Guardian Cryptic 27,401 by Philistine

by

Lots of fun – favourites were 13ac, 4dn, 5dn, and 8dn. Thanks, Philistine.

There’s a theme around 1ac BANANA, which is needed to make sense of several other clues – I only got it after putting in SKIN at 11ac.

Across
1 BANANA It can be wrapped round head or neck, but not heart or part of hand (6)
a bunch of bananas is a ‘hand’, with each banana counting as a ‘finger’
a BAN[d]ANA “can be wrapped round head or neck”, without its central letter/heart
5 REIMPOSE Again inflict broken promise on sweetheart (8)
(promise), plus “sweet / heart”=> [sw]E[et]
9 HIGHLAND Hill discovered the right glands (8)
discover=>remove the covers or outer letters from: [t]H[e] [r]IGH[t] [g]LAND[s]
10 ABOARD A poet describes love on a ship (6)
A, plus BARD=”poet” around O=”love”
11 SKIN Hide potential accident after 1 (4)
=the SKIN of an animal
a BANANA SKIN creates the potential for accidents
12 OVERSEEING Perhaps even orgies get supervision (10)
(even orgies)*
13 IN TOTO Altogether Dorothy’s dog food ends up here (2,4)
Dorothy’s dog in The Wizard of Oz is called Toto
14 REPUBLIC Boozer in antiquity after 1 unstable state (8)
a BANANA REPUBLIC=”unstable state”
PUB=”Boozer” in RELIC=”antiquity”
16 CHARISMA Perhaps charm is a manifestation of it (8)
(charm is a)*
19 EULOGY Praise for reforming ugly, heartless ogre (6)
(ugly oe)*, where oe=o[gr]e
20 STATISTICS The end of Jacques Tati’s movements in numbers (10)
[Jacque]S, plus TATIS, plus TICS=”movements”
22 QUIT Leave exotic bird after 1 (4)
a bananaquit is an exotic bird – see [wiki]
23 CEREAL Heard of television offering breakfast? (6)
homophone of ‘serial’=”television offering”
24 ACTUALLY Really unfortunate start in current score (8)
U[nfortunate] in A[lternating] C[urrent] plus TALLY=”score”
25 WHITE TIE Formal greeting in tweet I composed (5-3)
HI=”greeting” in (tweet I)*
26 DILATE Stretch to live long, they say (6)
homophone of ‘die late’=”live long”
Down
2 A KICK IN THE TEETH The kitchen Katie designed is a terrible disappointment (1,4,2,3,5)
(The kitchen Katie)*
3 ASHEN Like female to be pale (5)
AS=”Like” plus HEN=”female”
4 ANALOGOUS Similar opening about a trademark (9)
ANUS=”opening” around A LOGO=”a trademark”
5 RED DEER Horny creatures for Spooner’s numb bum (3,4)
Spoonerism of ‘dead rear’=”numb bum”
6 IMAMS Some 16 miracles served up by preachers (5)
Hidden reverse/”Some… served up”, in [CHARI]SMA mi[racles]
7 PROVERB Saw dog in empty pub (7)
a “Saw” is a saying or proverb
ROVER=”dog” in P[u]B
8 SHRINKING VIOLET Wallflower flower flower (9,6)
alluding to the shrinking font size of ‘flower’
15 PRESS STUD That can be riveting for media macho man (5,4)
=a fastener for clothes – see [wiki]
PRESS=”media” plus STUD=”macho man”
17 RETREAT Once more give and withdraw (7)
‘re-treat’=”Once more give”
18 AGITATE A contemptible fool swallowed shake (7)
A plus GIT=”contemptible fool” plus ATE=”swallowed”
21 SPLIT Port and pudding after 1 (5)
=a port city in Croatia
a BANANA SPLIT is a pudding
22 QUAIL Flinch from game (5)
double definition

54 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,401 by Philistine”

  1. REPUBLIC was the key to the gateway clue for me which I doubt I would have solved otherwise. 8d was good, especially as it just looked like a formatting error (how could I think such a mistake would ever occur in the Guardian), but I still can’t quite nail the parsing, specifically the non-subscript ‘flower’. There’s a good World Wide Words page on the origin of the term anyway.

