Guardian Cryptic 29,677 by Pangakupu

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29677.

My apologies for the late blog; if I fell asleep while solving it, it is no reflection on the crossword. I had got very llittle sleep the previous night. The fourth row gives TAPA WHA, Maori for four sides, which is widely used as a model of health, the four sides being physical, spiritual, family and mental health.

ACROSS
1 ACCORDS
Agrees Bill should have trousers (7)
A charade of AC (‘account’) plus CORDS (coruroy, ‘trousers’).
5 STEWPAN
Pot: certain thing ineffectual people rejected (7)
A reversal (‘rejected’) of NAP (‘certain thing’) plus WETS (‘ineffectual people’).
10, 27 ONCE-OVER
Survey part of cricket match involving clubs (4-4)
An envelope (‘involving’) of C (‘clubs’, eg bridge recotds) in ONE OVER (‘part of cricket match, generally a small part).
11 SCHOOL TERM
When one may have studied fish tail? (6,4)
A charade of SCHOOL (‘fish’) plus TERM (‘tail’).
12 CARDIO
Hard exercising with jacket half on (6)
A charade of CARDI (cardigan, ‘jacket’) plus O (‘half On’).
13 KNEADING
Confused Dane cornered by Claudius? There’s the rubbing (8)
An envelope (‘cornere by’) of NEAD, an anagram (‘confused’) of ‘dane’ in KING (‘Claudius?’ by example – there are many others than the one in Hamlet).
14 PATCH TEST
Touch thorax, gathering temperature for allergy treatment (5,4)
An envelope (‘gathering’) of T (‘temperature’) in PAT (‘touch’) plus CHEST (‘thorax’). ‘Treatment’ is a little off: a patch test is used to identify the cause of a allergic reaction.
16, 17 WATERMELON
Fruit the writer tucked into now and later, after cooking (10)
An envelope (‘tucked into’) of ME (‘the writer’) in WATERLON, an anagram (‘after cooking’) of ‘now’ plus ‘later’. Note tht the answer spans two lights, with each light containing a viable word.
17
See 16
19 BESPANGLE
Augment with bling, especially in a bracelet (9)
An envelope (‘in’) of ESP (‘especially’) in BANGLE (‘a bracelet’).
23 FEISTIER
Row after Irish festival gets more spirited (8)
A charade of FEIS (“Irish festival’) plus TIER (‘row’).
24 OTTAWA
Capital city, extravagant? Mostly sleeping (6)
A charade of OTT (over the top, ‘extravagant’) plus AWA[y] (‘sleepimg’) minus its last letter (‘mostly’).
26 LIONS SHARE
Harness oil at sea for the most part (5,5)
AN anagram (‘at sea’) of ‘harness oil’.
27
See 10
28 ASCENDS
Orchestra finally directs adopting C scales (7)
An envelope (‘adopting’) of ‘C’ in A (‘orchestrA finally’) plus SENDS (‘directs’).
29 UTRECHT
Dutch city, ancient city, realistic about introduction of tourism (7)
An envelope (‘about’) of T (‘introduction of Tourism’) in UR (‘ancient city’) plus ECHT (‘realistic’, a word borrowed from the German and Dutch)
DOWN
2 CANTATA
Mug repeatedly cheers choral work (7)
A charade of CAN (‘mug’, collowuial, of beer) plus TA TA (‘repeatedly cheers’).
3 OREAD
Nymph appearing in promotional material for quarry? (5)
ORE AD.
4 DISPORT
Daughter is left to fool around in books (7)
A charade of D (‘daughter’) plus ‘is’ plus PORT (‘left’). ‘In books’ because the answer is highfalutin’ and archaic.
6 TROWEL
Garden implement right in drier surroundings (6)
An envelope (‘in … surroundings’) of R (‘right’) in TOWEL (‘drier’).
7 WITHDRAWN
Retiring comedian, stressed about source of humour (9)
An envelope (‘about’) of H (‘source of Humour’) in WIT (‘commedian’) plus DRAWN (stressed’).
8 ARRANGE
Called in a group of soldiers to plan (7)
An envelope (‘in’) of RANG (‘called’) on ‘a’ plus RE (Royal Engineers, ‘group of soldiers’).
9 SHAKESPEAREAN
Brandish weapon with energy over one of a theatrical disposition? (13)
A charade of SHAKE (‘brandish’) plus SPEAR (‘wepon’) plus E (‘energy’) plus AN (‘one’).
15 CLOISONNE
One young guy coming in to copy enamelwork (9)
An envelope (‘coming in to’) of I (‘one’, Roman numeral, or impersonal personal pronoun) plus SON (‘young guy’) in CLONE (‘copy’).
18 EMETICS
Assistance in bringing up English children at first in troubled times (7)
A charae of E (‘English’) plus METICS, an envelope (‘in’) of C (‘Children at first’) in METIS, an anagram (‘troubled’) of ‘times’. Nicely devious, with a very plausible surface.
20 PROJECT
Forecast for aircraft to sequester carbon (7)
An envelope (‘to sequester’) of C (chemical symbol, ‘carbon’) in PRO (‘for’, as opposed to ANTI) plus JET (‘aircraft’).
21 LOW TECH
Unsophisticated lust about anything vulgar (3,4)
An envelope (‘about’) of OWT (‘anything vulgar’ – I would say dialect rather than vulgar) in LECH (‘lust’).
22 HISSED
Was dismissive of chap’s second edition (6)
A charae of HIS (‘chap’s’) plus S (‘second’) plus ED (‘edition’).
25 TROPE
Figurative expression: very high note’s brought about end of mirror (5)
An envelope (‘brought about’) of R (‘end of mirroR‘) in TOP E (‘very high note’).

