What a treat! Picaroon is followed by Philistine to round off the week.
I really enjoyed this, as expected. Many thanks, Philistine.
[I think it’s generally known that Philistine also finds time to be a pioneering cardiac surgeon. I have recently enjoyed reading his latest book, The Angina Monologues, which includes a crossword and a mention for 15². Thanks for that, too, Philistine. 😉 You may have heard him talking about it at the Hay Festival on BBC Radio Hardtalk]
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1, 23 Hollow and dry instruction to dog the German PM (4,3,5)
PITT THE ELDER
PIT [hollow] + TT [teetotal – dry] + HEEL [instruction to dog] + DER [the German]
5 Celebrity embraced by poor love child (7)
BASTARD
STAR [celebrity] in BAD [poor]
9 More mature half-hearted serial killer (5)
RIPER
RIP[p]ER [serial killer, minus one of its middle letters – half-hearted]
10 One gathers second coming starts with Nemesis (9)
SCAVENGER
Initial letters [starts] of Second Coming + AVENGER [Nemesis]
11 Left perished in disarray, having accepted Theresa’s final command (10)
LEADERSHIP
L [left] + an anagram [in disarray] of PERISHED round [theres]A
12, 19, 20 Opinion polls ease off and make things worse (4,6,2,4)
PILE PELION ON OSSA
A clever anagram [off] of OPINION POLLS EASE for an expression not heard very often but here’s the story
14 Miserable record playing into the small hours (12)
DISCONSOLATE
DISC [record] ON SO LATE [playing into the small hours] – not a new one but newer solvers may not have seen it before
18 Infirm relatives abandoning a region of England (4,8)
HOME COUNTIES
HOME [in] + CO [firm] + [a]UNTIES [relatives abandoning a] – I smiled when I finally parsed this and it’s one of my favourites
21 Novice found in empty room (4)
TYRO
Hidden in empTY ROom
22 Film maker genius, about 18 (10)
EISENSTEIN
EINSTEIN [genius] round SE [South East – HOME COUNTIES]
26 Is sick after five cancelled bypasses (5)
OMITS
[v]OMITS [is sick, minus v – five cancelled: I hope that doesn’t happen too often for Philistine
27 Strategy is to cross from the East by a philanderer (7)
PLAYBOY
PLOY [strategy] round a reversal [from the East] of BY A
28 Country in the centre of Europe madness (7)
ROMANIA
euROpe + MANIA [madness]
Down
1 Secretary on job release (6)
PAROLE
PA [secretary] + ROLE [job]
2 Tails partner that takes in work (3,3)
TOP HAT
THAT round OP [work] – neat definition
3 Suit(e) trio (5-5)
THREE-PIECE
Double / cryptic definition [Edit: triple definition – thanks, grantinfreo @1]
4 Stops, doesn’t start and relaxes (5)
EASES
[c]EASES [stops]
5 At last, green tailless lizard found in bath coming up for a nibble (6,3)
BRAZIL NUT
[gree]N LIZAR[d] in TUB, all reversed [coming up] – a lovely picture
7 Many ogle vicar, one stripped in church (8)
ANGLICAN
[m]AN[y] [o]GL[e] [v]ICA] [o]N[e] – ‘stripped’
8 Had the temerity to acquire knowledge and became dim! (8)
DARKENED
DARED [had the temerity] round KEN [knowledge]
13 Convenience of Western warnings on Arab uprising (6,4)
WOMEN’S ROOM
W [Western] + OMENS [warnings] + a reversal [uprising] of MOOR [Arab]
15 Essentially, copper is outside entrance to Room 101 with partner (9)
CRUCIALLY
CU [copper] round R[oom] + CI [101] + ALLY [partner]
16, 25 Quiet entering tortuous path, hit and attacked — too late! (4,4,3,6)
THAT SHIP HAS SAILED
SH [quiet] in an anagram [tortuous] of PATH HIT + ASSAILED
17 Divine food in Asia: my best restaurant’s oriental starters (8)
AMBROSIA
Initial letters [starters] of My Best Restaurant’s Oriental in ASIA – another contender for favourite clue
24, 6 Rogan josh balm? (4,4)
LAMB STEW
LAMB is an anagram [STEW] of BALM
I thought three-piece was the shortest neatest triple def on record, but I’ve been wrong before!
Thanks, Eileen, for the parsing of 27ac and 5dn. And thanks, Philistine, for an excellent puzzle. I’ve just bought the book from Amazon.
Thanks Philistine and Eileen
Quite a lot of “guess, then parse” (or fail to, as in the case of PLAYBOY). For that reason my favourites were the long ones I built up from their parts – SCAVENGER, DISCONSOLATE and CRUCIALLY. I also liked PITT THE ELDER once I saw the parsing.
