We found this quite hard – generally inventive and enjoyable, although there were a few clues that let it down for me. I’ve mentioned those below, but there were some stand-out excellent clues too, e.g. 15d (POLITBURO), 3d (KNOWLEDGE), 12a (ART SCHOOL), 9a (EXPLOITED), 26a (WHODUNNIT) and 17a (DRONES). 8d (CHELSEA TRACTOR) made me laugh, although the surface reading lets it down a bit, I think.
I can’t parse 5d, I’m afraid, but I bet someone will explain in the early hours of Saturday morning 🙂 And so it came to pass…
Across
1. Perhaps a few nods welcome the return of agreement in that poetical subject of uncertainty (3,5,2,4)
THE AKOND OF SWAT
(A FEW NODS)* around OK = “agreement” reversed, all in THAT
Definition: “poetical subject of uncertainty” – this refers to the Edward Lear poem, which I’m happy to discover through this crossword 🙂
9. Left admits Palestinians getting abused (9)
EXPLOITED
EXITED = “Left” around PLO = “Palestinians”
Definition: “abused”
10. Compiler’s rights to unwrap the third gift (5)
MYRRH
MY = “Compiler’s” + RR = “rights” + [t]H[e] = “unwrap the”
Definition: “the third gift”, referring to the gifts of the Magi
11. Hourly hospital examination (5)
HORAL
H = “hospital” + ORAL = “examination”
Definition: “hourly”
12. Scholar to get creative here (3,6)
ART SCHOOL
(SCHOLAR TO)*
Definition: “here”, in the context of the whole clue
13. Lives eating university leftovers (8)
RESIDUES
RESIDES = “Lives” around U = “university”
Definition: “leftovers”
14. Slipper itself (6)
SPRITE
I know some people like these clues, but I think this is unfairly tough on the solver: (PER ITS)* “Slip” being the anagram indicator
Definition: “elf”
17. Flights with no pilots in the squadron escaped (6)
DRONES
Hidden in “[squa]DRON ES[caped]”
Definition: “Flights with no pilots”
19. It’s unspoken, but legal after 14 (8)
IMPLICIT
LICIT = “legal” after IMP = “[SPRITE]”
Definition: “unspoken”
22. Misleading foresight where oral examination is inadvisable (4,5)
GIFT HORSE
(FORESIGHT)*
Definition: “where oral examination is inadvisable”, referring to the expression “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”
24. Some rejected ritual baths as played in 23 ceremony (5)
TABLA
Hidden reversed in “[ritu]AL BAT[hs]”
Definition: “as played in [HINDU] ceremony”
25. Once an inmate in lab now? (2-3)
EX-CON
EX-CON (ex-Conservative) might imply someone’s “in lab” (in Labour) now
Definition: “Once an inmate”
26. 23 town perplexed by mystery (9)
WHODUNNIT
([HINDU] TOWN)*
Definition: “mystery”
27. Mr Fixit is a nasal irritant (14)
TROUBLESHOOTER
Maybe something that’s a nasal irritant TROUBLES your HOOTER
Definition: “Mr Fixit”
Down
1. PhD questions (3,5,6)
THE THIRD DEGREE
Double definition: “question” (as in “to give someone the third degree“) or “PhD” (a PhD would often be the third degree after a Bachelor’s and a Master’s
2. Becomes invalid and dies (7)
EXPIRES
Double definition: “Becomes invalid” and “dies”
3. Learning to reposition a boat with new hooter on board (9)
KNOWLEDGE
KEDGE = “to reposition a boat” around N = “new” + OWL = “hooter”
Definition: “Learning”
4. Shells for loonies (8)
NUTCASES
Double definition: “Shells” and “loonies”
5. Every second counts identifying advance air strikes by a quirk (6)
ODDITY
[Sorry, not sure how this one works…] Thanks to Biggles A for explaining this one – it’s the second letters of [c]O[unts] [i]D[entifying] [a]D[ance] [a]I[r] [s]T[rikes] [b]Y
Definition: “a quirk”
6. Nobel laureate up a tree (5)
CAMUS
SUMAC = “tree” reversed
Definition: “Nobel laureate” referring to Albert Camus, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and one of a number of famous literary goalkeepers.
