Guardian 25.947 / Philistine

42 comments on “Guardian 25.947 / Philistine”

1. Thanks Philistine and Eileen

   Lots to enjoy, but I must say that I, at least, didn’t find it particularly easy.

   A couple of quibbles – it wasn’t clear to me from the clue whether to enter KERB or CURB (I “checked”, as it was at an early stage and I didn’t have the crucial crosser) and is INSIGNIFICANCE grammatically correct for “being petty”?

   [I saw RCW posted at least once last week when I was away – good to hear from you again.]

2. I enjoyed this puzzle by Philistine. My favourite clues were 8d/16d, 9d, 7d, 11a, 14a, 22a, 4d and 1d.

   I solved but could not parse 20d (last in).

   New word for me today was SKEAN-DHUS, but that is because I am more accustomed to the alternative spelling ‘sgian-dhu’. (No, I’m joking, of course. I have never heard of this word in any of the ways that it may be spelt.)

   Thanks for the blog, Eileen.

3. Thanks, Eileen. This proceeded Orlando-style for me: quite a tussle, culminating at the end with me left wondering why! Highly entertaining as always, thanks, Philistine.

4. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. Only reservation is that the definition “Running” in 9 down is present participle and the solution is not, which led me for some time to “administrating”. Realised eventually. Otherwise a great puzzle.

5. Hi muffin

   I actually nearly commented that, for me, there was no ambiguity in 6ac! I automatically read it as ‘temper heard’ – but I can see how it could possibly be taken the other way. I have no problem with INSIGNIFICANCE being [the state of] being petty.

   Hi Tellme

   I’d no problem with ‘running’, either, as here it’s a gerund rather than a present participle, as in ‘She is responsible for the running / administration of the department.’

6. Many thanks Eileen & Philistine for a great puzzle.

   However, I was defeated by SKEAN DHUS which I do not recognise as an English word.

7. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I needed your explanations to appreciate the subtlety of the wordplay in a number of clues. V enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Philistine!

8. Good crossword, a bit difficult with all the long answers.

   Thanks Eileen; last one in was SKEAN-DHUS, which I thought must be an anagram, but was a new word for me. As well as the ones you highlight, I did enjoy IN STYLE.

9. Bryan@6,

   Nor, similarly, is “n’est ce pas” an English word or phrase though, of course, much better known. Did anyone at all get SKEAN DHUS?

10. Hi jeff

    Erm, yes, I did – but then my husband was a Scot, who owned a very handsome ceremonial one. 😉

11. I only got SKEAN-DHUS with a wordsearch, jeff – but I have come across the word before.

    This was a good crossword, nesspa? There were some difficult bits, but also some more accessible clues to get you going. Needed Eileen to explain the parsing of quite a few though.

    PROLIFERATION was cleverly constructed and my favourite clue today – bravo, Philistine. And thank you Eileen for coming off the bench to blog.

12. jeff @9; although I didn’t get it without the check button, it is in Chambers

13. Lovely puzzle, where for me the getting of one answer begat the solving of a hitherto insoluble clue, so it u folded beautifully. 7D, 8D, 18D and 20D were beautifully clued.

    Just when I thought I had it, I was stumped by 27A. Bah! Looked like an anagram but couldn’t make the letters fit anything that I knew, so needed the blog for this – thanks to blogger and setter, then, from me.

14. Well H isn’t aspiration, 20’s grammar is all ovber the place, OEDIPUSs doesn’t , equal ‘complex’, 19 makes answer “privide” the clue bits, and that’s just the bottom four clues!!! But the Murdoch joke was hgood angd true! oh dear the Guardoian. It is ssad.

    Cheers
    Rowly.

15. I’d heard of SKEAN-DHUS, but then I know someone who owns a kilt. Once I’d twigged the anagram, with a couple of crossing letters, the word leapt out.

    Some very clever constructions. SCRAGGY, very much one of them, was last in.

16. Done Eileen, come on cruciverbalists get behind Eileen please!!

17. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

    Well, I did get SKEAN-DHUS but only just, and it made EDITH my last in. For a while I thought 23 might be an allusion to Pygmalion with Eliza taking instruction from Professor ‘Iggins…

    I agree with the others who have said that this was quite Orlando-esque in places – smooth as silk. The potential for two possible answers as at 6 never bothers me – all part of the fun. SWORDFISH was a favourite, and once I had 18 Tom Lehrer was humming away merrily in the background – served to cheer me up after 24 had made me grumpy. NEST-CE PAS, prententious? Whyioughta…!

