Guardian Cryptic 29,047 by Pangakupu

73 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,047 by Pangakupu”

1. Thanks Pangakupu and manehi
   I found this hard with several unparsed. Nho CLUMBER SPANIELS, but at least that was fairly clued.
   Sorry, (a) collection of dried plants is a herbarium.
   I raised an eyebrow at ORD for “ordinary”, but, to my surprise, found it in Chambers. I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else.
   Favourite was LOI CONFETTI.

2. First impressions today were this is unnecessarily difficult without the added fun factor.
   CONFETTI is one in case. ”Papers covering union”. The def doesn’t seem to work even in the Italian, and the wordplay is tedious. Not marriage material as far as I can see.

3. Nothing here to cause me to revise my opinion of this setter. Quite liked assign.

   Cheers P&M

4. Top marks, manehi! Wouldn’t have parsed some of those in a million years. Completed the puzzle thanks mainly to getting some letters and picking out the definition. Thanks to P for the puzzle. BTW, shouldn’t the clue for herbaria say collections?

5. Wow, muffin, your favourite is one I maligned. Hadn’t seen your post before I posted mine.

6. I came here for the parsing oh HERBARIA and LITTLE MAN. Favourites were RATIONAL NUMBER for the deft definition and CONFETTI also for the definition.

7. paddymelon
   I liked the definition. Confetti is made from paper and is thrown at weddings, covering the united couple!

8. I don’t know about UK usage of ORD muffin @1, but in Aus the All Ordinaries share index is commonly referred to as the All Ords.

9. Liked COPYCAT, HERBARIA (the ‘last to be confused’ device is novel), CONFETTI, LITTLE MAN, CUPOLAED, CROCODILES, FEEL BLUE and ASSIGN. Thoroughly enjoyed solving the puzzle. Thanks, Pangakupu.
   Thanks, manehi for the very well-written blog. Quite neat indeed.

10. Yeah, muffin@7. Liked the def. My quibble is the wordplay and the singular/plural of paper/s in both languages. But then I might be depriving myself of a whole lotta fun.

11. I suppose someone might have their collection stored in multiple herbarium rooms, in the way I’d refer to my collection of photos as the albums on my shelf.

12. Some tricky, convoluted clues but very enjoyable solve. COTTAGE INDUSTRY was clever and I liked CONFETTI, with nice use of union conference, TIEBREAKER, STICKMAN, LITTLE MAN, AMNESTY and LOI, CORNEA. The dogs and HERBARIA were new and I couldn’t work out how ‘lue’ meant squander in FEEL BLUE having guessed lb for pound. Not many laughs along the way though.

    Ta Pangakupu & manehi

13. manehi @11
    As part of her research, my wife visits a lot of herbaria. Each time she visits one, she goes to a herbarium.

14. Solved about half and gave up due to lack of time to devote to a puzzle today.

    Liked: RATIONAL NUMBER.

    New for me: CLUMBER SPANIELS.

    Of the ones that I solved, I did not parse 1d, 2d apart from TTAG in anagram of countryside; 5d apart from PO river.

    Thanks, both.

15. Agree with muffin@1 that 14ac’s clue should have been “CollectionS ….” giving HERBARIA as the answer, herbarium being the singular noun.

    Clumber Park was a part of the more famous Sherwood Forest until 1709 when it was given to Queen Anne as a private hunting park.

    I see Pangakupu has included his trademark NINA down the central column, MAHIRA being the Maori word for “inquisitive”, “curious”, a good and relevant adjective for the solver community.

    Thank you Pangakupu and manehi.

16. Isn’t CUPOLAED and ugly word! I agree with the common view that the parsing is too often tortuous (or torturous – take your pick). Still, I got there in the end. Thanks, Pangakupu and manehi (your help was often needed).

17. muffin @13 yes, and I agree that “Collections” would work better. My suggestion was that it can be possible to group multiple collections together and describe that group as a single larger collection (even if this does not occur in fact for herbaria).

