Guardian 27,052 / Philistine

60 comments on “Guardian 27,052 / Philistine”

1. I was also confused about the rubric, but the answer seems to be that the definition for 5 is bottom, and it is not further defined, so that’s no.6.

2. Re 4 down, the past participles of run and flee are run and fled … so the clue is ok imho.

3. Thanks mhl, and to aA for finding the missing bum. That theme revealed itself at the outset but it didn’t help me with 26A. Google confirmed it however, as it did with 13A, both usefully adding to my lexicon. Good fun, Philistine.

4. Thanks mhl. I must have gone to the wrong sort of school because CALLIPYGIAN, BAHOOKIE (my LOI)and TUSH were all new to me but the crossing letters helped to give the answers. I never did explain 2d to myself and it looks so obvious now so thanks for that. I had just assumed that BOTTOM was one of the six solutions not further defined but of course it is a double definition. I see the annotated solution corrects six to five.

5. Having achieved the dubious distinction of getting in the first (and indeed 2nd) posts to 225 [I only came on site to check the solution to today’s Pan], I now have time to say thanks v. much to Philistine and mhl.
   I was lucky (?) with this one to be familiar with the solution to 13ac at least in the form “callipygous” (due originally, I think to this Grauniad article from 2003 – https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2003/sep/12/the-x-philes). That led to the solution to 5ac and helped a lot with the rest.
   I enjoyed this but with 2 (maybe 3) reservations:
   26ac – Bahookie – an obscure word (at least for Sassenachs) with dubious wordplay as indicated by mhl. Is this fair? I only got it by cheating.
   22 down – gross and gloss seem equally valid solutions to me.
   3 down – I didn’t manage to parse this, but with the benefit of 225 enlightenment, it’s perhaps a fair use of lift and separate given that the solution/definition is fairly obvious.

6. I really enjoyed this but I’m still not happy about “bookie” being defined as a “better” – it may be so but surely the “better” would usually be the bookie’s customer.

7. Amateur @ 6 – I agree, but I suppose that Philistine would say that the bookie bets against the punter. Still unfair in the context of the clue and solution, in my view.

8. Thanks to Philistine and mhl. I got BOTTOM quickly thanks to Bottom the weaver but struggled with CALLIPYGIAN and BAHOOKIE and the parsing of SAUDI. Very enjoyable.

9. So last week’s prize was all about toilets, and this week was all about bottoms – i hardly dare think what might come next. Good fun, though, and I learned some new words like CALLIPYGIAN and BAHOOKIE, which I’m sure I can fitt into my everyday conversation. I didn’t pick the (rather neat) parsing for SAUDI, eventually decided 22d did have to be GROSS and, inexplicably, didn’t get BEDSORE until the very end, possibly because I was assuming it must be the missing sixth ‘5’. I justified ‘bookie’ the same way as anotherAndrew @ 7, but it seems weak.

   Thanks, Philistine and mhl.

10. Thanks Philistine and mhl
    Major frustration trying to find the sxth undefined bottom! Callipygian is odd in that Chambers and Collins don’t recognise each other’s spelling.

11. I had no problem with the tense in RUN=FLED, knowing that deserters were marked R for Run in the ship’s books – thanks, Patrick O’Brian, an invaluable source of obscure words and meanings as well as a fine author!

    However, a better is not a bookie in my book.

12. KeithS “didn’t get BEDSORE until the very end, possibly because I was assuming it must be the missing sixth ‘5’.” – exactly the same here!
    We never found BAHOOKIE as it is unknown to Chamber’s Word Wizard, though I now see Collins has it.

    It was a fun puzzle, but let down somewhat by the confusing rubric.

13. PS: thanks Philistine for THONG, BOOTLICKER and OPENING TIME among many enjoyable clues, and thanks Mhl.

14. Pretty disappointing for a Prize. (Especially from Philistine). The “bottom” conceit was fairly trivial and made most of the “5” solutions trivial. (Where was number 6?)

    Sorry to see that Philistine is stooping to the lazy Pasqualian tricks of using words like BAHOOKIE & CALLIPYGIAN. These are a little esoteric and not really gettable from the wordplay if one doesn’t know them. (I still can’t even parse the former! )

    I’ve just seen the “BOOKIE” around “AH” but surely this is incorrect! A bookie takes a bet whereas a better lays bets. OED, Chambers and Collins seem to agree although SOED has the confusing and unclear extra definition of “a professional betting person”)

    The rest of the puzzle was far too easy for a weekend. IMHO of course.