18. Thanks Eileen

    A very good puzzle, beautifully clued with lots of amusing anagram indicators and the odd nice misdirection e.g. I first thought ‘wrinkles’ was one of them.

    I ticked 14a, 24a, 26,10, 3d, 7d, 9d, and 18d.

    Skean dhus was last in. I saw it as the only possible answer given the letters and then checked it. I then realised I have come across it before.

19. coltrane @ 16 is referring to an online petition that Eileen (at the end of the General Discussion section) is asking us to support. I have done so.

20. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. I needed you to explain a couple of answers I failed to parse.

    I was annoyed by 6a ‘(part1) heard (part2)’: this sort of thing can only be answered with certainty when 7d has been answered.

    I had heard of skean dhu so I had no trouble with 27.

21. Why exactly does that annoy you, chas? For me, when approaching 7 it added to the intrigue – will it start with a ‘u’ or an ‘e’? As it turned out 7 was (for me at least) one of the easier clues so there was no problem, but in the general case (as I said above) this kind of dilemma never bothers me.

    I know that some insist that all clues must be gettable in their own right, but I have never held that view – when did anyone ever approach a crossword with the intention of just picking out one clue? The answers form an interlocking grid, not a list.

22. thanks all
    and thanks Muffin, I amm back agaain but a short message is still rathera struggle for me.
    We don’t see Philistine very often,I guess s/he must hsve other moore importsnt things to do. Still it wes worth the wait. this was a delight. my favourites were 14ac and 18d (beautiful hiding.)
    I am sure I came across ‘skean dhu’ somewhere ,since nobody else has mentioned it ,it was perhaps in an Azed.
    Last in was ‘thanks’

23. Lovely to hear from you RCW (and hope 4-4 versus Brentford and the penalties didn’t set you back).

    Philistine was the subject of a recent “meet the setters” column – he has indeed got other important things to do, but this is his fifth Guardian puzzle of the year, making him the joint fifth most prolific out of the 21 regulars.

24. Mitz @21: I do not intend to solve just one clue – I want the lot. As it happened on this occasion my first look at the clues produced no answer for 1a but 6 was one of two possibilities depending on 7d! Sometimes a clue depends on another by quoting its number and that is clear. Otherwise I think a clue should be solvable all by itself.

    However a clue which contains e.g. 11 could be a reference to clue 11 or the letters XI and I am happy with that – as you say it adds to the intrigue.

    RCW good to see you back again after your hospital doings. Hope you soon feel fully recovered.

25. RCW, again: delighted to see you back.

26. Hi. Eileen, I bow to your fantastic solving but I still feel that without the “the” before “running” in 9 down the obvious inference is the present participle. Nonetheless, a beautiful puzzle and a very succinct and illuminating blog. Thanks again.

27. Tellmee,

    As you say, the “obvious” inference is for “running” to be a present participle. But in this case, the obvious is incorrect! As Eileen says at #5 we are looking at an example of that dark and mysterious creature, the gerund. This animal shares a common ancestor with the present participle but is a quite distinct and separate species. I can do no better than Eileen’s example – in her sentence the words “running” and “administration” are interchangeable; the clue stands!

28. Hi Tellmee

    I don’t really see your problem: ‘running’ is a gerund in the clue and, in my example, ‘the’ would be needed before both ‘running’ and ‘administration’, so the two are synonymous.

    I’m glad you came back, because it occurred to me in the meantime that we have the same device [abstract noun / gerund] in 14ac and 3dn, too.

    [Forgive me if I’m wrong but I don’t remember seeing your name before, so I should have welcomed you to the site. I hope you’ll come back again! 😉 ]

29. Sorry [and thanks] Mitz – we crossed!

30. Jeff @9: I’ve got one.

31. I started slowly but once I had some checkers the rest fell into place reasonably quickly.

    I didn’t think 6ac was ambiguous. I’ve certainly seen plenty of less satisfactory clues of this type.