18. Solved without aids but failed to parse ‘herbaria’, though I saw ‘Bari’. Despite efforts to justify the clue, I think that it should read ‘collections’.

19. I found this pretty tough. Never heard of blue/squander, but I found it in the deepest recesses of the internet after much surfing. No doubt it’s definition 27 or something in Chambers, so QED. Couldn’t work out cod/fake. Apparently it’s British? I knew that what we call semi-trailers are articulated lorries in Britain, but I was quite unprepared for ARTIC. Couldn’t fully parse TIEBREAKER (didn’t know tie/cup match), nor PERTURBS (the Latin city), HERBARIA (I haven’t seen “last” to refer to another clue before: a bit mean I thought) nor LITTLE MAN. Never heard of CLUMBER SPANIELS.

    A few enjoyable moments, but not enough smiles.

20. manehi @17, does the herbarium of all herbaria include itself?

21. YesMe2 @20
    🙂

22. Solved, with a few not parsed. It was more a surprise when I was building words rather than guessing from the definition and then more than half-parsing afterwards.

    My grandmother had a CLUMBER SPANIEL so that one surfaced from somewhere, CUPOLAED was my second attempt at that word, as I thought PO had to be included.

    I think I find Pangakupu tough as the parsing is often less than straightforward, plus the vocabulary is often unfamiliar. I did reflect as I solved this that this must be what it’s like as a solver from outside the UK who doesn’t have experience of hearing Londoners littering their speech with Cockney rhyming slang or Northerners chatting about how they’d got mortal and eaten a minging curry over the weekend.

    Thank you for the thorough blog manehi and Pangakupu for the puzzle.

23. I agree with many previous comments, tortuous being apt in several places. I managed it with a bit of guesswork, having never heard of herbaria/herbarium or cumulated, and unable to parse several. Overall I enjoyed the challenge, and liked 11a, 22a, 2d, 8d (which I should have got sooner) and 26a which made me laugh. 7d new to me, thanks Flea @15, also for spotting the Nina – I must remember to look for them with Pangakupu!
    Thanks to him and manehi

24. I thought BLUE was a homophone of SQUANDERED and wondered about the tense and lack of indicator. Now I remember..
    Tough but gettable. I liked CONFETTI, TIEBREAKER and the two long ones. Maybe collection was a typo in HERBARIA. I saw BARI but could not work out why HERA went round it, probably because it was a long time between the two solvings.
    Tanks both, I was out yesterday from 5am to 8:30pm so I did yesterdays two before this Things certainly got stickier as I progressed.

25. Unlike most of you, I rather enjoyed this solve. Agree with Geoff@19 about the use of “last” in 14a. Not very fair; surely the convention is to refer to the number of the clue. I was lucky in that I used to know a lady with several Clumbers so that went in straight away giving me lots of crossers.

26. Has somebody reversed the week? We had a Friday puzzle yesterday and a Thursday puzzle today. Or is it my senility finally taking hold. So CUPOLAED is an actual word. Has anyone ever used it or seen it other than in Collins dictionary? I liked PERTURBS and CONFETTI, but agree with muffin (1) a collection of herbs is a herbarium. A pity because I liked the clue otherwise.

27. Hard work, and not a lot of laughs, though I liked the PERT URBS and the papers covering union. Missed the RHEA in HERBARIA (a plural answer to a singular def) and the LITANY in LITTLE MAN: failed to parse CORNEA. I did wonder if the adjective CUPOLATE existed, until I spotted CUED. Ugly word.

28. Pangakupu remains firmly on the “don’t bother” list. In fact, he/she is the only one on it now after recent success with Vlad and is likely to stay there for a long time.
    Always good to read the blog.
    Thanks both.

29. nicbach@24: Blue in this sense is a verb: to squander. Squandered would be “blued”.

