Guardian 26,276 by Philistine

42 comments on “Guardian 26,276 by Philistine”

1. There is triple wordplay in 29 “now see”- Stat. + Ely

2. Thanks, flashling.

   ANTWERP was my first “in” to the half clued ones, and I thought “places in Belgium”; then, PORT which squashed that idea. Took a while to realise it was just ports.

   I needed explanations to several: 11a, 16a and 6d

3. Wow! Sublime to ridiculous springs to mind. Had to leave it half done to finish this morning. But managed and enjoyed in the end. Got the connection as FOI was Felixstowe followed by Lowestoft but were they all places in East Anglia?, then Istanbul answered that question. LOI was Leash but didn’t know the connection with ‘three’ so it was a guess. Liked 22d and 24ac. Took a while to see the ‘I’ definition so thought it was undefined at first which threw me a bit. A very clever puzzle IMHO. More please!

4. Thanks, flashling. Brilliant puzzle but could have done without it on a working day!

5. Quite testing for a Tuesday, but not unwelcome.

   The undefineds were a strange mixture of the domestic (SE England) and the exotic, but I felt 27 was a bit of a cop-out – having got it early, I was still looking for a ninth in either 14, 23 or 24 which were my last ones in, but which became easier when I accepted that I was not looking for ports.

   Thanks to Philistine and Flashing – i like the reproduction of the solution in the grid.

6. Thanks, flashling.

   My way in was ANTWERP, too, closely followed by OPORTO, which, luckily, put me on the right track.

   Favourites were ISTANBUL, BREAST-FED and FELIXSTOWE and I also liked RAPPORT for the ‘Said’.

   I was chuffed at, for once, spotting the I in 24ac.

   Many thanks to Philistine for the fun challenge.

   [Yes, quite a coincidence with the Indy.]

7. Thanks Philistine & Flashling.

   I got IODINE early on and, not noticing the ‘I’ at first, thought it was undefined and the answers were thus elements. Mind you, I also had PORT, so wondered what was the connection. 😕

   Surely the ‘on’ in the clue for EXIGENT should be ‘in?’ Otherwise, I don’t see where there is an insertion indicator.

   I missed the parsing of LE HAVRE and couldn’t seem to fit BSE into PRISON – although PRION was of course fine.

8. Great puzzle. Unlike some others I didn’t find it too difficult, apart from LEASH. Thanks to Philistine and Flashling.

9. Thanks flashling. I do like your puzzle graphic. Paul had an almost identical IODINE in Dec 2012. My last was 8D and never having heard the right answer plumped for ‘rat ruts’ which I rather prefer.

10. That was challenging, and a lot of fun. But still can’t see the connection to 23 in 15 down. Halfway, amid. I get that. Ships and bowsprit. Don’t see how that works. Also why is recurrent in 11 suggestive of backwards?

11. @xjp #10 a recurrent theme is one that keeps returning hence going back. As for 23/15 I was rather hoping someone might expound on that myself!

12. xjp @ 10 & flashling @ 11

    My take on 23/15 is that if you’re amidships you’re halfway between the stern and the bow(sprit).

    hth

13. I couldn’t parse LE HAVRE, PORTSMOUTH, NO HOPER or RAPPORT – the last because I was being too clever for my own good and assuming “link” in the clue was PORT – a nice bit of misdirection if deliberate! LEASH I just didn’t get and had to cheat.

    I agree with Simon S re the definition of AMIDSHIPS – though I was trying to decide whether it should be halfway between bow & stern, or halfway between port and starboard – or both? Any nautical types here who know?

14. gladys @ 13

    Most definitions seem to say it’s fore-and-aft

15. Thanks flashling and Simon S. Now I can think about something else.

16. Thanks to flashling for the blog. I am like several who have commented today: there were several cases where I had the answer but not the parsing.

    On 15/23 I saw it as halfway to the bow i.e. the middle of the ship.

17. On 27 I saw that disproportionate actually contains three four-letter words i.e. prop, port and Iona so I needed to get at least one more ‘unclued’ in order to pick one of the three. I did not get the crossing words until later.