    By the way “5” isn’t the 6th Bottom as it is defined (Doubly in fact).

    Editor required!

15. I actually had BADOOKIE (never heard of it). BOTTOM doesnt count although its the theme. It is clearly defined twice. The nearest I could get to a sixth was BEDSORES which is being a bit kind to the setter(I wouldnt have a clue to which part of the body they afflict but I dare say the setter would, being a surgeon
    Otherwise fun-and thanks for blog.

16. Callipygian and bahookie were new to me too. The former was quite guessable for those of us who remember the Julian Barnes book Talking it Over which has a character who was known as the steatopygous Stu. All very entertaining.

    Thanks to Philistine and mhl

17. Good fun – thanks Philistine and mhi (I thought the Minions clip was great!)

    BAHOOKIE defeated me.

    GLOSS v GROSS?? I thought both would do and it didn’t really matter as the second letter wasn’t part of another clue. However, for a prize crossword there will only be one correct answer so there may be some disappointed entrants.

18. An enjoyable solve. CALLIPYGIAN was new to me but gettable. Had the same thoughts as others about BAHOOKIE.

    Why the missing L in 18a? Can you spell “droll” like that? Or is it part of the homophone that applies to “nose/knows” – i.e. spell “lord” backwards, read out the result, and it sounds like “droll”?

19. JimS = I think “most comical” means “most of DROL[L]”

20. Thank you Philistine and mhl.

    I enjoyed this puzzle, but cheated on BAHOOKIE. NODS OFF and SAUDI fooled me for a while.

21. Andrew: many thanks- I get it now!

22. Two bum puzzles in a row. And a dodgy rubric…

    Some clever clues, but too many anagrams, I thought.

    Dread to think what we are going to get today.

23. [r_c_a_d @22, peckers today…]

24. Thanks both. I was also confused by the lack of a 6th bottom. I earmarked 22d to moan about, but re-reading after a week the clue seems just about fair, with only one correct solution.

25. Being shamefully unversed on Shakespeare I didn’t know Bottom was a weaver, however I still got 5 quite easily from the mistaken belief it was referencing the painful medical condition Weaver’s Bottom. Of course that also made me think it was an unindicated definition by example and caused me to grumble, unreasonably as it turned out.

    I also thought 26 BAHOOKIE was an uncharacteristically poor clue – especially as one of the undefined specials – but I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle, with 18 LORD KNOWS being my favourite.

    Thanks Philistine and mhl.

26. jovis@ 17 GLOSS v GROSS?? Yes, I noticed this and thought either answer should be accepted for the prize winners.(It doesn’t affect me as I haven’t entered for years; I already have the two books. Isn’t it time the Graniad changed them, or went back to offering a book token?)

    Thanks Andrew and Philistine for an enjoyable crossword

27. Apologies, thanks mhl

28. After writing in EQUALS, it was easy to get the theme from RUMP and REAR (just guessed that Bottom in MSND was a (dream-?)weaver — don’t really know the plot details).

    I got all but BAHOOKIE, which I was annoyed to find was not only not in Chambers, but also not in the wordlists for the “cheat” letter-fill site I use for such desperate occasions. I did think of the “gambler” meaning for “better”, but didn’t think of “bookie”. I think it’s fair to describe a bookie as a “better” though, even if it’s less than obvious: a bet always involves more than one party (even if one tends to win more often by setting the odds).

    I got CALLIPYGIAN, partly by knowing “steatopygous”, but on checking in Chambers, noted — as others here — that the spelling is different there.
    Perhaps the Guardian should consider reinstating the Collins Dictionary as the prize? It’s always seemed silly to me to give a prize-winner an introduction to cryptics anyway.

    I don’t see the problem with GROSS, btw: the position of “is” shows which is the answer — (Polish, side-switching) is (repellent).

29. I failed on the SE corner some of which was my fault – missing BOOTLICKER in spite of getting LICKER and T and BEDSORE, though I think the “as” was an unnecessary misdirection. BAHOOKIE I don’t think I would have got with all the crossers -and it’s not in Chambers. ISOSCELES may describe a shape that is symmetrical but I don’t think that it is a definition of symmetry. GROSS I would have only got with crossers given the number of possibile fits for polish and repellent.
    Thanks to Philistine and mhl.

