Guardian 29,831 – Pangakupu

74 comments on “Guardian 29,831 – Pangakupu”

1. Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew
   A couple of oddities. “basis” in 8a should really be “base”. We had the “chamber/pot” thing recently – it’s called a chamber pot because it’s a pot(ty) put in a chamber, i.e. a bedroom. The chamber isn’t the pot, whatever Chambers (!) may misguidedly say.
   “Sale” in 5d is strange too.
   1d is a bit weak.
   I hadn’t heard of SQUIB in that sense, though I had heard of TURDUCKEN!
   Favourite 1a.

2. Thanks Andrew. Never knew that the E for the base in logarithms came from E for Euler.
   BREWER’S DROOP I still don’t get it.

3. I enjoyed this immensely last night and eventually found the lucky number 41, WAIMARIE, on the fourth row for the setter’s numerical quest. I loved all the perimeter clues, especially BREWERS DROOP, which made me chuckle. I didn’t know EDDINGTON but the wordplay was fair and I knew EULER which surprised me. (I did A-level maths but still feel so ignorant in that area). Other favourites were BOTANIC, KRONE, SPRINGBOK, TUDUCKEN, SAFFRON and OVEREAT. Great workout.

   paddymelon @2: nor does the man who has it😊

   Ta Pangakupu & Andrew.

4. Paddy @2:
   I refer you to Macbeth, Act 2 scene 3 where the Porter tells Macduff “Drink, sir, is a great provoker…
   Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”.
   Brewer’s Droop is a slang term for the taking away of the performance.

5. I found this an odd mix too though I was pleased to see Arthur Eddington and Leonhard Euler get mentioned. Quite a few joining words which confused things I thought – “by” in “trope” is needed for the surface but misleads on the construction. Why is “brother’s written” a “sib” and not just “brother”? And a few went in from enumeration, to be parsed afterwards, which takes the fun away a little.

   Nevertheless, many fine clues and an enjoyable start to the morning’s puzzles. Perhaps later I’ll start work on “unch” which arrived yesterday.

   Many thanks Pangakupu and Andrew.

6. Euler worked out a remarkable equation which links e, pi (the ratio of circumference to diameter) and i (the square root of -1, a quantity which doesn’t actually exist): e to the power of i times pi, minus one, equals zero.
   A friend of mine, a maths graduate and a lifelong atheist, once remarked thoughtfully that Euler’s equation came nearer than anything else to making him believe in God.

7. [On 1d, I remember a short Jasper Carrott film which ends with the voiceover “think before you drink before you get your leg over”. You can imagine the rest!]

8. Isn’t “on stage” two words?

9. 23a Tum isn’t reversed, btw

10. NeilH @6 Euler’s equation is indeed a remarkable thing. I feel I have to point out that all numbers are abstract – you can point to one item of any kind but “one” as a concept exists independently of anything physical.

    There are probably many scientists with the name of Eddington, and very few even among scientists would probably recognise any of them. As AlanC @3 says though, the wordplay was straightforward. I still needed a couple of crossers to be confident it was correct.

11. AlanC @3 and NeilH@4. I did know the term BREWER’S DROOP. Just couldn’t get on with the wordplay. I may be on to it now, but I don’t think I want to be. 🙂

    Agree JOFT25. . by in TROPE threw me off the wordplay.

12. Some nostalgia from Panga today — isn’t “go steady” a sweet old expression, swept away in the ’60s by pill, rock’n’roll and cohabitation. Brewer’s droop is another old one; who was it said alcohol “raises the expectation but lowers the execution”? Frustum was a déja-jorum, ie “no idea but it does look familiar”. Overall, enjoyable, ta Panga and Andrew.

13. Lizzie @. I also queried ONSTAGE as one word but dictionary checks disabused me of that.

14. I could not parse 13ac; 21ac; 18d. Also 15ac – I guessed the number, have no idea about soccer teams; 3d – I only heard of that team’s name because they were banned from touring Australia in the 1970s and 1980s but I didn’t know they were a rugby team.

    New for me: SQUIB = short comic piece; STOCKTON-ON-TEES = town in Durham county (thanks, wikipedia!); scientist Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley (1882–1944); FRUSTUM; BREWER’S DROOP.

15. It’s apposite that after your”Yes Minister” comment for 6d that the next answer is “Eddington” as it was Paul Eddington who played Jim Hacker!