    I had CHARISMA as an &lit. BANANAQUIT(s) were new to me – they seem to be charming little birds on the YouTube videos I looked at.

    An enjoyable accompaniment to morning tea.

    Thanks to Philistine and manehi

  3. A very tasty (smallish) bunch of bananas. However, like Wordplodder@1 I had not heard of Bananaquits, so that was a guess confirmed by coming here.
    I found the clue for 8d SHRINKING VIOLET amusing and quite okay.
    Thanks to Philistine and manehi. You named all my favourites, manehi, but I did like 15d PRESS STUD as well.

  4. An easier puzzle on a Tuesday – very unusual these days, but all very entertaining as always from Philistine. Like manehi I guessed BANANA from SKIN and worked out the parsing afterwards. Must admit that the BANANAQUIT was new to me too, but easy enough to guess and check.

    Thanks to Philistine and manehi

  5. Thanks Philistine and manehi

    Fun – I particularly liked the BANANA ones (I have seen bananaquits, in fact, on a bird-watching trip to Costa Rica – highly recommended for any birdwatchers here!).

    Pedants corner: deer have antlers, not horns – they are different structures (see here).

  6. Yes, an enjoyable start to the day. Like others above and Manehi SKIN was my way into the BANANA theme. And I too had never heard of BANANAQUITs, but it couldn’t be anything else from the clue and crossers.

    The parsing of HIGHLAND eluded me for quite some time. 8d was my favourite.

    Thanks to Philistine and Manehi.

  7. Very enjoyable, particularly the shrinking violet, which initially had us thinking it was another ??? after yesterday’s 6d.

  8. Some nice clues and I particularly liked the play around banana. The shrinking font in 8 down was imperceptible on my phone but got it nevertheless

  9. Spotted the theme for once, as i had banana quite early. Se corner was a. It slow until i got quail.
    I liked charisma as i’ve never noticed that anagram possibility before.
    Fun puzzle.

  10. Good fun with 8d the best for me – interesting that visual clues are being used now technology facilitates it. In addition to those already mentioned I liked ABOARD. I needed help with parsing HIGHLAND, and despite being an avid collector of Brooke Bond tea cards as a boy I’d never heard of a BANANAQUIT. I’d love to go on a bird watching trip to Costa Rica to see them.
    Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

  12. Nice puzzle. Favourites were BANANA, HIGHLAND and RED DEER (unlike some other commenters, I like Spoonerisms). Hadn’t heard of bananaquit. Many thanks to Philistine and manehi.

  13. I had almost convinced myself there might be a bird called a bananaexit when puzzling over 22a, then got 22d which sent me in the right direction. I loved 8d as well. Overall, a lovely puzzle. Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

  14. Thank you, manehi.  Just returned home from abroad so a belated HNY and thank you for your excellent blogs.

    Enjoyed this no end, particularly the ‘font gag’ at SHRINKING VIOLET.

    Also ticked the smooth PROVERB and the amusing IN TOTO.

    Have we seen the ‘dis-covered’ wheeze before?  Perhaps I’ve missed it.

    Many thanks, Philistine, nice week, all.

     

     

  15. A bit of fun with some fun typography!

    Philistine isn’t really a philistine, as he/ she sticks pretty much to good cluing husbandry. Still very Guardian though, with ‘not strictly correct’ indication here and there. I rather liked Katie’s kitchen and the dog food’s destination.

    Thanks to both.

  16. Thanks to Philistine for a fun puzzle and manehi for clarifying the parsing of Imams. It had to be that but I could not work out why (doh). Lots of fun clues such as analogous and actually, though I spent far too long working on why highland was right until the penny dropped. Thanks again Philistine and manehi.

  17. Thank you Philistine and manehi.

    A fun puzzle – I was looking for a bag, but perhaps BANANA is only used by the French for a small bum bag,  sac banane.

    muffin @5, the COED gives for antler “n. 1 each of the branched horns of a stag or other (usu. male) deer. 2 a branch of this.”

