Guardian No 29,779 by Pangakupu

59 comments on “Guardian No 29,779 by Pangakupu”

1. Another enjoyable puzzle with likes for FAUVIST, MOLIÈRE, PISA, BEHIND BARS, BRASSIERE, INDENTURE, ERSATZ and JOUST. EPHEMERIS was new and I couldn’t parse PARALLEL BARS. My dictionary has ARAWHATA as meaning ladder.

   Ta Pangakupu & manehi.

2. Very difficult. I only solved 8 clues on first pass and even they were a struggle.

   New for me: BUMBLE, PRESSURE = Trump, say; THEWS; BASS FIDDLE; kinkajou; BIOTECH – I don’t really understand what it is even after reading its definition in dictionary = the use of living parts such as cells or bacteria in industry and technology – what does that have to do with green energy?

   I couldn’t parse 11ac, 27ac apart from PEER, 2d, 14d, 20d.

3. I parsed 25 as BRASSERIE moving one letter (the I) forward

4. I read 25a as BRASSERIE (a French bar/restaurant), moving one letter. Interesting that the instruction works, though differently, for both the full words and the abbreviations.

5. Michelle @2 Trump say was just the “pres” bit.

6. I wondered if the ARAWHATA meaning ladder meant we’d got to the 39th puzzle – so 39 steps?

   I enjoyed this, although I chuntered mentally about the definition of PETRUCHIO. I saw an interesting staging of The Taming of the Shrew (at the Globe, complete with Christopher Sly) when Kate was portrayed as much put upon and Bianca as agent provocateur winding her older sister up to look bad and then appearing sweet and innocent in contrast. It didn’t resolve Petruchio’s “taming” of Kate.

   Thank you to Manehi and Pangakupu

7. Thanks Pangakuppu and manehi.
   Enjoyed the puzzle. Great blog.

   BRASSIERE
   I had two parsings
   BRASSERIE with I (one) moving
   Bar with a (one) moving

   michelle@2
   BIOTECH
   Biofuels, biogas etc., are alternatives to fossil fuels.

8. I parsed 25A in the same way as Quirister & prospero – otherwise, what’s with the “ssiere” part?
   In Britain the 19A instrument is called a Double Bass. I felt sure the first word was BASS, but had to search online to find names of orchestral instruments that would fit.
   The 17D animal was new to me, as was the almanac. I guessed RED GIANT as, for me, “rant” is a bit of a stretch as a synonym for “storm”. I agree with Michelle about BIOTECH, and chuntered as much as Shanne about the assumption in PETRUCHIO.
   On the whole, a bit of a struggle – but at least I completed it, which is more than usually happens with this setter.
   Thank you manehi for the explanations.

9. My phone had a software update and I can’t even access Crosswords via “Recently Visited” now. Having seen Pasquale mentioned, I wrongly assumed it was him.

   I found this tough but good and had it all solved and parsed. I had to check a few words in the dictionary and manehi clarified the contrary nature of AMOEBA.

   BASS FIDDLE: who knew?!

   Thanks Pangakupu, manehi et al

10. Shanne @6: My comment on P’s last cryptic in July was
    Pangakupu @10: ‘I imagine you have already taken ‘steps’ towards the next one’ so I’m sure you’re correct.

11. KINKAJOU, THEWS, PETRUCHIO, EPHEMERIS new to me, or certainly unfamiliar, but I was able to get each as a result of time, crossers and the clueing itself.

    A few others unparsed/not easily parsed, and BRASSIERE misdirected me for long enough that it was amongst the last handful in.

    As with yesterday, a tough but enjoyable one.

12. The one I couldn’t fully parse was BUMBLE, as I’d forgotten about the beadle and couldn’t see the trick of removing the U from BLUE. But I thought “What the Dickens…I’ll bung it in.”

13. The one I couldn’t fully parse was BUMBLE, as I’d forgotten about the beadle and couldn’t see the trick of removing the U from BLUE. But I thought “What the Dickens…I’ll bung it in.”

14. Martin@5 – thanks for explaining, and also KVa@7, thanks for the info on biotech.

15. I always like it when a wordplay staple is “promoted” to definition, so I enjoyed BRASSIERE. I really enjoyed this.

16. Shane @6 + AlanC@10 agree re the Nina. I was expecting something like steps after 38 last time. I mentioned it in the tail end of the blog. 40 is whā tekau. Perhaps an option for next time. Enjoyed the puzzle and blog. Thanks.

17. I kept thinking I was stuck with this and then found that another clue fell. Fun to do, though nho THEWS or KINKIJOU and I failed on the latter. Should have just followed the instructions!
    Thanks all.

18. I’ve vaguely heard of a BASS FIDDLE, though always thought it a slang term rather than genuine terminology, but am not convinced by ‘fiddle’=’trifle’ even as verbs. I liked BUMBLE (as soon as I saw ‘minor official’ I thought ‘beadle!’ before reading the rest of the clue). Failed to parse BRASSIERE but liked the puzzle overall.