16. NeilH@6: The number ‘i’ exists just as much as all numbers do. Numbers are a construct of mathematics. The astonishing thing is how useful they are for modelling the real world. Nobel prizewinner Eugene Wigner even wrote a paper on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences

    Lizzie@8: Think of ‘his onstage presence’.

    NHO 1D so had to reveal it and I didn’t like SALE=’demand’. Otherwise the puzzle was fairly straightforward, as I had heard of TURDUCKEN (sounds pretty unpleasant to be honest).

17. Thank you for the blog – I like BRB definition of 1ac – Someone free of responsibility but full of advice

18. NeilH @ 6 I thought Euler’s equation was e to the power (πi) PLUS 1 = 0

19. ravenrider@10: Surely the Eddington in question is Arthur Eddington, who became extremely famous when he organised the expeditions in 1919 which made observations to confirm Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. This was, quite literally, front page news around the world, and he is the only Eddington to come to this scientist’s mind. I think you dismiss him, and his fame, rather too lightly.

20. Crossbar @18
    More usually seen as the equivalent
    e to the power (πi) = -1

21. I needed help with TURDUCKEN, but for the next Pangakupu puzzle, I am sure I will get the answer to everything.

22. Definitely a dnf, but I enjoyed the ones I knew, and some of the ones I didn’t. No idea who EDDINGTON is/was, but his wordplay was clear enough, and I learned a new word, TURDUCKEN, for a three-bird roast – that was a reveal. We had FRUSTUM quite recently from Vlad: that was the first time I had met it and sadly I didn’t remember it today. I needed some extra Maths lessons to understand EULER, but that’s just my ignorance: Pangakupu is always more scientific than me.

    Can’t see what “written” is doing in the SQUIB clue, and SALE=demand doesn’t work for me. But I enjoyed all the four outside clues, and TWENTY-TWO and the Swedish tin and REEF KNOTS, which took me ages to disentangle from the fodder. I remember being taught how to tie REEF KNOTS when I was a Brownie: our neckerchiefs had to be tied out of sight behind the neck with the correct knot, checked by the Brown Owl, and woe betide you if you got it wrong.

    Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew.

23. Petert@21: ha ha.

24. grantinfreo @12. 🙂 Love your déja-jorum! You’re going to have to go on record for coining that.
    FRUSTRUM was familiar to me too from a recent clue.

25. Ditto muffin @1, nho that meaning of squib. Here, as verb, it means “chicken out of’; as noun it’s a firework, often used negatively as in damp squib = failure. Speaking of failure, I guess the droop syndrome witticism was probably the Bard’s, as per NeilH @4.

26. Crossbar @18 – You are of course correct.
    In my defence, I only got a B and that was in 1968.
    Poc @16 – i is different from other numbers, surely, in that even mathematicians refer to it as “imaginary”

27. May I add that I can’t see what ‘water’ is doing in 2, apart from completing the surface?

28. gladys@22. Another ex-Brownie here. I still use REEF KNOTS today. They even help solve crossword puzzles!

29. I have been lurking on this site for many a while, but am finally sparked to comment, being surprised that no one has yet offered he following poetry in regard to 8a

    It often puzzles me as why
    One so humble as I
    When squared should become
    Not just zero less one
    But e to the I to the pi

30. “A couple of oddities” as someone described earlier in the blog is the understatement of the year! FRUSTUM,BREWER’S DROOP,TURDUCKEN,i’m, sure these are very useful words to have in one’s vocabulary!

31. NeilH @ 26 – I didn’t remember it either, B in 1966. I found myself down an internet rabbit hole looking up Euler and noticed it there.

32. I seem to be alone in disliking this setter’s style. He continually pushes the envelope on GK, sometimes unfairly in my opinion. At the same time, some clues are so basic as to be almost non-cryptic. “There’s an extra day in it (4,4)”. “One offering unwanted advice” (4-4, 6)”. Really?

    It’s not easy setting crosswords, but shouldn’t the editor be suggesting tweaks when needed? Moan over. Thanks setter and blogger.

33. Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew

    Re the chamber / pot debate, the OED cites ‘chamber’ as a euphemism for the pot, especially in the crockery trade.

    Anyone going to gainsay the OED?