  19. Thanks Philistine and manehi.

    Very enjoyable; I liked CHARISMA, and got BANANA about half-way through. Learnt the new word, BANANAQUIT. I hadn’t realised quit was a suffix used for birds of the Caribbean.

  20. [Cookie @17 – we’ve had this argument before – dictionaries aren’t always scientifically correct. Did you look at the link I gave?]

  21. I’m usually a day or so late for commenting, so having just completed this one I thought I’d drop in. Enjoyed it, nice mix. In a cynical mood I decided “a charm is” was “archaism” and felt rather smug about that until I got a kick in the teeth, which showed me the error of my ways. Never heard of a bananaquit, which didn’t matter.

    Thanks Philistine and manehi

  22. Nice puzzle, made slightly more difficult as the visual part of 8d isn’t rendered in the app but the definition and the intersections were enough.

    Thanks to Philistine and to Andrew.

  26. Having read this website for some years now today’s crossword raised a longstanding question once again. When my Dad got me into crosswords 55 years ago he handed me his Chambers dictionary and told me all the answers would be defined therein. I then won my first edition at 17 and have continually updated since then but This no longer seems to be the case, ref bananaquit today. When did this all change? p.s. have been to Costa Rica, brilliant wildlife but no aforementioned for me!

  27. Thanks to Philistine and manehi. Lots of fun. Easier than anticipated, but, though I spotted BAN(D)ANA, I missed the hand-finger connection.

  28. In response to Wordplodder, in 8d ‘flower’ has to be in twice to show that it’s shrinking… I think

  29. Firstly, hi to those who remember me, the cancer hasn’t got me yet! (and no immediate danger either, yee hah)

    To those concerned about antlers,horns and dictionaries, I spent years pointing out that dictionaries don’t have the status of Papal Infallibility, but true believers in dictionaries never agreed, what a surprise! It’s nice to see that some things don’t change then, neither the argument nor the inaccuracies of the dictionaries.

    Fun crossword I thought, not too hard, not too easy.

    If anybody went to my website by clicking on my name, I should just point out the address has changed.

  30. Not sure that one works really, but it’s nice to have the effort made at a visual clue, since they are so rare.

  34. Late start on this one but thankfully it didn’t turn out to be too tricky. Went through the whole alphabet for QUI* just in case I’d missed something before settling on QUIT so I’m glad for the confirmation here – and also to see what was going on with HIGHLAND.

  35. I’ll never forget that summer day when a bananquit flew into my bummock.

    A fun puzzle today, with a nice variety of clue types.  Echoing some of the other comments above, I enjoyed the banana motif, the visual clue in 8d (not to mention that it was another instance in which a flower was a flower, as opposed to a flow-er), the “discovered” trick for HIGHLAND, and the chuckle-inducing IN TOTO.  I also liked the charade-style clue (and pretty nice surface) for AGITATE — in part because its key element is the word “git”.  That term is not commonly used here in the U.S., and was introduced to me through comedic British TV shows, movies, and songs, so to me it is always a funny word (although for native speakers, I expect, this term, like any insult, can probably also sometimes be used in a way that is not intended to be funny at all).

    Many thanks to Philistine, manehi and other commenters.

  37. Very a-peeling – with a bunch of tasty clues and nothing to slip up on, I zipped through it.  Shamefully though, my quest for the parsing of 1ac was fruitless as a hand of BANANAs is new for me (as is BANANA QUIT).  DILATE and RED DEER were my pick of the bunch (I like Spoonerisms!). Nice one Philistine, and thanks manehi.

  38. Yes,well BANANA was my LOI so this was solved in a very unorthodox manner. Good fun though and I loved SHRINKING VIOLET,A KICK IN THE TEETH and quite a lot more.
    Thanks Philistine

  39. Hi all,a Kenyan lurker who does your crosswords regularly.Enjoyed this one.Bananaquit was in a recent Times jumbo so no problem for me.

  40. BANANAQUIT is in the Concise Oxford Dict.   It was new to me but the clue esp with the crossing Q was pretty easy, I thought.