30. Thanks Philistine and mhl

    I really enjoyed this puzzle.

    BAHOOKIE is in the eChambers I bought a couple of years ago, so I guess it may be a recent addition.

31. Simon S

    I was referring to (my) 1988 edition of Chambers. Good to know it’s in the more up-to-date version. I doubt I’d have got it anyway as I didn’t manage to produce it as a candidate from the wordplay. I was led astray by the K, which I was trying to make part of OK (for “I realise”).

32. An enjoyable puzzle which had a concept similar to his alter ego’s Goliath FT crossword, blogged last Thursday.
    And just like in that rubbish offering, the theme was cracked within seconds.
    Philistine’s idea must have started from somewhere and it may well be that the couple at 23/24d gave him the inspiration.

    If 24d would have been (in a ‘normal’ puzzle) “Bottom steak?”, would that have counted as a Double Definition?
    If so, then the clue as given here is a bit problematic as the preamble says “Six 5 clues are not further defined” while there is a [second] definition.
    I had a similar problem with one of the clues in the Goliath puzzle.
    Did I say problem? Not really.

    A pity that in 4d ‘take off’ = ‘fly’, with the clue already containing ‘to fly’.

    Many thanks to S&B.

33. I enjoyed this, particularly the ISIHAC reference in 18a. I had doubts about “run” in the clue for 4d, but I accept the justification given here. However, the clue for ISOSCELES is definitely rather dodgy. “Isosceles” means “having two equal sides”. Although an isosceles triangle is always symmetric, other isosceles figures (for instance, isosceles trapezoids) may not be symmetric.

    Thanks, Philistine and mhl.

34. Thank you Philistine and mhl.

    Enjoyed the puzzle. For some reason we struggled with BEDSORE for some time. Cane here to check RUN/FLED, we agree they are both past participles, but still trying to find a sentence where RUN could be replaced by FLED.

35. Jennyk

    “In Euclidean geometry, an isosceles trapezoid (isosceles trapezium in British English) is a convex quadrilateral with a line of symmetry bisecting one pair of opposite sides.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isosceles_trapezoid

    (From the Greek, “equal legs“, not “sides”)

36. Jenny and Charles @34, “They had run/FLED from the building before it collapsed.”

37. Tony @35
    Ah, thanks for the clarification. I was not aware that the equal sides/legs needed to be the other pair, not the ones being used to classify it as a trapezoid/trapezium.

38. Thanks Cookie.

39. Tony and jennyk. Thank you for explaining to someone who reluctantly gave up maths at 15 that an isosceles figure is symmetric but that doesn’t to me make symmetric a satisfactory definition of ISOSCELES.

40. Yes, that was a thing that I forgot to mention @32.

    As a long-time maths teacher I do not need Wikipedia to tell me what ‘isosceles’ means.
    It means (as the dictionaries confirm, too) “(of a triangle) having two sides of equal length”.
    That’s it.
    I’m happy to extend its use to a trapezium but I’d never talked about an isosceles trapezium during my 35+ years of teaching.

    As it happens an isosceles triangle has indeed a line of symmetry.
    It is the result of being isosceles, true.
    But a lot of other shapes are also (line-) symmetrical.
    The term ‘isosceles’ as such has nothing to do with the term ‘symmetric’ (as you can see from my previous line, most maths people use the word ‘symmetrical’).
    Two completely different things.

    While I still think this was a nice little crossword, 15d should never have gone past the editor.
    In no way the solution and the definition are interchangeable.

41. ‘Callipygian’ was familiar to me because of a reference in the Leslie Howard film ‘Pimpernel Smith’ to the statue ‘Aphrodite Kallipygos’.

42. “A triangle is isosceles if it is symmetric across a line l ” page 291

    Continuous Symmetry: From Euclid to Klein
    By William H. Barker, Roger Howe

    I guess that also goes for an isosceles trapezoid, surely that is good enough…

43. Come on, Cookie, that is not good enough.

    ‘Isosceles’ is just not the same thing as being ‘symmetric(al)’.
    As in your quotation, one follows from the other.
    They’re just not the same thing, in no way interchangeable (as I said before).

44. Thanks, all, for the explanations. The website version has corrected the number of unclued bottoms to five.

45. SvdH @ 40: I didn’t have a problem with 15d and don’t really understand yours. To me Isosceles equates to symmetrical but have just looked to check anyway and get ‘(of a straight-sided plane figure) having two sides equal’.