30. GDU@19 : “BLUE” appears at blue (2) in my Chambers 2003. Also found this piece of research / quotation :

    In A Pocketful of Rye, a 1953 mystery by Agatha Christie, Lance Fortescue says, “I blued my pocket money, he saved his.”

    CUPOLAED is an ugly word but it’s a good one for setters wiylrlth its tricky “ae” combo in there.

    Mulling over 23a, mamma mia, I found this

    https://youtu.be/pODVOuWBkqQ

    So old, I remember it well ! A musical “Bono” before the Irishman, Sonny was killed in a skiing accident in 1998. It’s a pity the snow hadn’t MELTed that day.

31. I probably would have let this go through to the keeper on another day, but I agree with TT @16 and others about CUPOLAED, not just an ugly word, but for a standard cryptic, really? OK, it’s in Collins and probably elsewhere so it qualifies and was gettable from wordplay and crossers as my last in, but it was an obscurity that just didn’t appeal to me. Sorry, maybe just me being a grump.

    I slowed to a crawl up in the NE with all those Italian/Latin references which I eventually solved though I couldn’t parse HERBARIA – v. clever. BLUE for ‘squander’ or waste has appeared in a few places lately. I liked our canine companions at 7d and the tricky ‘Organ part’ def for CORNEA.

    Thanks to Pangakupu and manehi

32. A nitpick: the cornea is a tissue, the eye is its organ

33. Contender for dullest puzzle of the year.

34. Angus @32. Definition was ‘organ part’

35. I prefer to think of a CROSSING as an opportunity for the pedestrian rather than a barrier to the motorist. Just because a puzzle is hard, it doesn’t mean it’s boring.

36. Some of the comments today seem excessively harsh. This was a nice steady solve for me. CLUMBER SPANIELS was my fave. Thanks, Pangakupu and manehi.

    I think I’ve only ever come across this meaning of blue in crosswords – specifically one by Phi not very long ago. Have the two setters been sharing notes?

37. Widdersbel@36. They are the same person but I find the Guardian one harder.

38. What a lot of grumps here and in the graun comments today! For me, tortuous parsing is another form of wit, and it was there aplenty. If anybody needs some CONFETTI (my favourite, BTW) just let me know: as there was a confirmation just after my son’s wedding on Saturday, the priest said he’d prefer us to just use the bubbles.

39. I really enjoyed the challenge today! Failed only on the parsing of HERBARIA.

    Don’t really get the grumbles – it looks a pretty fair and interesting puzzle with some nice touches.

    CONFETTI was my favourite.

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi

40. I enjoyed it, but a bit of a struggle to finish.

    I liked CONFETTI for the definition, VITAL, now that manehi has explained the parsing, and the two long ones although I didn’t know CLUMBER. BLUE = squander is in Chambers, although the ODE says it’s dated. I’m not sure that I really liked the ‘last’ anagram, (indirect?)

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi.

41. Petert @37 – it’s funny, I often struggle with Phi but generally get on well with Pangakupu. But I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe something in the editing.

42. widders @41: to purloin a setter’s phrase – quite the reverse. I pretty much always do fine on a Phi-day in the Independent. I have struggled with most Pangakupus. Today being no exception.

43. CONFETTI at 17a was also my favourite (former marriage celebrant speaking) (sorry paddymelon). Thanks to Pangakupu for a challenging puzzle which took me quite a while to solve, thought I thought it was well worth the effort. Thanks for spotting the NINA, Flea. That added to my appreciation of the puzzle; as always the comments on 15² add to my experience. I appreciated the blog too, so thanks also to manehi.

44. In the context of squander, I would expect ‘blew’ not ‘blue’, but maybe I am wrong.

45. How did that happen? Mucking around with the sign-in I suspect, as I just changed my email address with kenmac’s help. Back to normal transmission as “Julie in Australia” now I hope.