LAMB STEW was bit ambiguous – I had LAMB DISH until failing at the crossing words (“dish” as a verb could be an anagram indicator – nearly anything is!).
I solved EASES as the puzzle was printing, but I began to wonder if it was right when I came across “ease off” in 12a etc.
28a would be ebtter as “Country is the centre…”
I neglected to say that I enjoyed the puzzle!
2d was the one that took me longest to solve – lots of self-kicking followed the eventual PDM. Many thanks to Philistine for a brilliant crossword (I did not mind the classical ref – it’s always good to learn more stuff). Thanks also to Eileen.
Yes, fun puzzle, thanks both. Three-piece was in fact loi, as I’d carelessly bunged in ripen instead of riper….dotty!
Like muffin I plumped for the lamb dish before the stew became a necessity. Lots of amazing clues here but I am going to have to be the first to complain about “pile lesion on ossa”. Even with all the crossers, knowing the anagram material and guessing the first and third words I could not get this and I could not see a way to do so without googling all the permutations (starting with “pile lesion…” which I am sure would lead somewhere quite nasty, especially for a surgeon!) Maybe everyone else here is familiar with the expression but it struck me as a tad unfair.
Nevertheless, thank you Philistine for a good romp, much of which went in very quickly, coming to a slow finish in the NE as my ATP depleted and the lactic acid started to build up. And thanks Eileen for the definitive parsing – almost unnecessary when clues are set so cleanly!
Good work today – thanks Phil. and Eileen for comments. Found 5d answer from tub and crossers, but needed Eileen’s parse: Should just read the clue!!
Especially liked 2d for its simple elegance. Aren’t we a bit over the home counties, SE or otherwise? A part of basic xword vocabulary, granted, but surely we are more international these days.
Don’t think “Pitt the bastard” was quite intended!! But it prompts the thought, what will they be saying about Theresa in a few years time?
I love Philistine’s puzzles and this was no exception. However every puzzle is a tussle between setter and solver, and in this one I was beaten right at the end. Despite my Ancient History teaching background, I was embarrassed not to know the phrase at 12a,19/20d, PILE PELION ON OSSA, though I knew both Mt Pelion and Mt Ossa. Well done, Eileen, and thanks for the link: I am sure your Classics background kicked in when solving this one. Something of a Tower of Babel story? I continue to appreciate the learning experiences that come with cryptic solving.
I really enjoyed 16d25a THAT SHIP HAS SAILED.
Well done on your clever setting, Philistine, and thanks to Eileen for a super blog. [The book sounds fascinating, BTW. I am thinking of buying it for a cardiologist/musician friend. I think he might like it.]
I had never heard of Pelion let alone the phrase but it had to be an angrind which i was deciphering in the dark sa it were and a guess or two and same with google got me there in the end. So this stood out like a sore thumb although Friday is expected to be more challenging.
But everything was clued (and blogged) perfectly.OMITS was my favourite.
Thanks Phil and Eileen.
This was challenging and very enjoyable. Maybe the clue for DISCONSOLATE has been done before, but it amused me.
Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.
(I rather liked the fact that the completed grid reads “Pitt the bastard” across the top. It’s a shame our Prime Ministers don’t tend to have colourful epithets like old French kings – Louis the Fat, Charles the Bald and so on.)
Even though I knew it had to be an anagram, completely stumped by 12, 19, 20. Beyond my ken, this one…
I’m really not happy with “pile pelion on ossa” It’s too obscure (imo anyway) and even with all the crossers, identifying the anagram and guessing “pile x on y” that left five letters to arrange and google at random until the answer came up. “Pile lepion on ossa”? “Pile sepion on osla”?, etc. All seem equally likely.
The problem is that you can guess it’s a classical phrase and that means you can’t even make an intelligent guess based on common English name patterns.
Good apart from that though.
Very enjoyable puzzle.
My favourites were DISCONSOLATE, BRAZIL NUT, HOME COUNTIES.
New for me, but solvable: PILE PELION ON OSSA, EISENSTEIN.
Thanks Philistine and Eileen.
Note: I would love to watch that full interview, but it is only available in UK. The snippet was fun to watch though.
Defeated by the Greek mountains, and I agree with some others that it needed a more helpful clue, but I don’t want to focus on that shortcoming in such a fine puzzle. Like Lord Jim@11, I haven’t seen DISCONSOLATE before and thought it was the clue of the day, if not the week. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen.