18. I ground my way through this to a successful conclusion, without understanding the parsing of ‘leash’. I tried to make a connection with 27a with Port Laoise in mind, but that didn’t work as, not only is the spelling wrong but it’s in the Irish midlands.
    I enjoyed the challenge, though 27a is a bit of a disappointment.

19. I think 29 is a quad clue.
    a Now=stat see =Ely
    b Gallery = Tate in artful = sly
    c style at (anag)
    d The definition = grand

20. Doing this crossword on the “premium” version of the Guardian Android app, I discovered I couldn’t make sense of many of the across clues and put it down to having a bad day. Then I came across the one-word clue for SPLIT, and figured that something was wrong. A look at the website version revealed that there were special instructions, which don’t show up at all in the app version. Not on, Guardian – not on at all!

    Once the special instructions were read, things moved at a faster clip, although it was still a difficult – albeit enjoyable – puzzle. Thanks to Philistine. And a special thanks to flashling for resolving the LEASH clue!

21. Incidentally, am I the only one who suspects that the multiple wordplay in 29 is the result of the setter forgetting to edit out other options that he was considering when setting the clue? Deliberately leaving in three sets of wordplay is surely painting the lily (although I must admit I got only two of them myself).

22. Robi@7: I see 20 as GEN going through (the) EXIT i.e. on the way out. The wording bothered me at first too. I quite like these types of clue.

    Good puzzle, but I agree with those who say it should have been a prize. Seems tailor-made for that slot. The ports theme was fun, but 27 is a bit unsatisfying. Maybe it should have been clued “somewhat unsporting”.
    I enjoyed the Doh moment from finally parsing the multiple wordplay clues. “Find” in 24 threw me for quite a while. I was looking for some sort of detective or collector as the answer!

    Thanks flashling and Philistine.

23. phitonelly @22; thanks for the explanation – that would probably work.

24. Serious hard work for the class dummy. Didn’t get LEASH.

    Something is nagging at the memory that we had I as the definition for IODINE before. Probably just cracking up of course.

25. Thanks all
    That was much, much better than recent Philistines. It was a real challenge in parts and I thought ‘Istanbul’ was a tru;y clever clue.
    I failed toparse Portsmouth until I came here, strop indeed.
    I admired also 14ac.

26. Derek @ 24

    Not being one to resist a challenge, I used this site’s excellent search facility (thanks Gaufrid). Iodine has appeared in the graun twice this year:

    26195 by Paul, 28/2/14
    6D Compound contains iodine for conductor (9)
    TOSCANINI
    =”conductor” (Arturo Toscanini [wiki]). (contains I[odine])*

    26206 by Philistine (!), 13/3/14
    28A I, for one, having a record, chicken out (7)
    HALOGEN
    An envelope (‘out’) of ‘a’ plus LOG (‘record’) in HEN (‘chicken’). The definition is I, the chemical symbol for iodine, a halogen.

    hth

27. I agree that this was a bit tricky for a weekday, but I found it very entertaining. My entry to the theme was the FELIXSTOWE anagram, helped by the last 3 crossers. Before that I couldn’t decide whether 27 was PORT or PROP, but rugby positions seemed unlikely. It still took a while to sort out the rest, especially the SE corner. LOWESTOFT was the last port and LEASH was last in – had to check the “Three” usage. Ticked a few, including ANTWERP, ISTANBUL, and BREAST-FED.

    Thanks to flashling – must have been quite a tough one to blog, and to Philistine.

28. Yes, an overall excellent crossword.
    I did this one after Hob’s (in the Indy) so I felt a bit spooky today. One of the ports was even the same!

    I particularly liked PORTSMOUTH, ISTANBUL, BREAST-FED, CRUISE CONTROL and RAPPORT (because of use of Said).

    At 21, Abhay writes: “Incidentally, am I the only one who suspects that the multiple wordplay in 29 is the result of the setter forgetting to edit out other options that he was considering when setting the clue?”
    Well, in his last crossword Philistine did the same thing (less successfully, in my opinion). So, perhaps, he wants to make it into one of his trademarks.