80 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,677 by Pangakupu”

  1. I enjoyed cracking this last night and it proved to be on the gentler side I thought. Two Māori words this time going across the grid, TAPAWHA, meaning four-sided, as pointed out by Peter, which seems apt and MIHARO meaning to admire, which I certainly did. I thought KNEADING was superb for the confused Hamlet reference to ‘there’s the rub’ along with SHAKESPEAREAN and also liked BESPANGLE (LOI), LIONS SHARE, UTRECHT and WITHDRAWN. I didn’t know CLOISONNÉ but it was fairly clued. Glad you slept well.

    Ta Pangakupu & PeterO.

  3. Well I enjoyed it too, though I found it at the harder end of Pangakupu’s puzzles. I agree with PeterO too, where I come from ‘OWT’ is definitely not vulgar!

    I thought BESPANGLE was splendid, CLOISONNÉ was new to me but I got there with the helpful clueing.

    Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO

  4. I find Pangakupu challenging as I don’t see eye-to-eye with his definitions much of the time. Nothing unfair about them usually – it’s just me. I would question “mug” though – if someone offered me a mug of beer and then gave me a can I think I would struggle to hide my disappointment. Also in betting, I thought a “nap” was a hot tip, but not exactly a sure thing. But then again, people often say they have a “sure thing” when they obviously don’t mean the horse could not possibly lose.

    Interestingly, “cloisonne” was a write-in from the definition for me. People have different GK and vocabularies.

    Took a while to fill in anything, but once a few crossers were in it gradually flowered, which is how a puzzle should be I reckon. Ta (ta) Pangakupu and PeterO.

  6. Thought some of these were a little overspecified, such as ‘in books’ for 3d, which isn’t required. If DISPORT is high falutin’, what is CLOISONNE?

    I think ECHT is more in the sense of ‘genuine’ than ‘realistic’, but ho hum.

    Nice to see FEIS make an appearance. It’s pronounced ‘faish’, though clearly not the case here.

  9. For 24A, I parsed AWA as “partly AWAke”, i.e. mostly sleeping.

    NHO FEIS but got there with the crossers. And I don’t understand how NAP is “a certain [sure?] thing”.

    Apart from that, this was a welcome relief after the severe beating I took the past two days.

