiday (to Costa Rica, in fact). One lady on the trip, older than us, so “elderly”, pronounced “flowers” as “flahs” and “wires” as “wahs”.

57. [Fiona Anne @55: I deliberately stay away from the rhotic discussions when they arise. I just referred to it @54 as a regular debate. I’ve been saying both words (dia and dire – not deah or dear) over and over – in my head and out loud – and they do sound pretty much the same to me. I mean really. Maybe I’m just bad at speaking English! 😀 ]

58. PostMark @54, (and with acknowledgement to Fiona Anne @55, with whom I would have crossed if I had not refreshed before posting).

    The issue with dia/dire is not just ‘the usual rhotic argument’, as you seem to wish to dismiss it, I think, and as you would possibly expect me as a Scot to pursue it. Even within the parameters of RP, I think it is a poor homophone. This is to do with how the vowel sequence is articulated. I stand to be corrected on this and no doubt will be, but in RP pronunciations of ‘dire’, ‘mire’ and ‘fire’, among others, I hear the vowel to be diphthonic. In ‘diabetes’ I hear the vowel sequence as disyllabic, as in ‘Die Another Day’ (a Bond film for those unfamiliar with the oeuvre). My youngest child has diabetes, and so over 10 years I have had to explain and discuss his condition in four European languages, in two of which it is pronounced ‘Dee-A’, not ‘dear’. For the last 3 years we have been back in the UK, and no medical staff that I have spoken to pronounce it ‘dire-betes’: in other words, the ‘a’ is always articulated separately from the ‘i’.

59. SC @58: not dismissing it at all, Sir. Nor suggesting it’s not of importance to plenty of posters here. It’s just one I don’t always understand and I see the point argued sufficiently often but have nothing to add to it.

60. For what it’s worth, I agree with PostMark @57. With an RP accent, dia as in diabetes and dire sound pretty well identical. You can’t please all the people all the time.

61. Spooner’s catfllap @58
    I think I can see (hear, actually) what you are driving at, but, perhaps on no solid evidence, I would have thought it unlikely that many people would pronounce, say, di-(distinct pause)-abetes, but there is a momentary catch between the first two syllables, However, Collins online gives sample pronunciations, – for dire, several of them. The first is close to dah, rather like muffin’s lady, but there follows a video of the “British English” pronunciation, with a momentary catch very similar to diabetes.

62. Very few of the synonyms here or in fact in any of the cryptics are exact, and we’re fine with that. Otherwise setters would have many fewer options and less fun would be had by all. I think we should accord the same latitude to homophones. Just one person’s opinion.

63. Muffin’s lady (as PeterO christens her) exhibits an increasingly rare phenomenon known as smoothing (see here, about 6 paras down) which definitely puts her ‘towards the upper end of the social scale’. Other examples quoted include science (sah-nce), power (pah) and Howard (Hah-d). I’m sure she would also say ‘dah’ for ‘dire’, but us not-quite-so-well-connected RP speakers rhyme it with, and like, Danny Dyer.

64. Mark @50. Glad you were around at 4:30BST to say what you did in reply to hilt @53. Saved me a lot of checking and typing! “I can’t help you with the fact you don’t like ‘nip” has to be a contender for “Riposte of the Week”, and yes I do know it’s only Monday, so keep trying.

    Also Dr. WhatsOn @62. Couldn’t agree more. Make that the opinion of at least two people so far! To me, “sound of awful” didn’t leap out at me when I first read it – because obviously “sound of awful insects” immediately grabs your attention, so I was thinking of chirping or whatever it is that cicadas say – but once I’d got past that, DIA=’dire’ was a clear possibility. Did anyone seriously reject the answer DIABETES because DIA doesn’t sound like ‘dire’? If you were in a very loud place – say a pub before Covid-19 – and you heard someone say Dire-Bee-Tees would you really not know what they were talking about?

65. essexboy @63 (re muffin @56 and PeterO @61). “Smoothing”, is it? It sounds to me more like the way someone speaks after several G&Ts before dinner, most of a bottle of claret during the meal and some seriously strong stuff to finish off before adjourning to the card table with a bottle of port. (Sorry if I’ve got the sequence wrong.)

    Smoothing, or ironing as we call it, amongst the class of people that had to “smooth” their own clothes before going to work (which could well have involved “smoothing” someone else’s too), takes a lot of time and effort, whereas “slurring”, in my experience, is something that comes pretty naturally after a few beers at the pub. I dare say a bit more application would make me pretty good at it.

    Not sure how relevant the “smooth” ‘dah’ for ‘dire’ is when we’re discussing ‘dire’ for DIA, though. DI-A with or without a distinct catch or pause is pretty close to DIRE, certainly close enough for a crossword.