When 12,19,20 had to end in the ‘a’ from Romania, a faint bell rang Ossa which, with crossers, led to a correct guess-and-look; without the faint gk it would have been a lot harder.
for those who like to listen to the full Hardtalk interview, I have found it on BBC World Service radio
if I did not insert the link correctly – here is it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csy97t
Thank you Philistine for an interesting puzzle and Eileen for a super blog.
What luck Eileen was the blogger – I was completely foxed by 12, 19, 20, I got PILE and OSSA (had to use the check button) so thought some medical term was called for, Philistine being a surgeon.
I thought that I had come across PILE PELION ON OSSA from a previous crossword, but “pelion” doesn’t turn up in a prior puzzle on the site search.
Thanks both
UK readers can watch Philistine’s talk on the BBC IPlayer. Search for HARDTALK and then find the episode for 10th June
as Eileen said, what a treat. So much to enjoy. I liked the elegance of three-piece and top hat and the imagery of ambrosia’s clue. It took me forever to remember that the home counties abbreviation is SE, which, when finally recalled (oh the things we learn in xwordland) led me to Eisenstein, confirmed by google. I could then work ut my LOI, pile pelion on ossa. I had never heard of this but seemed the most likely anagram outcome; google to the rescue again. I did, however, try out “pile lesion” first, not finding pelion or lepion in my dictionary etc, but came back to pelion as more likely.
Thanks Eileen for the blog and its helpful links and thanks to Philistine for the fun.
Lord Jim @11, the clue for PIT THE ELDER was rather clever since Pitt the Younger was known as “Three-bottle man” because of his heavy consumption of port wine.
There isn’t a lot left to say. FOI THREE PIECE, a sweet clue 🙂
Favourite clue TOP HAT, reminded me of a long ago joke, when I heard somebody say of a nasty character “He is so low; he could walk under a door wearing a top hat”
Needless to say, my LOI was the Greek reference. Never heard of it, and even with the crossers the anagram was tough – Guessed OSSA and I confess I checked the dictionary and voila!
Two excellent puzzles in two days. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.
I enjoyed this puzzle, though I found it and yesterday’s easier than usual, which is to stay I finished them the night before. Lovely clues. I enjoyed many surfaces, such as “Had the temerity to acquire knowledge and became dim!” and “Miserable record playing into the small hours” and “Many ogle vicar, one stripped in church.” OMITS and HOME COUNTIES also fun.
Hardtalk comes on my local radio at 4am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes I’m awake for it, and I generally turn it off because it so often goes into attack mode. I’ll listen to this one.
I surprised myself by finding this one easier than yesterday’s. The takeaway message for modern youth is: pay attention in Latin O-level, or whatever it is called nowadays!
Thanks.
I forgot to say that I did know about Pelion and Ossa, though I didn’t know the exact meaning, I just thought it meant making anything more so. And as ever, thanks to Eileen for a delightful blog. Thank you for the information about Philistine and his book, which I’ll try to track down. I’ll listen to his interview if you can get it outside the UK. And thanks to Philistine too!
Thanks michelle @17 for the link- it was great.
Another dnf due to ‘pile misery on solver’. Very good otherwise
I got a bit DISCONSOLATE after I used a word finder for the Greek thingy. I guess once he had ?N?S?A in the corner there was not much choice! Or maybe the setter just thinks that we should learn a bit more about the classics [I did do Latin O-level but that wasn’t much help.] I can’t see me using this phrase though …
I did know AMBROSIA though, and like Eileen thought it was a good clue.
Thanks Philistine and Eileen.
I kind of agree with the grumbles about the case of the Piles but the puzzle was so good, and the day so lovely, that it feels churlish to moan. 🙂 Lots of favourites (shared with lots of you). A real bit of quality to launch us into the weekend.
Many thanks to Philistine and Eileen.
All quite enjoyable as always from Philistine, but tougher than he usually is, particularly for those of us whose classical education is at best sketchy. Needless to say PILE PELION ON OSSA was new to me too, and had to be ground out from the fodder with a little help from the check button.
Thanks to Philistine and Eileen
Lovely puzzle – and a sweet vindication for me. Yorkshire Lass has always claimed my occasional references to piling P upon O was a pompous invention of my own – no more! I know it because, many years ago I got a complaining letter from an accountant to the theatrical profession . . ‘And then Mr Inspector, to pile P upon O, you did XYZ . . ‘ I could almost hear him declaiming it. So extra thanks to Philistine, and to Eileen for her excellent blog. Also particularly liked PITT THE ELDER, THAT SHIP HAS SAILED and LAMB STEW.
Pelion and Ossa do occur in Hamlet Act V Sc 1. which I think implies that they should be more familia than many have claimed.