19. Did the puzzle (with quite some use of check, alas) as I wanted to know the maori Nina 🙂 Didn’t know BASS FIDDLE, KINKAJOU, THEWS, EPHEMERIS or BUMBLE but they were more or less guessable from the clues… Thanks Pangakupu and manehi!

20. I enjoy doing cryptics on my daily commutes but something like this could turn me into the Incredible Hulk.I’m glad that most of you enjoyed it but I know what I would avoid in future.Thanks Manehi,you are indeed a brilliant solver.

21. A slow but fun solve with many challenging elements. Liked KINKAJOU (one of those animals that only live in crossword land) and BEACHWEAR.

    Thanks Manehi ( a few today i wanted to check my workings on) and Pangakupu

22. AMOEBA
    “A in possession of B”
    Does A possess B, or does B possess A?

23. A really good challenge. Perhaps on the gentler side for a Pangakupu (?) There were a few in the SE that held me up, including KINKAJOU (the last in) as I’d never heard of it. My favourite FAUVIST has always been Matisse. With thank to both.

24. Oh, it’s that blasted A=are again, which I always forget as a possibility. No wonder I couldn’t sort out the anagram for AD HOMINEM. Didn’t know EPHEMERIS could mean almanac either, though an almanac is clearly ephemeral. Or is almanac an example of a piece of ephemera (which I didn’t know had a singular EPHEMERIS)?

    Quite a few clues on the arts side of the great divide today, with PETRUCHIO, BUMBLE, MOLIERE and FAUVIST. I don’t usually like sliding-letter clues, but I enjoyed BRASSIERE.

25. Thanks both.

    I’m now finding Pangakupu more accessible but words like EPHEMERIS and THEWS (and ERSATZ?) lead to a reinforcement of the view that theme-based puzzles are inevitably more convoluted, which can mean more pencil-chewing for the solver with concomitant downplusses for the setter in review. But each is entitled to their foibles and its all part of the rich tapestry and today’s experience has moved me away from the duck and more towards the dive.

    Ich habe nicht (well, kleine (and in reality that’s your lot)) Deuthsch so the parsing of ERSATZ was irritatingly beyond me. (Muss drei addierer?)

26. It seems I was on Pangakupu’s wavelength this morning – a steady and enjoyable solve for me. Not knowing much about music actually helped me, because I was not aware that BASS FIDDLE is not the formal name in the UK, so wasn’t tripped up by it!

    My only gripe is A for “Are”. I grew up during the transition from Imperial to Metric, but perhaps this is not obscure to those a little younger?

27. Were BARS a micro-mini theme? In 1A and 13A, but also in 25A BRASSERIE before alteration. All more or less parallel in position. 🙂

28. Jay@22
    AMOEBA
    (Collins says: If you are in possession of something, you have it, because you have obtained it or because it belongs to you)
    AMBA in possession of OE—>AMBA possesses OE.
    Seems all right. What is your take?

29. KVa@28, I think it’s interesting because (perhaps) it can work in both directions. E.g.
    The police are in possession of the stolen goods.
    The stolen goods are in the possession of the police.

30. I would never have thought of CO-OPTED or BRASSERIE, so thanks manehi.

    I also think that “minor official” to “beadle’ to Mr. BUMBLE is an improbable stretch. I never have known what a beadle actually did, though, and this was an incentive to google it.

    I did know THEWS from many, many Tarzan books I read as kid, which had lots of references to our hero’s mighty thews. I’ve never seen the word since. Fun factoid — did you know Tarzan had a slight French accent? The first human language he learned was French, I forget from whom (and way past the language-learning threshold), and that affected his English when he learned it next. He also was a language-learning whiz. He was constantly encountering somebody from an unknown culture and picking up his (it was always his) language as they hiked through the jungle. Even struggling as I was at the time with conjugating French verbs, I never thought of how improbable that was.

    Thanks, Pangakapu and manehi.

31. Jay @29 etc. Agreed, the “possession” tactic in cryptics always has me wondering which way round? I also dread the cycling ruse as I never know what the instruction is.

32. Slow start for me but I was eventually able to crack it with AMOEBA and MOLIERE and then work out the top half, and then the bottom. Faves FAUVIST with the clever misdirection that it looked like an anagram of “artist” and BEACHWEAR with the maze of EAs. Couldn’t quite parse AD HOMINEM (“are” got me again) and couldn’t at all parse OPTED.

    BASS FIDDLE is slang in the US as well, the standard terms being double bass or contrabass or string bass or just bass or slightly more informally bass violin (though they’re tuned in fourths)! I was a bit dubious about whether a bass fiddle could be an orchestra member, but not all orchestras are symphony orchestras; maybe a jazz or western swing orchestra could have a bass fiddle.

    Thanks Pangakupu and manehi!

33. All done. A very enjoyable solve, with the perfect difficulty level. Thanks to precise clueing I managed to get all my nhos: 4d EPHEMERIS, 5d BUMBLE (loi), 17d KINKAJOU, 24d THEWS

    Favourites included 1a PARALLEL BARS (for “likes” for the first word), 13a BEHIND BARS (mixologist??)