    Thanks for the link, the relevant paragraph of which finishes with this: “something that the learner should be aware of…but…not something that needs to be imitated in the learner’s own speech production”. Indeed.

66. [hatter @64: if it was a very noisy pub, I might think they were referring to the brothers Gibb and heartily agree with them…]

67. [sh @65: I’m sure you’ve got the sequence right – just don’t forget the Bishop of Norwich 😉 ]

68. [Mark @66. Yes, I was never a fan of the Dire-Bee-Gees, but I would hope I could have sorted that out from Dia-Bee-Tees even in pre-2020 pubs. It’s all a matter of Gs & Ts, innit. Smooth!]

69. PM @ 57
    [Maybe I’m just good at speaking Scots – would put smiling emoji here but don’t know how – and don’t get me on the subject of iron/ion]

70. [Fiona Anne @69. There’s an explanation of how to use emoticons in posts here. It’s important to leave a space before and after! 🙂 ]

71. [Fiona Anne @69: on the subject of ion, I’ve always loved the concept of nominative determinism and was absolutely delighted to discover Dame Sue Ion who was the Technical Director of British Nuclear Fuels Limited and is a leading light in our nuclear industry. I walked past her office once and did a complete double take. Absolutely perfect! 😀 ]

72. Dr WhatsOn @ 62

    I agree. As I’ve posted ad infinitum, if you just look at them as puns the difficulty pretty much disappears.

73. Too chewy for a Monday some might say but that was superb. Thanks Pan.

74. FA@69 If https://youtu.be/tBWFofJSm-c is good enough for Bob Marley then it’s good enough for me 🙂

75. Er not sure what happened with that link! Bonus points for the best Bob Marley Spoonerism clue

76. Bc @ 74

    Obviously he is not Scottish – and much as I love his music – on this pronunciation he has got it wrong.

77. [Roz @52: ENTROPY and ENTHALPY takes me shudderingly back to Thermodynamics lectures at uni (2nd year Physics, I seem to remember) and I never understood it then!

    One of the lecturers was one Prof Ludwik Finkelstein, father of Daniel.

    Wish we’d had this guy instead though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hn-R4FmYMQ ]

78. “dia” -> “dire”? Maybe in some people’s speech I guess!

79. A nicely chewy Monday, I thought- thanks to both. On the dia/dire issue, I’ve thought carefully and for myself, speaking normally, I’d be hard put to tell the difference. Sure I could force the “r” if I really had to, but normally I just don’t. Maybe that’s why I have so much trouble pronouncing Spanish…

80. Why is ‘contents of intravenous cannulas’ SCAN?
    Yes, I know, it’s a hidden but, in my opinion, ‘contents of’ is not a good indicator for this device.

81. As a native speaker of “common” West London English, I am definitely at the di-er, fi-er and wi-er end of the spectrum, i.e. somewhere between a dipthong and two syllables. But I’m with Dr WhatsOn on this question: if it’s close enough for an ouch-worthy pun, it’s fine.

82. I loved this and found it much easier than the Quiptic. Gladys @81 I entirely agree: I am another who pronounces dire and dia pretty much the same in English: my ability to ennunciate an r is pretty non existent, which causes me some issues when speaking German. (I ask for rice = Reis; the shopkeeper asks “Was wollen Sie Weisses haben?” “What do you want that is white = weiss?”) Sil@ 89
    that’s just picky; contained is pretty standard in this kind of clue im my experience. Many thanks to Pan for a lovely start to the week, and to manehi for the explanations.

83. *Sil @80* sorry!

84. Really enjoyed that one. It did feel more like mid-week difficulty to me.

    Robi @35
    “I understand the parsing, but what does the surface of the clue mean? How can a ‘kit for rugby player burst tyre?’ ”

    Perhaps it was supposed to be ‘kit for rugby player’s burst tyre?’ (the apostrophe-S meaning ‘has’ in the wordplay.)
    Still, I don’t really like the ‘for’. It’s fine when it’s for , but this is the other way round, and to me for doesn’t make sense.

85. That should say:
    it’s fine when it’s [wordplay] for [definiton], but … to me [definition] for [wordplay] doesn’t make sense.

86. [ Maiden Bartok @ 77 thanks for your reply, entropy can be overcomplicated but in fact is very simple.

    S = k ln( Greek capital Omega ) do not know how to do the symbol , sorry.

    S is the entropy k is Boltzmann’s constant ln is natural log and Omega is the DISORDER.

    Ludwig Boltzmann had this engraved on his tombstone and he will haunt anybody who misuses the concept. ]

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