    If you can draw a line through a plane figure such that one side of the line reflects the other identically, then it is symmetrical or isosceles. It doesn’t have to be a triangle ( and no mention is made of a triangle).

    As for the theme and crossword, I really enjoyed it and like KeithS @ 9, I look forward to introducing a couple of new words into my everyday use.

46. Sil @43, never mind, I may be stuck on the Pons Asinorum, but you can forget the maths, just cut out an isosceles triangle and fold it with the two equal sides together whereupon it will become apparent that it is symmetric.

47. Cookie @46 & pex @45
    No-one is disputing that an isosceles triangle is symmetric. The question is whether “symmetric” is an adequate definition. Crows are black, but “black” alone would not be a good definition in a cryptic clue.

48. Spot on, jennyk.
    That is what it’s all about here!

49. jennyk @47, yes, I understood that, but assumed the clue was one of those that had to be “back-parsed” from the answer – I cannot remember the correct name for such clues, is there one?

50. Thanks for the input Jennyk but but I (and I think Cookie) are suggesting that it is a good definition, as much as ‘jet’ would be a suitable definition for ‘black’ – as an adjective I hasten to add.

51. pex, I am sorry but I keep on saying this: mathematically speaking, ‘isosceles’ and ‘symmetric’ are completely different things.
    One just cannot define the other.
    Jennyk’s comparison @47 is spot on, I’m afraid yours is not (as an adjective, ‘jet’ can mean ‘black’!).
    But if you’re still happy with ‘symmetric’ as a definition for ‘isosceles’, fine by me.
    But don’t expect me to think otherwise either.
    It doesn’t make any difference to this crossword anyway.

52. pex @50
    I don’t think that ‘jet’ is a good example, as ‘jet black’ is a particular colour name, based on the mineral, and ‘jet’ is quite often used alone as a colour adjective with the ‘black’ implied. I don’t think the relationship between ‘symmetric’ and ‘isosceles’ is comparable.

53. Just out of interest for pex, the wiki article Tony @35 posted mentions this

    “The isosceles trapezoid is also rarely known as a symtra because of its symmetry”.

54. [jennyk @47, I think your example would be solved by those who do Mephisto crosswords, Jim CROW would probably come to mind, but I understand what you mean.]

55. Here is a similar clue from Quiptic 682 set by Hectence

    Cut edge on diamond is asymmetrical (8)
    LOPSIDED – a three-letter verb meaning to cut followed by an edge and D(iamonds)

    ISOSCELES means “even sided”, definition symmetric…

56. “The isosceles trapezoid is also rarely known as a symtra because of its symmetry”
    And therefore ‘isosceles’ can be defined by ‘symmetric’?

    “ISOSCELES means “even sided”, definition symmetric”
    Grrr.

    Why can’t we just conclude that ‘isosceles’ and ‘symmetric’ are different things?
    As a mathematician I know exactly what I’m talking about but apparently that’s not good enough for some of you.
    Moreover, from a cryptic point of view it is as jennyk pointed out @47.
    Simple as that.

    My lips are sealed from now on.

57. Thank you for being so patient, Sil – here is a quote by Mark Twain

    “I believe our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. I believe that whenever a human being, of even the highest intelligence and culture, delivers an opinion upon a matter apart from his particular and especial line of interest, training and experience, it will always be an opinion of so foolish and so valueless a sort that it can be depended upon to suggest to our Heavenly Father that the human being is another disappointment and that he is no considerable improvement upon the monkey.”

    The trouble is I am rather enjoying being a monkey again in my old age after having been a diplomat’s wife for over 30 years.

58. Sil @ 56: OK, maybe not strictly mathematically speaking by definition but in ordinary speak? Its even given as a synonym in the Free Dictionary.

    Anyhoo, I’ve seen much looser (iffier even) definitions in G xwords

    Henceforth my lips sealed too, at least for a few days.

59. I think an improved version of 15d could be”Help decorate cake on the outside, initially leaving outside edges sharply symmetric”, because then LES is found by “initially leaving outside edges”, and the definition becomes “sharply symmetric” which I think might be more acceptable (in a slightly humourous fashion) for isoceles than simply “symmetric”. I think I’d have been slightly more likely to get it then, anyway 😉

60. I ran; I have run; I fled; I have fled

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