7. Man of faith in the middle of the road? It’s logical (1,6)
A PRIORI
PRIOR = “Man of faith” in A1 = “road”
Definition: “It’s logical”, I guess just meaning that “a priori” is a term used in logical inference? Seems weak to me…
8. A car, not small talk about other right performer (7,7)
CHELSEA TRACTOR
CHAT = “talk” around ELSE = “other” + R = “right” + ACTOR = “performer”
Definition: “A car, not small” – “Chelsea Tractor” is a tongue-in-cheek expression for SUVs bought be people who mostly just drive them in cities
15. Communist leaders applying central cure to one disease, consumed by another (9)
POLITBURO
[c]UR[e] + TB = “one disease” in POLIO
Definition: “Communist leaders”
16. Flying insects and flightless birds (8)
EMPERORS
Double definition: I think this is referring to emperor moths or emperor gum moths (“Flying insects”) and emperor penguins (“flightless birds”)
18. Major say in bid, insurance company leads (7)
OFFICER
I[nsurance] C[ompany] = “insurance company leads” in OFFER = “bid”
Definition: “Major say”
20. I can’t be bothered with the government (7)
CABINET
(I CAN’T BE)*
Definition: “with the government” – a poor definition, I think
21. Lay it on thick with a “Welcome to the bistro! Welcome!” (6)
TROWEL
Hidden in “[bis]TRO WEL[come]” – I assume the hidden indication is meant to be read as “TROWEL is welcome in ‘bisTROWELcome'”, which doesn’t really work for me
Definition: “Lay it on thick” (“to trowel” as a verb)
23. Man of faith greeting name-dropping upstarts (5)
HINDU
HI = “greeting” followed by first letters of “name-dropping up”, indicated by “starts”
Definition: “Man of faith”
Thanks mhl. For 5d take the second letter of the words following ‘second’. I never did explain 25 to myself.
Not of any real consequence but I thought in 8 that chat=small talk and in the preamble 12a is of course ART SCHOOL.
Biggles A: Thanks for the corrections, which I’ve applied. I did consider CHAT = “small talk” but then “small” would be doing double duty, and CHAT = “talk” seems fine to me.
mhl. Of course. I just thought an SUV is not a car but your analysis is better.
Thanks mhl. The nonsense of 1A took a lot of switching letters via Google – a test of a sort I suppose. Dredged from memory (Paul, 13/12/12) was the car in 8D. WHODUNNIT suggested itself from the initial W, and that helped with 23 and, giving a clue to Philistine’s style, indirectly with 14, which you didn’t like: I did because it was neat, as was the PhD clue.
Many thanks mhl & Philistine.
MYRRH (10a) was my favourite and I didn’t suss it out until I had all the crossing letters.
Thanks all
This all went swimmingly and enjoyably until I was left with just 1ac which in spite of all 7 crossers I could not solve.
I tried various Google entries but was shocked to alight on an question/answer site where someone had just directly asked for the solution . Someone else gave it with no apparent hesitation.
This was a stark contrast to the rather sanctimonious and rapid response on here whenever anyone dares to mention (not give a solution!) a prize puzzle before the due date.
Thanks Philistine and mhl
SPRITE was my last in, unparsed, and solved only from the crossers and the “imp” in 19a – I suppose that that possibility of solving makes it a bit fairer.
Enjoyed this but couldn’t finish it because I’d never heard of “THE AKOND OF SWAT”, and I’m not convinced that this is fair, but maybe it is familiar to most of you and I’m just a philistine when it comes to Victorian doggerel. I’d like to add the corny TROUBLESHOOTER and EX-CON to the list of favourites.
Thanks to Philistine and mhl
I thought the extra hint at 19 was fair to help with the difficult wordplay of 14.
My favourite was 22 ac. Easy enough but made me smile.
How the weeks fly by!
Thx
A typically well clued puzzle from Philistine.
This seemed very difficult at first but gradually succumbed as all the cluing was fair.
For some reason I particularly liked 22A. Great surface and such an unlikely anagram.
1A was clever since right from the “off” I suspected I was looking for a poem and I had the OK in place which led me to suspect it was a “nonsense” poem as no “word” would fit. The word play eventually got me there although I’d never heard of the poem! This was next to the LOI which was 14A, another clever clue. I was only annoyed when I finally solved it and noticed that 19A gave me a “big fat clue” which I had by then forgotten!!!
Thanks to mhl and Philistine
Thanks for the blog.
I think 1a is barely fair. I suppose the solution is just about the only thing you can make from the crossers and fodder that looks like a title… but anagrams for names and non-words I don’t know always niggle.
14 and 25 went in without being fully understood. 1d had me puzzled for a while: I have a PhD but it was my second degree 🙂
6d is sumac not camus. Could not do more than half of this though had some answers but could not parse them.
Hmmm…is it fair to say that ‘crossword’ is actually adjectival shorthand for a ‘crossword PUZZLE’? In which case, a) the clues can be as obscure as the setter wishes (perhaps subject to editorial control) and b) there are no limits to solvers obtaining assistance, especially for a prize puzzle.
It’s just a charade that there is this sub-set of us playing by the rules. I Googled 1a and found the spoiler @7 but since I would never have got it any other way I think it’s fair play. It’s only the same as if a group of people were clustered round the puzzle in a pub and one of them just happened to have heard of it.
The clue for SPRITE isn’t unfair; it is simply brilliant. I didn’t get it and now I do thanks to mhl, who for these purposes is my mate in the pub. As for A PROIRI, again; unknown to me but eminently solvable from clue and crossers, which kind-a defines ‘puzzle’, doesn’t it?
Plenty of papers have prize general knowledge crosswords and other puzzles but of course we 15×15 cognoscenti wouldn’t touch them. But solvers-in-general in this Venn diagram will, without guilt, use any assistance available for any of these puzzles, including the hallowed Guardian Prize!
And, err…isn’t 15×15 itself a spoiler/cheat site? In the week, the bleedin’ answers are there for all to see before most of us have even got the paper, let alone got to the pub!
