Guardian 28,060 / Philistine

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It’s Philistine’s turn to provide our entertainment today – and he does it in characteristic style.

Lots of clever clues, as usual from this setter – my favourites were 14ac and 6,9 – and a neat little theme, which, of course, I enjoyed.

Many thanks, Philistine.

Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

1 Strongly anger unionists, being enthusiastic (5,2)
FIRED UP
FIRE [strongly anger] [or, rather – see comment 2 – F [strongly] + IRE [anger] + DUP [Democratic Unionist Party]

5 Not quite have time to cover puzzles, essentially reversing instruction (7)
MITZVAH
A reversal [reversing] of HAV[e] TIM[e] round the middle letter [essentially] of puzZles

10 Exceptional grant and a fourth armed man? (9)
D’ARTAGNAN
An anagram [exceptional] of GRANT AND A for Dumas’ fourth Musketeer

11 Humanitarian organisation‘s driver possibly going round in circles (6,4)
ROTARY CLUB
ROTARY [going round in circles] + [golf] CLUB [driver, possibly]

12, 24 Fortitude may be needed in readiness for real snow and ice (4,4)
TRUE GRIT
Cryptic definition: in readiness for real snow and ice you would need true grit

14 Is Monet misrepresented in tiny but fundamental matter? (8,4)
QUESTION MARK
An anagram [misrepresented] of IS MONET in QUARK [tiny but fundamental matter]

18 Merrymaking composer pens the ultimate in music, rejecting secure articles (12)
BACCHANALIAN
BACH [composer] round [musi]C + a reversal [rejecting] of NAIL [secure] + AN A [articles] the first of  the epithets derived from the name of a Roman deity

21 Redeem myself, partly to get an award (4)
EMMY
Hidden in redeEM MYself

22 Consider purposeful shop reprimand (10)
DELIBERATE
DELI [shop] + BERATE [reprimand] – with two definitions

25 Desolate nature’s in evolution (9)
SATURNINE
An anagram [evolution] of NATURE’S IN

26 Bothered bit by bit, as they say (5)
FAZED
Sounds like [as they say] ‘phased’ [bit by bit]

27 Parker cooked hot fish outside (7)
DOROTHY
An anagram [cooked] of HOT in DORY [fish]

28 About marriage, when it turns belligerent (7)
MARTIAL
MARITAL [about marriage] with IT reversed

Down

1 Iron rod upon a hat (6)
FEDORA
FE [iron] + a reversal [up]-on [in a down clue] A

2 Brief script, yet evenly read (6)
RECITE
Even letters of bRiEf sCrIpT yEt

3 First in cold blast to become agitated (10)
DISTRAUGHT
IST [1st] in DRAUGHT [cold blast]

4 What could make Cupid easily embarrassed (5)
PUDIC
An anagram [what could make] of CUPID [who gets a look-in to the theme]

5 In a kind of miracle, they say you are fickle (9)
MERCURIAL
UR [you are, they say, in text-speak] in an anagram [a kind of] of MIRACLE

6, 9 One left rusticated arrangement of flowers in grief (4,5)
TEAR DUCTS
An anagram [arrangement] of RUST[i]CATED [one left] – this made me laugh: for once, the cryptic sense of ‘flower’ is not a river

7 May be even true of sex (8)
VENEREAL
An anagram [may be] of EVEN + REAL [true] – echoes of 12,14

8 Write down curse for Spooner’s nags (8)
HENPECKS
PEN [write down] + HEX [curse]

13 Unattended vehicle’s broken into in Paris: a damaged Ford (7-3)
UNCARED-FOR
CAR [vehicle] in UNE [in Paris a] + an anagram [damaged] of FORD

15 From the time of Rome, it took years to start with honesty (9)
SINCERITY
SINCE [from the time of] + initial letters [to start with] of Rome It Took Years