    SKEAN-DHUS and EDITH were my last in. Once I realised that 27ac was an anagram the answer became obvious, and with the final checker I saw how 23dn worked. However, it was only when I read Eileen’s blog that I realised just how good a clue 27ac was because I didn’t know that meaning of shank.

32. A very enjoyable puzzle. My first Philistine and I look forward to the next

33. Rowland @14: “19 makes answer ‘provide’ the clue bits” is poorly constructed but I think I know what you mean. So you give us four specific criticisms of individual clues. That is welcome. Perhaps now you could omit the ritual patronising jeer at the Guardian. For what it’s worth I think your four points are valid.

34. This one took a while to solve, partly because of the long answers which took a bit of teasing out. All very enjoyable though, so thanks to Philistine.

    Thanks Eileen for the blog and we hope all goes well for the petition.

35. Hi All

    Thanks for all the comments.

    Re my preamble:

    It’s been niggling me all day that I said I didn’t think I’d blogged a Philistine before: I was pushed for time this morning and didn’t go back far enough into the archives, where I’ve now been reminded that I was privileged to blog Philistine’s début puzzle http://www.fifteensquared.net/2011/05/26/guardian-25332-philistine/ – which I knew all along: how could I have forgotten it?

    Almost equally bad: I find that the first comment on that puzzle [almost exactly two years ago!] was from tellmee [sic] and today @28 I welcomwed Tellmee [sic] as a possible newcomer! 🙁

    Huge apologies all round.

    [Many thanks to those who read through to the end of the preamble and acted on it. See further on General Discussion for updates.]

36. Delightful puzzle as always from Philistine
    Many thanks to Eileen (have signed)

37. Another enjoyable crossword from Philistine although I cant pretend I found it easy.

    I personally had no quibbles with any of the clues.

    Regarding 6A. We know 7D is going to begin with U or E so surely this would only be unfair if we can find two solutions for 7D one beginning with E and one with U. OK dissenters, what’s your “U” solution?

    And Eileen, although I also didn’t know that a shank can be the “tube” of a stocking I did know it can be the lower part of the leg which surely is used to position your Skean Dhu! (I have an amusing anecdote about a Skean Dhu which I wont bore you all with but it does mean that I was familiar with the word)

    Finally Michelle you never cease to amaze me with your solving skills but this time you have me puzzled. If you couldn’t parse SKEAN DHU and have never heard of the word how on earth did you solve it?!!!

    Thanks to Eileen and Philistine.

38. Hello Brendanetc

    “And Eileen, although I also didn’t know that a shank can be the “tube” of a stocking I did know it can be the lower part of the leg which surely is used to position your Skean Dhu!”

    Of course – I’ve eaten many a tasty lamb shank! – but the icing on the cake [a not very appropriate culinary metaphor] was, for me, the very precise meaning, which, as I said, I only discovered this morning. For me, that discovery turned a really good clue into a truly great one.

39. No need to apologise to me, Eileen. I feel humbled that you noted my previous contribution to your blog. Grateful for your briefing on the present participle/gerund situation and stand corrected. Keep up the good work and thanks again.

40. Brendan@37
    I had all the crossing letters and I realised it was an anagram of SHANK USED so I just kept on shuffling the letters until I could find something in the dictionary that seemed to make sense. I often use dictionary, thesaurus and/or internet searches to solve clues and that is how I discover words that are new to me.

41. OK Michelle. That makes sense.

    So you DID parse it! i.e. you realised it was an anagram. That’s what was confusing.

    No problem with whatever methods you use to find words. There are no rules to solving Cryptics despite what others may say. It’s a personal decision.

42. 6 reminds me of a type of clue I used to encounter a lot in The Nation puzzle, set by Frank Lewis.

    The clue would be three six letter words, and the answer (6) also. All of the three words would be fair anagrinds, and of course in the end the answer might not even be an anagram.

    Thanks for the blog, Eileen. My MISTAKING at 1 and PROGENERATION at 14 killed my chances of solving 3. 27 was totally beyond me, though I suppose a word search or anagram finder might have done the job. A bit obscure for a Tuesday. This week has been kicking me hard, but that’s why I try to do these things – I want and enjoy the struggle.

    RCW, nice to see you up and about. I hope there is a recovery in progress!

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