  41. Derek Lazenby@29 – yee hah indeed! Thanks for your comment about clicking on names – I didn’t know about the ability to insert hyperlinks and have now visited the sites of everyone in today’s blog and will look out for them in future. I guess that’s what the website box below my email address is for 🙂

  42. I will never again mock my Dad for making me watch Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday several xmases ago. I did better than I thought at first glance getting just over half the clues especially enjoyed Jacques Tati.

  44. Enjoyed the puzzle but slightly spoilt by the recent proof reading errors such as ??? and tipy. Rather than taking 8d at face value I wondered if it was yet another mistake. Shows just important it is that the editor at least tries the crosswords before publishing

  46. Came to this late. It seems no one fell into the trap I did.  Solved 1A early and thought it was an instruction to delete an ‘a’  (BAN AN A) in some clues, which of course I couldn’t then fully parse.  Tried several versions of QUIT with an A in various positions.  Whereas I got the BANANA preceding in others.  Clever as this was, I thought it was even cleverer. Fooled me.

  47. Thanks all
    I thought this was going to be the easiest Philistine ever and then I came to 9ac which I was certain was “Highgate” hill

  48. I managed this smoothly, helped by getting the long 2dn just from the enumeration.

    There are 2 6-letter answers – 13 and 19 across – which unhelpfully have only 2 crossers. But fortunately I knew the name of Dorothy’s dog, so no problem for me.

  49. I enjoyed this chewy offering from Philistine, very Goldilocks for me.

    Not a clue I didn’t enjoy at some level so favourite surfaces were BANANA, OVERSEEING (chuckle), DILATE, A KICK IN THE TEETH, PROVERB, with SHRINKING VIOLET gaining praise for “typesetting”.

    Thanks to manehi and Philistine

  50. Very nice with plenty to like. I thought Katie’s kitchen was very smooth. Hadn’t heard of the bird but was easily checked.

    Enjoyed the theme.

    Thanks philistine and manehi

  51. Yes, very entertaining from the first one in (2d) to the last (22ac). Rather easy, true, but never boring.

    In the much mentioned clue at 8d I was immediately on the right track as it reminded me of a clue written by Fifteensquared regular Dave Ellison for Paul’s long defunct clue writing competition, in 2009: Poinpoipop? (9.5) *. Unconventional but fun. Philistine isn’t one very much impressed by conventions anyway, for example given his use of ‘on’ in an across clue (in 5ac).

    9ac (HIGHLAND) was typical Philistine, his multiple fodder trick (used in virtually all his puzzles, including the Goliath ones, but only once today).

    I am usually not someone who can be bothered about grids – I take them as they come – but today’s was one that cannot be found in the archives of most (probably, all) other nationals. Why? Well, in this crossword there are two entries (IN TOTO, EULOGY) that have three unches in a row unchecked! That is something ‘against the rules’ and not appreciated by the vast majority of editors.

    Good crossword, though.

    Thanks manehi for the blog (which made clear why 22ac was right).

    ps, Dutch, what do you think of the plural ‘get’ in 12ac?

    ps2, * = vanishing point.

     

     

  52. It took some discipline and goodwill today to assume, first, that the clue to 8D was printed as intended.  It was then possible to work out the answer.  If I had assumed otherwise it would have been harder.  Incidentally, it should also have been possible to print the word ‘flower’ in a diminishing point-size, from normal (or large) to start with and small to finish with.  But we had a ‘before and after’ scenario instead.

    I enjoyed this very much.  The bananaquit was new to me as for most of you here.  I liked the theme, and even though I’m normally weak on spoonerisms and homophones I had no trouble with either CEREAL or RED DEER, and the latter was my favourite clue.

    Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

  53. manehi,  in the clue for 25 you omitted the hyphen, which Philistine was careful to include,  to justify adjectival use (“formal”) of a noun phrase.

  54. Thoroughly enjoyable. Another one new to bananaquits, another one who enjoyed the font gag at 8d. Many thanks to Philistine and Manehi.

Comments are closed.