46. I was so disappointed with CUPOLAED. Having only the top crossers, I thought it was going to be a more “sophisticated” word like CUPOLATE or CUPOLARY or something. Talking of “tortuous”, I noticed that that word fitted the slot for PERTURBS when you only have the first R and U.

    Definitely agree with the consensus here re: HERBARIA.

47. Way too hard for me. Annoyed with HERBARIA which I dismissed as a plural,

48. I don’t have a ‘do not attempt’ setter list but I do have a ‘brace myself’ list and Pangakupu is at the top of it. But this was his most accessible yet, for me. Which is all relative as it was still tough. As a few people have said, I got there in the end by helpful crossers, spotting definitions and sometimes parts of wordplay but not full parsings in far too many cases.

    Liked: DOUBLE-CROSSING, AMNESTY, INERT AND SKINNY.

    Thanks both.

49. pdm @ 2 – ‘papers covering union’ for CONFETTI made me smile as I recently wrote a clue for that word in an amateur puzzle and came up with the definition ‘match day projectiles’, which is equally tenuous, if not more so 🙂

50. A stand out puzzle, most enjoyable, thanks…

51. Thanks to Pangakapu and manehi for the morning’s amusement. CLUMBER SPANIELS was a jorum, and TIE as a cup match didn’t click. It all comes out in the wash.

52. Not sure I’ve ever seen “last” used in a clue like this before. I could have stared at it for hours and not once guessed that it meant ‘the answer to the previous clue’.

    I don’t mind it, it’s rather clever, just a new one on me and I’ve been solving these on and off for 30 years. 5 down is a lovely word, although like others I assumed CUPOLATE must be the answer given the letters.

    And “Papers covering union” is delicious as a reference to CONFETTI – although I suspect it’s cropped up elsewhere

53. Thanks for the blog, great puzzle , so refreshing to have a setter who concentrates on the word play. CUPOLAED ,and LITTLE MAN are superb constructions, HERBARIA a very clever idea. Another setter I would like to see more often.
    BLUE seems a strange word in this sense, basically blue=blow as in squander but blued=blew.
    The rational numbers are basically fractions, surprisingly they number the same as the natural numbers or integers , Aleph 0 . The irrational numbers are far denser on the number line and number Aleph 1 .

54. Harrisimo@52
    A union’s downfall? (8) -A clue in an FT puzzle by Mudd.

55. Thanks both.

    I was expecting not to enjoy this but I did, which only goes to show. CLUMBER SPANIELS was a jorum for me too and lit up the experience, followed quickly by smiles for COPYCAT (for the definition) and PERTURBS (for the wordplay). Perhaps CUPOLAED and HERBARIA were shoe-horned in to allow for the nina but it’s a cryptic and the occasional obscurity is to be expected.

    Good quality stuff imho.

56. Count me among those who approved of this one. The first few went in so easily I feared it might be almost a write-in, but it got much more interesting.

    Don’t really understand a lot of the objections. OK, HERBARIA sounds like a plural to me, but I thought the clueing was neat and let’s face it, HERBARIUM wouldn’t fit anyway.

    Andy Smith@44, “he blued his income…” is a slight archaism, I think, but is certainly fine.

57. Charles @56
    HERBARIA doesn’t just “sound like” a plural, it is a plural. The problem could vey easily have been avoided by giving “Collections“. Maybe just a Grauniad misprint?

58. Anyone else google “chobble spaniel”?
    I enjoyed the wordplay overall, but missed the vital bit of VIAL. I thought it was a weakish CD, but now I see it’s much cleverer.
    Thanks, Panga and manehi.

59. Regarding “ord”. An “ordinary” degree is one without “honours”, and is usually referred to as an Ord.

    (Working at a university made this one rather easier, perhaps!)

60. It was a bit of a slog and some Guinness slowed me down but I completed it. However it wasn’t much fun and that is what I am looking for in a cryptic: fun and elegance. Maybe tomorrow?