  10. It’s interesting an antipodean setter, because there are words used here I’d quibble about in English English usage, but see the Australian solvers checking similar things in the opposite direction:

    poc@6 I wondered about DISPORT being labelled as “in books” as it’s in my idiolect – best teacher voice, though.

    and Jackoft @4 CAN for mug feels antipodean in use, we’d use jar, pint, beer, drink, quick one, swift half …. A can is a takeout, and inferior. Plus I know Yorkshire men who use OWT.

    Jacob@9 – a NAP is a betting thing, a top tip.

    Thank you to PeterO and Pangakupu.

  11. Nice puzzle. Chambers has DISPORT as literary, so I think “in books” works just fine in a literal sense. I also wondered about PATCH TEST being a treatment, but on further reflection diagnosis is the first step to an effective treatment, so that also works for me. Thanks to both.

  13. Also, for the OWT in LOW TECH, I read vulgar as common usage rather than rude, which I think is accurate. Meant to add above that EMETICS brought about the biggest chuckle of the day, having spent ages trying to work out a reversal.

  14. Agree with some quibbles which spoilt this for me. Specifically, I question NAP, TERM, AWAY, and directs for sends. Oh, and MUG too. 🤷‍♀️

  15. Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO
    I had several question marks too. I certainly wouldn’t equate mug with CAN. I wondered about TERM too – it’s part of words such as terminus and terminal, but does it mean “tail” by itself? DISPORT is also a word I use, not in books. I didn’t know the Irish festival.
    Favourites were two late ones, EMETIC and CLOISONNE.

  16. Just seen 9 and 10 above. Sorry. Missed that. Never heard of Nap in betting.
    Hard puzzle, but good.
    Thanks v v much, P and P

  17. EMETIC was my LOI after being misdirected as planned. Admired the SHAKESPEAREAN references for KNEADING. Neatly done. Knew the ‘echt’ part of UTRECHT from the line in The Waste Land (and agree with poc@6 that it means real or genuine, rather than realistic, but I think the latitude is fair in the clue). Didn’t know the Irish festival in FEISTIER, but the definition and the latter part of the wordplay made it clear. I’m with those who find Pangakupu tricky, and today, for me, was no exception. First pass was all blanks until I gratefully reached WATER MELON and then OTTAWA. I now realise I hadn’t parsed CARDIO. Thanks to Pangakupu and to Andrew (with sympathy for your sleep deprivation).

  18. A few unfamiliar terms today: didn’t know the Irish festival and have never experienced a PATCH TEST, and still not convinced that term=tail. But lots to enjoy: I liked BESPANGLE and LOW TECH. I think a “can” of beer was historically used for a mug, in the days before metal cans for beer existed. I’ve certainly seen someone in a novel set in the early 19th century talking of longing for “a can of beer”.

  19. For those interested in P’s nina/s they have been revealed.
    Looking up a Maori dictionary I found TAPAWHA (row 4) and MIHARO (row 10) were rendered as ”Magic Square”.

    Pangakupu has posted on the G thread:
    If you have a 4×4 magic square, the sum of each row/column/diagonal is 34.

    P has previously said that the nina/s are based on the order of his submissions. He said this would be his 34th.

  20. Hmmm… enjoyable for the most part but I have a problem with term=tail, nap=cert, mug=can, & owt=vulgar.

    However there were plenty of good clues to enjoy, BESPANGLE, KNEADING, OREAD and so on.

    As others have commented, it’s probably an antipodean thing, with which I have no problem. Vive la différence.

  21. A nap is what a tipster refers to as their most confident bet of the day. Apparently derived from the french card game Napoleon. Players would call NAP when confident of winning a hand.

  22. “Term” was a term I learnt in cryptics, ie the last letter of a word. I was looking for a reverse clue for SCHOOL TERM, with the first word ending in ‘h’, the last letter of a fish, ending in ‘h”, but it didn’t work with the rest of the wordplay. I note the QM.

  23. Gladys @18: a can of beer – certainly; a mug of beer – certainly, but that doesn’t mean the 2 are synonymous does it?

  24. I’m surprised at the quibbles re TERM. I was feeling pleased that I remembered seeing it used as meaning END several times in the past and I don’t have a problem with end = tail.