What’s yours, mhl?
Keep us on our toes, Philistine!
1a is fair… if you happen to know the ‘poem’ in question.
If not, you’re bound to flounder- especially as this is not a simple anagram, but relies on some pre-processing. If this doesn’t yield any known words, one tends to reject it.
I enjoyed this amusing well-clued puzzle. I was fortunate re 1a to remember the Lear poem and also to know something about the Akond. He was a fairly typical example of the transformation of an Islamic ‘saint’ into a position of secular power. Swat is of course much in the news these days as a locus of Taliban activity.
I had to check ‘kedge’ in the dictionary.
Tend to agree with the criticism of 1ac, otherwise found this both challenging and enjoyable, for which many thanks
Thanks for a great blog, mhl.
It’s always good to see Philistine’s name on a puzzle and I enjoyed all but two of the clues as much as ever.
I have to agree with Brianjp @13: the clue for 6dn leads unequivically, for me, to SUMAC.
And as for 1ac! Last one in and I said naughty words when I eventually got it. I cannot stand nonsense verse and [mercifully] I’d never heard of that one.
Apart from those, thoroughly enjoyable, as ever. I agree that the added help in 14dn made ITSELF fair.
I didn’t do any research into lepidoptera and hadn’t heard of your moths, mhl, but I have seen purple emperor butterflies.
http://tiny.cc/36j8ix
In 20dn, I took the definition as being ‘the government’ – and really liked it!
Other favourites: ART SCHOOL, GIFT HORSE, EX-CON, WHODUNNIT, THE THIRD DEGREE, POLITBURO.
Many thanks to Philistine for another lovely puzzle.
I thought this was a good puzzle. Like quite a few of you 1ac was my LOI. I had never heard of the poem but I managed to work it out from the clue, as unlikely as it looked in its finished form. I honestly can’t remember if I parsed ODDITY or just put it in from the definition and checkers. I do remember that I managed to parse SPRITE and found it clever, but maybe that’s because I saw it.
I must have had a strange upbringing, as I know several Lear nonsense poems, so “The Akond of Swat” was my first as a write-in. Oh well.
[I once wrote a clue for another:
Teh? Eht? Het? Sieve sailors! (3,8)
]
Thanks mhl,
I only managed about half of this before becoming completely stumped. Looking at the answers, I should have got all
of them apart from 1a which I wouldn’t have got and maybe 14a. Some very clever wordplay here from Philistine and it
would seem, too clever for me.
A quick warning for Eileen :
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
Thanks to Philistine.
I failed to parse SPRITE too.
Oddly enough, there’s a kind of slipper known as this:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sprite+slippers&lr=&hl=en&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bGbKU87wAdLA7AaV_ICYBw&ved=0CFsQ7Ak&biw=1113&bih=838&dpr=2
(Sorry about the URL).
Cheers all.
yes, I knew “the Akond of Swat” from reading Lear years ago; and also his estate manager. Whilst hitch-hiking there in the sixties, he invited me in for a meal of roast lamb and green walnuts. As the honoured guest, I was given the first opportunity of drinking the fat from the roast, complete with floating wool bits. No one else indulged, so I still don’t know whether I was “had”.
Enjoyed the crossword, thanks Philistine and mhl.
Thank you mhi, in particular for explaining 14a, where I assumed that “Slipper” was the name of a Shakespearean elf.
At risk of sounding like a Guardianista, I did not care for 1a. I got it by guesswork then found out what it meant from Wikipedia – see tupu @16 for a summary. So the Lear poem was not just innocent nonsense, but was making fun of a real person, presumably for having a funny foreign name.
David Mop @24
Having seen (thanks tupu) that it did refer to a real person, I agree with you. How very Victorian and imperialistic!
Well said Mr Phillips @14
I totally agree with your comments.
As I have said many times on here. The rules for a crossword are simple.
a) The setter gets an empty grid and fills it it with some words.
b) The solver gets the same empty grid and has to fill it with the same words in the same places.
c) The setter provides some “clues” to help”
d) (Optional) The “clues” should lead unequivocally to a unique solution.
That’s it. All the other “rules” spouted on here are just personal conditions chosen by the solver.
I particularly liked the pub references as that is my first preference as a solving location. Unfortunately my current “local” is definitely not suitable so I have to put up with my lounge. (I do supply the essential beer though 😉 )
Thanks Philistine and mhl
Thoroughly enjoyable and good to get a Prize with some grist in it. Didn’t start this one until this Monday and it was a good challenge that continued on and off throughout the day.
I needed help to get THE AKOND OF SWAT, but can vaguely remember him popping up in another puzzle … similarly to my last one in CHELSEA TRACTOR (the equivalent of our Toorak Tractor in Melbourne).
Thought that both EX CON and SPRITE were outstanding – I actually had more trouble figuring out the LAB / CON part of the former than the duel lift and separate of the latter.
Did not see either of the anagrams for ART SCHOOL or GIFT HORSE – had put them both down as cd’s.
Just good stuff from a setter whom I tend to expect it of these days.