61. I always used ‘blew’ for squandered, never have I come across blue with that meaning, and I’m really old!

62. Well, struggled/fought my way to the bitter end with this today, without a great deal of pleasure. Came on here then to verify CUPOLAED and CLUMBER SPANIELS…

63. I’m with those who found this to be quite a tough puzzle and an enjoyable one, with many good clues. I missed the parsing of a few of them but have caught up with everything now. While solving I simply concluded that ‘collection’ was an unfortunate misprint for the definition of HERBARIA. I too am grateful to Flea for pointing out the nina – which I should have thought of looking for but forgot.

    Thanks to Pangakupu and manehi.

64. Maybe we’re getting better because we delay our glass of wine until after we’ve finished! Which we invariably do, by fair means or foul. Which means bung and check if we aren’t sure, and reveal if it’s above our pay grade, as in Clumber Spaniel.
    I rarely LOL but PERTURBS did make me chortle.

65. I’m with Frances@61, both in the Nho blue in this sense, plus the “being very old”. Thoroughly enjoyed the blather and the banter today. The more I read, the more I enjoyed the crossword post partum as it were, and love that there was a nina too.

66. Thanks manehi as I didn’t understand the non-port part of (last in) 14a (13A was first in which really didn’t help did it!), the list of 23a (very good) and this sense of BLUE. I also thought that 3d was the wrong way round (into would have made as much sense and worked better i reckon) though the answer was clear (and thanks drswirly@59 for a good sense of “ord”). But i want to put in a word for 5d, this (and 6d and 7d) gave me a lovely warm glow of jorum and I can even imagine working it into conversation, though perhaps not in a way that the Guardian would approve. Thanks for an enjoyable challenge Pangakupu.

    [PS reading through recent blogs, good to know I am not the only one who has found it tough going recently, some excellent puzzles but only Qaos last week was quicker than my long term average, i reckon. Which is not a complaint as I have enjoyed them a lot but been away and not had time to read/comment, and was wondering if my increased beer consumption was inversely correlated with solving competence. Which may of course also be true.]

67. First Graun puzzle in a while & trust me to pick a Toughie. Had to look up CLUMBER & found the NE very tricky. CUPOLAED my fav.
    Thanks both

68. Didn’t know CLUMBER but well clued. I started very slowly but ok after that. CONFETTI was good.
    Thanks both

69. Gosh that was a slog. Did not complete in the end with HERBARIA. Have come across ‘blue’ in the sense of spending profligately in a couple of novels recently, both written in the UK in the 1930s (Somerset Maugham’s “Christmas Holiday” and Francis Iles’ “Before the Fact” – the latter was the basis for Hitchcock’s “Suspicion”). Thanks Manehi for too many parsings to mention.

70. 2 clues solved today.

    Everything makes so much sense when it is so clearly explained here, but without it I am lost.

71. Steffen @70. Good to see your name keeps cropping. It means you’re not giving up, despite this week’s puzzles being a bit tougher.

72. Very late to this party (I’m a fortnight behind, with an hour or two on a rare lazy Saturday to enjoy catching up with a handful of recent puzzles)
    In spite of the delay, I feel bound to comment.
    None of the moans or quibbles some (too many) have voiced here, save the repeated Zoilist wailing over HERBARIA which was most likely a typo, are of substance in my opinion…… I admit to being an erstwhile Phi fan (I’ve curtailed Indy solving until less busy) but, even putting my partiality to one side, this was a fine crossword without a single duff clue. It may not be one of this very talented, and prolific, compiler’s masterpieces but it was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. A fine crossword for which I’m most grateful. As I am to manehi, one of our wonderful bloggers, so generous with their time, who help to welcome others to our pastime not unlike Steffen! (and a few lurkers I’d hazard)

73. Phitonelly @58. Yes, we googled “chobble spaniel” and it gave us your comment, but sadly the page excerpt shown in the brief results included the real answer.

Comments are closed.