    When Anax looked at some my puzzles a few years ago, he certainly would have ticked me off on the use of “find” and “probe” in 24ac and 22d respectively. And, btw, he did! While the former can be easily corrected (“will find”), the latter is trickier.
    That said, when a crossword is so enjoyable as this one, I cannot be bothered too much and therefore I don’t want to start a discussion here.

    Perhaps, there will be solvers who don’t like incestuous clues like 10ac (SHED) in a daily but the answer was clear enough.

    17ac (PART) is a bit special. The device is “double definition”. With one definition not being there, we still have another one. It makes this clue into a quick clue though fully justifiable here.

    For some, PORT (27ac) was unsatisfying, mainly because one can two more hidden words.
    For me, it was the odd one out (Brummie revisited!) because I wondered what the definition would be that was left out here. Surely, the solution to 27ac is the common definition for the others?

    But anyway, nice stuff from Philistine.

29. Simon, yup indeed, but it was the actual use of I as the definition that I thought I’d seen before.

    I would have looked, but I was depressing myself with the action on Sky Sports 2 🙁

30. Thanks flashling and Philistine

    A tough puzzle. I did not see everything to see in 29 and I had to check the ‘three’ meaning of leash.

    Some very clever clues. I liked 11a, 14a, 26a, and 4d in particular.

31. 25818 by Paul, 13.12.12
    I like regularly to embrace god. Like today’s.

    25818 by Arachne, 15.2.13
    I have supper after ten. Like this one best.

32. rhotician @31 – the Arachne number should be 25872, and I agree that her version is neater

33. I agree with those of you who are of the opinion that this was a tricky puzzle. 16ac was my LOI and before I was happy to enter LEASH I went to my Chambers to see its connection to “three”. I’m surprised I haven’t come across it in that context before. It took me a while to see that “postgraduate” needed to be split for the wordplay in 18dn to make sense, although the answer seemed obvious enough. Yes, a strange coincidence Indy-wise.

34. Clever puzzle and mostly enjoyable, just spoilt a bit for me by 27a (Saw PORT early on, but thought it couldn’t be right as it’s not the name of a port) and 16a (I know one man’s obscurity is another’s specialist knowledge, but I thought this was well into Call My Bluff territory)

35. Yes beery this was a pig to solve and blog (nearly) correctly, getting it done whilst working is an art form in itself. Not to mention the newsagent not having a guardian so did most of the Indy on the way in to work.
    As far as the grid diagram goes thank PeeDee’s rather useful blogging tool, I thought it might help today.
    Sil, the redundant words – I can only agree. Thanks commenters.
    Now give us an original clue for Iodine 🙂

36. Hi flashling

    “Now give us an original clue for Iodine :-)”

    For me, you’d have to go a very long way [more than one of her marathons] to beat Arachne’s ‘I have supper after ten.’ [rhotician @31]

37. A very tricky puzzle for a weekday but very welcome.

    The first pass was most discouraging. I only had about 3 down solutions and SAILORS for 28A which I was sure was wrong. I had also considered SPLIT for 17A but then decided to wait and see. When I finally got the theme it was annoying that I forgot the SPLIT idea until almost the end. (Doubly annoying as I have actually visited the port on 4 occasions!)

    Like others I couldn’t parse LEASH.

    PORT at 27A brought a smile as I knew Sil would have something to say re the “of a kind”. I still had no problem with it 🙂

    Thanks to Flashling and Philistine

38. flashling @ 35

    “Now give us an original clue for Iodine :-)”

    A Paul-esque clue might be

    I eat evening meal after a moon

39. Iodine

    Blyton goes back to visit Hera’s nymph

40. Sorry I missed the definition out so

    I, Blyton go back to visit Hera’s nymph

41. Loved it. Thanks to all. Struggled long and hard but completed without recourse to external aids (which could explain why I had “terse” instead of “leash”). Also didn’t parse 5.
    Also enjoyed phitonelly’s “somewhat unsporting” suggestion.

42. I could see a triple definition for 17 (if one allows the undefined as one of them, as Sil has somewhat oxymoronically) since the two meanings for “split” (one the verb, the other the noun) separately are synonymous with “part”

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