  27. I really liked the novel indicator ”in books” in DISPORT. Every online reference I looked up gave ”obsolete” or ” archaic”.

  29. Chambers has
    nap3
    noun
    1. The card game napoleon
    2. A call of five in that game
    3. The winning of five tricks
    4. A racing tip that professes to be a certainty, one that one may ‘go nap’ on

  32. Nap =best bet of the day
    The word itself is derived from the card game Napoleon. Quite simply a NAP Bet is someone’s best bet of the day and the one you should follow if you want to bet on just one horse.

  33. muffin @25 If you remember Beachcomber, you must have been exposed, as I was, to the Daily Express to an extent that bordered on the mental abuse of children. However, Dr Strabismus would go cross-eyed at your syntax – ‘whom God preserve’, please. I write this as a high-ranking member of the Society for the Preservation of Whom, which is a lexically endangered species.

  34. A “can” of beer nowadays would be a metal thing with a ring-pull, so I’m happy to concede that in 2025 it isn’t usually a mug. But it was once, and possibly might still be in some places? Yes, it’s a very stretchy synonym.

  37. At first, I solved the bottom half with large white blanks in the top. However, I got there in the end. I liked the definitions of CARDIO (no H for hard) and EMETIC. I also enjoyed the wordplay for WATER MELON among others.

    Thanks to pm @19 for the magic square 34, and to Pangakupu and PeterO.

  39. Too many antipodean references for ones liking, no not a racist observation, merely that Idont like them because I am not at all familiar with them. Can/mug pot/pan tapawhat! Please…

  40. Really enjoyed a steady journey through this till finally defeated by OREAD, PATCH TEST and CARDIO. Though I ought to have twigged that last one as earlier this morning I was having an EchoCARDIOgram at the wonderful Royal Papworth up the road…

  42. My French grandmother played nap, that’s what she called it. She taught me when I was very young, but didn’t think me strong enough to compete with her friends and I have completely forgotten the game. She also played bridge and I think if she had d played poker, she would have been a demon. She used to explain to me the possibility of unplayed cards, but while I could understand it, the mental gymnastics involved in a limited time scale were beyond me and remains so.
    I have no idea whether that interests anyone at all, so apologies if I’ve bored you
    Thanks P and P.

  43. NAP, FEIS and ECHT were new for me. Thanks PeterO for explaining.
    I also missed the second Māori word MIHARO.
    I liked so many of these clues, favourites were SHAKESPEAREAN, BESPANGLED, LOW TECH, LIONS SHARE.
    Thanks P&P.

  44. Re “nap”.As Tim C @29 explains,the game of Napoleon has 5 cards and 5 tricks to win.When I was a lad in South Yorkshire,and then Manchester,the local newspapers (the Green ‘Un,and the Pink) brought out football specials every Saturday evening,which were printed and on sale within an hour of the games finishing,which was nearly always about 4.45 in those,sorry,them,days.On rare occasions a headline would read “Owls go nap” or “City go nap” meaning that my team had scored 5 goals,so to me,”nap” can just mean “five”. I fear this usage may have died with the different coloured papers,unless anyone can tell me different.

  45. I think my favourite was EMETICS for the cleverly disguised definition. Like Crispy @24 I’m surprised at the number of queries about TERM — I think we quite often see it in clues meaning “end”.

    With SHAKESPEAREAN and the Hamlet reference in KNEADING, should this have appeared yesterday on Shakespeare’s birthday?

    Many thanks Pangakupu and PeterO.

  46. Balfour @33 In the (corrected) words of Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, Ever fallen in love with someone in love with whom you shouldn’t’ve fallen.

  47. Ditto Shanne @10 re owt, it was a Yorkshireman colleague who said If tha does owt for nowt, do it for tha Sen.

  48. If it weren’t for this page, I think I’d have been defeated. Not because I sneaked the answers, but because I like to turn up and say I completed it. It took me ages. I agonised between term and time, which were both still possible, before jumping the right way sans conviction. The books put me off as I was trying to cram in testaments old or new. Disport was my penultimate one in with a bit of cardio to finish. I liked bespangled and cloisonné because they were fun. Emetics was my favourite, as it was so well disguised. Bravo Pangakupu, thanks Peter and well done everyone else.