    KVa@28, Jay @29, I think the “the” makes the difference
    A is in possession of B = A possesses B
    A is in the possession of B = B possesses A

34. Those of us of a certain age might remember the Guinness advert: “My Goodness, My Guinness. Just think what a Kinkajou can do!”
    Thanks to Pangakapu and Manehi

35. Thanks Pangakapu and manehi.
    Those of us of age may remember the Guinness advert: “My Goodness, My Guinness, just think what a Kinkajou can do!”

36. Thanks both,
    I was grateful for a chewy puzzle today as it kept me amused while waiting for a hospital appointment. Three minor things, all now on the way to being fixed – thanks NHS.

37. Jacob@26: “Are” on its own is probably a bit obscure but most people will be familiar with the hectare, being one hundred are (about 2.5 acres). Its SI symbol is “ha” where the “h” is the standard prefix for one hundred of something and “a” is “are”. It’s a bit like “decibel” (“dB”) which means one tenth of a bel – the base unit is the bel but almost no-one uses that.

    Many thanks Pangakupu and manehi.

38. Jay@29 and Mig@33
    Thanks

39. For 23D, my starting point for ‘in great detail’ was ELABORATE rather than ORNATE, which left me rather wondering what ELAB had to do with ‘note’.

40. Although I completed the puzzle, I needed manehi’s blog to explain the parsing of FAUVIST and the signifance of “his love” in PETRUCHIO. So thanks to setter and blogger.
    (Yet again I’m having to fill in my details before posting this. What is the point of ticking “Remember me” if it doesn’t remember me???)

41. Bass-fiddle is a cello not a double bass, at least in Percy Grainger’s music which is the only place I’ve ever seen the word – he hated using foreign terms so avoided ‘cello/violoncello’’. Appreciated the ‘are’ explanation, thanks JofT@37, and manehi, and Pangakupu!

42. (Put another way, I challenge anyone to show me an orchestral double bass part headed ‘bass fiddle’. The only orchestral parts I’ve seen with this heading are Grainger’s cello parts)

43. Hadrian @42. As it’s the slang the players in an orchestra (or band) use themselves, surely bass fiddle is fine.

44. I’ve never heard anyone in an orchestra say bass fiddle for double bass that’s all, slang or otherwise, if a fellow orchestral player knows otherwise please post!

45. Didnt spot the parsing for “ersatz” but knew it meant substitute

46. I played the cello in my youth (it’s been a while) and never heard it called a bass fiddle. However, I recalled the term, albeit vaguely. Google says: A bass fiddle is an informal name for a double bass, which is the largest and lowest-pitched member of the violin family of instruments. …So seems fine to me.

47. Seems like this was a generally enjoyable crossword, but still with plenty to whine about. Hey ho.

48. Nuntius@46 Google also thinks a double bass can be called a bass viol, it’s not very reliable.

49. Having recently watched the film Some Like It Hot where Jack Lemmon’s character repeatedly refers to his Double Bass as a Bass Fiddle I had no problem with that one – mind you it was more of a swing band than an orchestra

50. First time I’ve finished a pangakupu. Thanks for the puzzle.

51. The definition for the BASS FIDDLE clue is simply ‘Member of orchestra’ – so whether it is actually a cello, a double bass or even some other instrument is irrelevant.

    Liked the puzzle. Nothing else to add.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

52. Beaulieu@51- agreed, I never questioned the clue itself 😊

53. I have two problems with this setter.

    On which syllable(s) of his name does the stress fall?

    Is the “ng” pronounced as in singer or in single?

    Whatever, as said, this puzzle was fun.

    Thanks all.

54. I cam here for the ‘A’ in AD HOMINEM and the ‘SSIERE’ in BRASSIERE. Suitably chastened.

    However an are is not an SI unit, as it’s not directly derived from the base units. The SI unit of area would be the square metre (m2). Also, ‘hect(o)-‘ is not a standard SI multiplier, only the powers of 1000 are. However we are starting to see the hectopascal (hPa) creep in as a unit of atmospheric pressure as the value is numerically equal to the millibar.

55. Phil @54: The BIPM would disagree with you about “hecto” – see here.

56. Are we all happy with ‘confab’ meaning ‘discussion’? I’d say ‘conflab’ with ‘confab’ meaning something like false memory syndrome.

57. Grant@56.. should you ever read this… here’s a nice article on conflab vs confab. Confab (short for confabulation) seems to win the etymological and historical prizes at least, the ‘disorder’ definition being a 20th century one, post abbreviation

58. Today’s puzzle is brought to you by the letter “B”!
    Hard work but we got there.

59. Finished just now, having accidentally buried this under several other Guardians since starting it a week ago. I had been struggling with the ‘artist’ in 11a, but when I saw how FAB the right wing politics are, this gave me a new way to read the clue, and to insert UV. A very satisfying solve.

    Several jora for me, but they were all capable of being constructed from the wordplay. Praise for this setter, as some, mentioning no names, but OK, very often Pasquale will use an anagram for a difficult word, leaving eight possible answers. Grr.

    Thanks to setter and blogger as always, even one week late.

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