34. I enjoy the mathematical and scientific discussions here. I don’t understand most of it, but at this late stage in my life it’s a joy that I didn’t experience in my youth. But I also know (it’s been scientifically proven from university studies) that people who excel in these areas, also excel in solving cryptic crosswords, so I bow to their wisdom. (Where’s Roz? 🙁 )

35. So 41 is specifically (one of) Euler’s lucky numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_numbers_of_Euler

    Apologies AlanC@3 if this is what you meant but it took me a while to work out the sense!

    Didn’t know brewer’s droop but otherwise very enjoyable, thanks for the puzzle and blog.

36. khayyam @35: yes I googled lucky and 41 and one search indicated Euler but there were all sorts of hits which identified 41 as lucky for different reasons, for example, well-being and spirituality, which left me bemused. I am sure, as you indicate, that the setter was referring to EULER’s.

37. Talk about a mixed bag. Very little to enjoy here, between unknown words, tough references and a few write ins. Must be on the wrong wave length entirely today. Agree with pancake@30

38. Yes I was a bit unhappy with the vagueness initially (aren’t all numbers lucky to some people for some supposed reasons?) but quite happy with it being EULER’s specifically once that penny dropped.

39. Have you ever been to a restaurant you usually enjoy only to discover it is the chef’s night off, and everything is just a little disappointing?

    I had so many quibbles (“it’s in Chambers” is, to repeat myself, a necessary but not sufficient condition) I felt like the editor must have been out the day it was approved. In addition to those already mentioned, PORT does not mean “left” *unless you are facing the bow*. The entire point of port and starboard is that it doesn’t matter which way you are facing, thus avoiding the whole “my left or your left?” business. Bonus fun fact: at one time, port was called larboard, but this was too easily misheard as starboard.

40. Roundly, soundly defeated by this. Just didn’t know either of FRUSTUM or TURDUCKEN. Should have got EDDINGTON I suppose as there’s a fairly recent housing development nearby where I live with that place name, though had no idea that it was named after a famous scientist. I wasn’t quite sure how BREWERS DROOP worked exactly but I did like BACK SEAT DRIVER. A bit of a learning experience for me today, nothing wrong with that…

41. Rog@27. My best guess is C is for the mark on a cold water tap.

42. Oofyprofessor@ 32.
    No you are not alone. We particularly dislike the clues where a word has to be shortened e.g. siesta in 14d.
    There are at least 5 in today’s crossword which we noted.
    However I don’t want to moan as it takes all sorts of setters and styles which is the joy of doing the Guardian crosswords.

43. muffin@1
    Whatever the origin may be,
    Chamber pot has been abbreviated to chamber for well over a hundred years. My grandfather told me they were called this when he was a boy ‘ before 1910.
    It’s no different from calling an aeroplane a jet (from jet aeroplane), or a passenger ship a liner (from being a ship of e.g. the White Star Line)

44. I don’t want to take anything away from an enjoyable crossword but I counted 10 uses of subtraction which felt like a lot for one crossword. Also an above average number went straight in from the definition but it was still fun post solving them

    S@43 the rule of thumb is that if you’re unaware of the meaning of a word but it’s in Chambers then Chambers must be wrong 🙂

    Cheers P&A

45. Thanks P and A.

    Quick chemistry comment for A: “The chemical symbols KR + O + NE” are actually Kr + O + Ne.

46. I didn’t think I’d finish this, but got there in the end. I had no idea why it should be TWENTY- TWO (sport being my blind spot), though it could only be that. I thought the GK perfectly fair, and really liked the puzzle. I was pleased to see a reference to Eddington. Thanks to both.

47. PhilM @45: I am aware that the chemical symbols are styled in that way, but my convention of using capitals for elements (!) of the answers outweighs that.

48. Showaddydadito @43 “Synecdoche” is the technical term for identifying something by one of its parts. It’s a lovely word that rarely sees an outing.

49. Interesting that TWENTY-TWO was in a recent Gemelo puzzle (as was DERRIERE from another Guardian puzzle recently)… Oooo some maths! e to the power of (i times pi) = cos(pi) + i sin(pi); pi radians = 180 degrees; the cosine of 180 degrees is -1 and the sine of 180 degrees is 0 so the result is -1 🙂 Happy with Eddington as famous scientist – hadn’t come across TURDUCKEN but wordplay fine… Nice puzzle – thanks to both.