  49. CARL @47
    I refer you to the site policy.
    Martin N @49
    If the presence of Fifteensquared spurs you to complete a more difficult puzzle, it is doing a good job. Congratulations, and perhaps you might find one such less challenging next time (for example, you might salt away the end meaning of term; it has come up in recent puzzles, and may well appear again).

  50. Thanks both. Excellent puzzle and blog. Re the MUG discussion, I’m sure I recall that if someone was CANNED, it meant they had drunk too much (a MUG too many?).

  51. Thanks for the blog , very neat set of clues , tough to cold-solve but when using the grid I found a lot of helpful letters .
    The Guardian still carries racing tips from Greg Wood including a NAP and n.b. . It is easy to make a small fortune betting on the horses , just start with a large fortune .
    Japanese CLOISONNE ware is my favourite , the Ashmolean has a small but spectacular collection .

  52. My Yorkshire wife says there’s nowt vulgar about OWT, and as an excellent pastrycook considers KNEADING and rubbing quite distinct operations.

  53. Like Lord Jim @45, once I’d got KNEADING & SHAKESPEAREAN I assumed this was an April 23rd Theme. Then I checked today’s date.
    Maybe the crossword editor made a mistake…
    Alas I am never on this setter’s wavelength: STEWPAN was a guess because I could parse it, but the word itself was new to me; I do know the German word “echt”, but “realistic” is a pretty loose translation – and, although I appreciate Being Fair isn’t required of a setter, nevertheless some sort of hint about foreign vocab would have been kind…
    I don’t know owt about CLOISONNE (another new word for me) but, like poc @6, was amused at its being “gettable”, yet DISPORT was classed as archaic.
    Hey ho
    Thanks setter and blogger

  54. Too many basic errors to be fair or enjoyable, as pointed out by many above. Just for one, a test is never a treatment.

  55. Might the definition for PATCH TEST be “for allergy treatment”? You would need to know what was causing the reaction to give you a chance of treating it.

  56. ‘Can’ in the sense of a mug or glass is used by characters in Neville Shute’s novels. Landfall e.g:

    He stared at her. “What did I have?”

    “Steak and chips, and then you had a bit of Stilton cheese. And you had about three half cans of bitter.”

    He said, astonished, “You’re a clairvoyant.” She shook her head. “Then you smelt my breath.”

  57. The pettier the quibble, the better the crossword and almost all the ones I’ve seen today could have been resolved with a quick trip to dictionary corner

    Top ticks for EMETIC, KNEADING & SCHOOL TERM

    Carl@47 the jumbled messes you refer to may be anagrams?

    Cheers P&P

  58. WBE @57
    Not convinced – he could have drunk the beer straight from the (small) cans. Why does it equate to mugs?

  60. Roz@52 [ That was Ronnie Scott’s recommendation for making a fortune playing jazz. The horses were another reason he didn’t.]

  61. I didn’t really get how “asleep” meant AWA[Y] in 24ac, but Chambers does include “Out of existence, life, or consciousness” as one of the definitions for “away”.

    I didn’t know the betting meaning of NAP, and I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered the word STEWPAN, but with the crossers in place it had to be that. CARDI and FEIS were also unfamiliar words to me.

    I found this tougher than other Pangakupu puzzles, but I got there in the end.

  62. Coincidence of the day , CARDIO is the subject of Pass Notes in G2 , apparently it is now out of fashion .

  63. I usually find Pangakupu’s puzzles on the easy side but this one provided quite the challenge for me. I had a lot of white in my grid till I found SHAKESPEAREAN which got me over the hump. While there were several words needed for the solve that may have been technically correct, I would never have known that without googling or Chambers and I prefer to avoid both.

  64. Remember that Chambers is “descriptive”, so frequently includes definitions that most people would regard as incorrect.