The exact phrase is not used but Laertes talks of piling dust … to o’ertop old Pelion and Hamlet says
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart!
sorry, ‘familiar’
Gerardus @33 – thanks for that.
I couldn’t count the number of times that my long decades ago A Level study of Hamlet have helped me out in crosswords – and I often comment on it – but I must admit to having forgotten these quotations. Having looked them up, I find that Laertes’ reference,
‘Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
T’ o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.’
comes some thirty lines before the response of Hamlet that you quote and so I don’t think that this would have been the way in for many solvers who hadn’t heard of the expression in the first place. 😉 [But many thanks for the reminder.]
PILE PELION ON OSSA took me a loooong time.I’m sure I’ve never heard the phrase before and I worked it out after all the crossers were in – and I’d double checked them- and then looked it up! I thought the rest,while very good, were rather easier than usual. But I’m certainly not complaining about the relatively obscure phrase because I’ve learned something new today!
Thanks Philistine.
I’m really confused now! I knew the contentious expression, but I’m not a classics scholar (or a Shakespearean either). I assumed it was from a crossword, but I can find no trace. Any suggestions?
Thanks Eileen. Muffin @37. The OED gives a quotation from 1794 ‘Like Pelion and Ossa piled one upon the other’. However I do not know how far back the phrase ‘pile Pelion on Ossa’ goes. Hamlet and Laertes seem to be referring to the story itself of the Titans piling the mountains up so as to reach heaven. The meaning itself of the phrase seems to me to be in some doubt. I take it to mean ‘doing something fatuous’, but Eileen’s reference implies piling extra work on somebody. It seems that it is so little used nowadays that its meaning has become rather obscure.
Gerardus [and muffin] – I was so confident that I ‘knew’ this as an expression that I didn’t bother to look it up this morning. Brewer [why didn’t I consult him before?] gives Virgil Georgics I 281, which I did know:
ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam
scilicet atque Ossae frondosum inuoluere Olympum;
ter pater exstructos disiecit fulmine montis.
‘Three times, indeed, they tried to pile Ossa on Pelion,
and roll wooded Olympus on top of Ossa: three times
Jupiter split the mountain pile apart with his lightning bolt…’
…but I’d forgotten that this version was the wrong way round!
I’ve often commented on Philistine’s love of and delight in manipulating the English language, which is not even his second, and I’ve always marvelled at his knowledge of all the culture of one kind or another that goes with it. His book [have you gathered that I highly recommend it?] goes a long way to explaining this.
Great puzzle but like many others PILE PELION etc took forever – I had to do it by fiddling with the leftover letters. Many thanks to P & E.
Apparently there is an earlier version in the Odyssey Bk XI
“After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace of Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were short lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this world, and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years old they were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the chest. They threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried to set Mount Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the top of Ossa, that they might scale heaven itself, and they would have done it too if they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto, killed both of them, before they had got so much as a sign of hair upon their cheeks or chin.
I knew ‘heaping Ossa upon Pelion’ from browsing Brewer’s Phrase and Fable, and also from P.G. Wodehouse I think, so perhaps that is where you saw it muffin.
Thanks Eileen and Philistine
Thanks Gonzo – I have read Wodehouse, but I think I remember it as “Pelion on Ossa”. Not positive, though 🙂
muffin @37 and 43 — you may have met the phrase in Wodehouse or in some other piece of British writing. I’m pretty sure that’s how I know the phrase, as a quotation from somebody in a piece of fiction, probably from several decades ago. But the phrase did enter general speech.
Very much enjoyed this – I liked 1 across for the way the wordplay avoided the word boundaries of the solution – hmmm 12A – well it was obviously an anagram – and it is not a prerequisite that every word or expression used need to be known by the solvers – how could that ever work? So I accept that sometimes I need to google and learn – in this case the way in was the last word – _ s _ a is quite unusual – I searched Chambers and rejected all (although ossa is there) – then I looked again and figured (given letters left from anagram) that “ossa” seemed plausible – so googled that – then put “on” in front of it and then it all fell out and I have learnt something!
I’m going to spend the next week or so looking to find a way to include the debated term into a conversation at my local. (which will doubtless result in stony glares)
Just noticed…
LEADERSHIP is between BASTARD and PLAYBOY
Trapped in the middle are DISCONSOLATE HOME COUNTIES
Meanwhile, we are told THAT SHIP HAS SAILED.
Is there a theme, or is it all in my mind?
Good fun. I managed all the clues bar one or two. 12a etc had me stumped. We have Mt Ossa & Mt Pelion in Tasmania, Australia. Trust the Greeks to copy us …