50. TURDUCKEN is much more known in the US I guess, while BREWER’S DROOP is not… had to reveal that, there were many possibilities for _R_O_. That is the phrase brewer’s droop is not known here, unless possibly referring to what the Milwaukee batters did against the Dodgers. The phenomenon is. One term I know for it is whiskey, er, Richard.

    Enjoyable for me though I agree with the complaints about SALE (and with Otto@31 about “it’s in Chambers,” we shouldn’t automatically 10d!) Favorite was ONSTAGE. Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew!

51. Why does ton suggest fashion?

52. Otto#48
    Absobloominglutely sir.
    ’tis a thing of beauty.
    Like tmesis.

53. Brewers Droop a new one for me. I knew Eddington the scientist, but seconding @51 Dave F’s question. Ton?

54. DF@51 et al – TON originates from the French – and, er, it’s in Chambers 🙂

    It crops up fairly frequently in crosswordland

55. Faves were BREWER’S DROOP and  OVEREAT, while FRUSTUM was a déja-jorum for me too although in my case that made it a write-in which was nice.

    I DNF because I’d never heard of TURDUCKEN and it remained a pas-encore-jorum.

    Like muffin@1 I dislike “chamber” for “chamber pot” even if it has support. I accept it, because how can we not.. but I don’t have to like it. A similar one is ONSTAGE’s “stag” for “for men”. The stag is the man, stag as the associated adjective pertains to him or to the event for him, but doesn’t (to my taste) mean “for men”, especially these days when stag and hen parties are often gender-mixed.

    I also shared the quibbles of JOFT@5 Rog@27 and Otto@39… so overall I had a similar feeling to many others here that this puzzle wasn’t as polished as others by this setter.

    Nonetheless, thanks to setter, and blogger.

56. Re TON, it became widely known via Netflix’s Bridgerton series (or the books on which it was based) and comes from le bon ton (approx “good style”) which is presumably a suitably contemporary phrase. It should be said that “the ton” in those works is used to refer to the elite group who supposedly show good style, rather than meaning “fashion” itself, but – in keeping with the theme today – one assumes that this other usage is also in Chambers…

57. I got all the “hard” words, but still found it slightly harder than average.

    I was thinking that clueing SIB by brother required a DBE indicator, but since no-one has complained, I won’t either.

    The OED explaining chamber (SimonS@33) by making reference to a specific industry or subculture really opens the door for all kinds of mischief. You could call a meat pie a meat, because that’s what pie-makers do, because the pie is understood. (I just made that up, but I hope you get the drift.)

58. It was a struggle for me, because I’m not very good at these things yet.
    But I find the criticisms here to be a bit unfair.

    1) The definition was hardly cryptic? That means you have already determined which part of the clue was the definition and which the challenge. That’s half the job done. And the parsing is still unfathomed before we go too deep down the wrong burrow.
    2) The words are obscure? Everything is until you’ve learnt them. Brewer’s Droop, Turducken and the great physicist were known to me. ‘Ton’ for fashion was a complete blank. But I now learn it’s quite contemporary on the Bridgerton show that I don’t watch. Hardly the setter’s fault that I prefer to watch the sports channels. I’m sure some who watch the period dramas couldn’t mark out a rugby field.
    3) “It’s in Chambers” is a reason for it being gettable. Especially when we are talking about a Chamber itself. That may even have been the point.

    I liked this. It was just challenging. But most of them are.

59. MCourtney@58, I agree with you about the topic of obscurity, although I don’t think anyone was complaining about that today (tho sometimes some do).

    For the “chamber” issue, Dr WhatsOn@57 has captured my point of view perfectly (and I suspect muffin@1’s too): if a jargon used by a subculture is unconditionally fair game then we’re all in trouble! Nothing to stop a setter using it, if it’s in the dictionary, of course; but, personally speaking, it doesn’t raise a smile for me when I go “oh, meat instead of meat pie because that’s what pie makers call it”, to borrow DW’s example. Rather it just makes me go “whatever”.