  65. Was I the only one that got 1 down as that other musical term, CONTATA, thinking that to ‘mug’ was to ‘con’?

  66. Shelleysheldon @65
    I hadn’t heard of CONTATA, but, having Googled, I think it’s actually a better solution. I’m not going to be convinced about mug=can, whatever Chambers might say!

  68. Thanks PeterO for usual clear explanations, AlanC for full appreciation of KNEADING ( not knowing my bard, would have preferred Knut but that loses the rub ref), Fatblackcat for the nap etymology – i recall the term from dad’s papers in my youth. Jack@4 is spot on again as I got lucky in knowing CLOISONNÉ from watch dials and FEIS from whisky. Thanks for a stiff challenge Pangakupu.

  69. muffin@25, Balfour@33
    Yes, I remember Dr Strabismus, Captain Foulenough, Mr Justice Cocklecarrot and the rest. I seem to remember a Beachcomber anthology in the school library, then my university landlady took the Daily Express. I have a more recent anthology edited by Richard Ingrams that you may have prompted me to look at again. Then I’ll have to look at the cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn by Miles na Gopaleen of which I have 3 small volumes.

  70. GeeDubya@67 And not only in the world of antiques; not so long ago I visited a local pottery and bought a set of four small coffee mugs described by the potter as ‘coffee cans’.

  71. I may not be aware of “antipodean” references as I’m from these parts myself. I çan’t speak for NZ speakers of English, but I think this crossword was just Pangakupu being Pangakupu.

    Have never heard ”can” for mug , or ”nap”, or ”stewpan”, which Collins gives as archaic British English, and contemporary US English. Collins gives 6 citations of “stewpan” from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. (I have heard of her, and her book, published in 1861.).

    As per Shanne@10, I’m one of the Australian solvers checking similar things in the opposite direction.There was quite a lot of UnKnown GK and vocabulary for me.

    Don’t have a problem with kneading/rubbing. Massage comes to mind. Thanks AlanC@1 for the Hamlet reference.

  72. Shelleysheldon @65, muffin @66
    As I read the Google results, the word CONTATA only exists in the weird and wonderful world of AI, and I only hope we have not reached the stage where that is reason enough to accept it.

  73. Surprised that several solvers don’t appreciate that vulgar has (at least) two meanings. Since “owt” isn’t a word that you see in (formerly) broadsheet newspapers, it definitely qualifies as vulgar in one of the meanings.

  74. Can we have relative reflectivity indices or reflectances for the extent of polish to clue surfaces, please?

    Many of these were close to 100% I thought.

    Well done, Pang, and thanks to all.

  75. This ran into tomorrow, but worth the struggle, the only unfairness (editorial miss?) being TEST for treatment. Not ‘on the gentler side’ (AlanC@1) for me, or for most looking at the rest of the comments. On Panga’s wavelength I am not, but he’s clearly a great setter, thanks both

  76. Another completion this afternoon, prior to starting today’s, Hadrian@75!
    Thanks P&P for excellent puzzle/blog as we have come to expect.

  77. Thanks, Pangakupu, from halfway around the world for the shoutout to my hometown at 24a.

    I share the general praise for the superb surface and wordplay of 18d EMETIC, my COD.

    I was another who would have solved 4d DISPORT much more quickly if the clue hadn’t included “in books”.

    Re 14a, since the only cure for an allergy is avoidance, a PATCH TEST seems to me to be the closest thing to a treatment that you can have.

    Thanks P&P for the excellent entertainment.

  78. Coming in late as I’ve been catching up on the puzzles this week, but I wanted to leave this song as the reason I knew CLOISONNE. Tough but fair for me, had a lot of fun working it out! Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO.

  79. Sorry, I did not enjoy this one at all and threw in the towel with eight clues unsolved. FYI, echt is German for real. And I have a lingering memory of nap having something to do with five rather than a cert.

  80. Solved one more than Brian Bollen — seven short of a full deck. Too many nho’s, including STEWPAN (nor “nap” for sure thing), OREAD, CLOISONNE, DISPORT

    13a KNEADING had a great surface — meaningful, and completely misdirecting

    OTTAWA, nice to have a rare Canadian reference. I thought Cellomaniac would be pleased!

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