    Which brings me to your other point and my other point: when starting out with these puzzles, I treated them like mathematical-style wordplay, rather like the Dingbats game if you’ve ever played that. I knew there was art to it too, but I was focused on just trying to solve the damned things. But you get to a point where you can fully appreciate the art as well as the science, which for me is what makes it all so fun. When people are saying “that def wasn’t very cryptic”, they’re not complaining that they couldn’t solve it, or that the clue was scientifically poor because it was an easy solve; rather they’re complaining that it lacked artistry, which is equally important to many when deeming a clue to be good. There’s a lot of depth to cryptic crosswords, and it keeps so many of us coming back day after day – even decade after decade for some!

60. Could not finish it. Had to reveal both FRUSTUM and TURDUCKEN, not to speak of doing searches and checks on some of the other words., quite a few of which I NHO, either. But I liked quite a few of the entries, and I did get the nina. I also noted that there are two dictionaries mentioned in parallel – CHAMBERS and BREWERS (ones that the setter uses the most?) Thanks Pangakupu and Andrew!

61. The problem with giving dictionary entries as justifications for correct usage is that they are descriptive, so all it needs is for a few people to misuse a word for it to be fair game for the dictionary. I’ve said before that I wish they would be more prepared to say “incorrect” or, at least, “informal”.
    This one is particularly absurd as the chamber is the bedroom, not the pot that’s put in it!

62. Begs the question,how qualified are cryptic crossword setters linguistically?Have they really mastered their craft,or randomly pick a word from a dictionary and come up with an even
    obfuscated clue for everyone to guess?Just a thought.

63. Prof Richard @62:…. they’re clues!

    And for those of us lacking a Masters in linguistics…?

64. I came here for ton. You didn’t disappoint. Thank you.

65. @63 Your lack of comprehension of a simple question says it all.Cheers.

66. Rog@27 I was too perplexed by the Water in the clue for 2 Down, but I’ve just realised on a Cold Water tap it would say C as opposed to H on the Hot Water tap, hope that helps?

67. Lots of learning today but why does money = tin? Thanks as always for the blog and to the setter.

68. Drums_are_not_noise@67: ‘Tin’ is one of many slang expressions for money (but not one I’ve ever personally heard used) – think ‘brass’?

69. Alphalpha@68: Me neither but will add to the sponds, wedge, Benjamins, moolah, etc., list. Much obliged.

70. Put in squab instead of squib or else I would have finished it. Frustum was new to me. Thanks for the grid and the parsing.

71. Lot’s to enjoy here, although most of the surfaces were rather convoluted. Favourites were 26a KRONE (tin), 18d OVEREAT (Cheddar Gorge), 22d ASPIC (good surface)

    The recent appearances of 23a FRUSTUM (déja-jorum indeed!) and 10d pot=CHAMBER helped

    Knew 3d thanks to the movie Invictus about the SPRINGBOKs and Nelson Mandela. A great flick

    16d My stepson prepared a TURDUCKEN once, so I knew the term. I wasn’t there to try it, but it sounded awful. I might be more inclined to call it a “decadent dish” than “extravagant”. Funny and delightful to see it appear in a crossword!

    I have to run and don’t have time to read all the comments — apologies if I’m duplicating

72. Re Ton – long before Bridgerton, there was Georgette Heyer… her fans (and we are legion) will be very familiar with this term

73. Christine @72 Long before Georgette Heyer there was Maria Edgeworth, in whose novel, The Absentee, (1812) the Anglo-Irish Lady Clonbrony eagerly courts the approval if the London social elite who hold her in contempt:

    “Lady Clonbrony had offended half, nay, three-quarters of her guests, by what they termed her exclusive attention to those very leaders of the ton, from whom she had suffered so much, and who had made it obvious to all that they thought they did her too much honour in appearing at her gala.”

74. I’m with JOFT @19, although not much of a scientist, I am quite science literate and Arthur Eddington’s globetrotting research is still celebrated. I spotted the solution based on that knowledge, likewise Euler….oh, and other things.

    There are some high quality comments today. Welcome from the shadows Dropbear @29.

    I assumed people who “still didn’t get brewers droop” …well, congratulations! In the 80s The Quadrant pub in Brighton used to sell very strong ale and they had a brewers droop chart on the wall in the shape of a thermometer. I remember it including the likes of ESB and HSB at the bottom, Old Thumper, Old Peculiar and Old Tom in the middle and Gales Prize Old Ale at the top which was around 9% at the time.

    Over all, a very hard but successful solve from my second most challenging setter. Thanks all.

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