16 Snob houses closed, only half occupied (8)
OBSESSED
Half of snOB houSES cloSED

17 Weapon of racism (lost without it) (8)
SCIMITAR
An anagram [lost] of RACISM round [without] IT

19 Long live the Emperor of Zanzibar, unclothed and dancing (6)
BANZAI
An anagram [dancing] of [z]ANZIBA[r] – a new word for me [a Japanese battle-cry and salute to the Emperor] but the wordplay was clear and there were only a couple of possibilities, easily checked – a good example of fair cluing for a less familiar word

20 Part of Venezuela due for uprising, like most of Europe once (6)
FEUDAL
A reversed hidden [uprising] in venezueLA DUE For

23 Brought up breakfast cereal, bypassing the beginning of stomach and small intestine (5)
ILEUM
A reversal [brought up] of MUE[s]LI [breakfast cereal] minus S[tomach] – not a pretty picture to end on!

47 comments on “Guardian 28,060 / Philistine”

  1. Some quite interesting clues here. The first to jump out at me was QUESTION MARK, not just because it was clever but it’s the kind of clue that I assume once you’ve used it, you can’t use it again for a long long time.

    Quite the opposite, though, for a perfectly legit but relatively unusual device used 4 times in this puzzle – and that is the distribution of the operator over its arguments, to use a little CS-speak. So in 2d, you have the operator “evenly” but it applies to “brief”, “script” and “yet” individually, not to the string as a whole (or you’d get “resrpyt”). In 15d you have the individual starters of “Rome it took years” (on reflection, in this form it is quite common). In 5a you have “Not quite” applying to each of “have time”. Finally, in 15d you have halves of each word in “Snob houses closed”. Philistine obviously in some kind of a groove today.

    The “for” in 8d makes the wordplay phrasing a little awkward, I think.

    Last comment: 28a could almost as easily be MARITAL – however I do concur that “when it turns” applies more cleanly here to the left than the right, but the alternative is certainly within the usual margin of error.

  3. For some reason, SATURNINE reminded me of an amazing crossword by Gozo celebrating Cinephile’s 90th. The blog for it can be found here

     

  6. And a Philistine it indeed was, as wished for by Spanza yesterday. A gentlish steady potter, no major dramas. A tiny bit of looseness, perhaps–read/recite, desolate a bit strong for saturnine, ditto obsessed for occupied, but the merest quibletini in a pleasant solve. Haven’t seen ? as def for a while but it is a regular. Loi pudic was a tilt, but fair. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

  7. Very enjoyable. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen. 18a BACCHANALIAN was my favourite, along with the ones Eileen mentioned. PUDIC at 4d was also a new one on me, gif@6, but that was all it could be – and I was with Eileen in not knowing BANZAI at 19d, which was a solve then google for me.

  8. I found the NW to be a gentle introduction today but then got tied up in the BE thanks to my brain’s stubborn insistence that 19a’s def would be “Exceptional” and that the solution would include IV. Once I’d cracked that clue, HENPECKED followed soon after (I tend to be slow with Spoonerisms), and that in turn gave me QUESTION MARK (definitely thought we were on for a pangram), and then I was away.

    I didn’t see the theme until close to the end, but it did make 18a a write-in that I didn’t parse until after completion. PUDIC was new. HENPECKED, TEAR DUCTS, D’ARTAGNAN, and ?, were favourites.

    Many thanks to Eileen, and to Philistine

  11. I would say that D’Artagnan is not a nine-letter word, but 1,8 – or even 1-8. Having bashed my poor brow against “Adar Sheni” a few days back, I was fully prepared for a nine-letter concept from an intellectual realm hitherto unknown to me, rather than Dumas’ heroic creation. Then again, I got there in the end – and as they say, anything you walk away from is a landing not a crash.
    Other gains from today: MITZVAH (which I only knew from “Barmitzvah”, and PUDIC.
    As a rule I don’t much care for Spoonerism clues, because I find I usually have to guess first and parse later, but I guessed HENPECKS successfully, so I suppose I can’t complain. FAZED was also a wild guess: thanks to Eileen for explaining the parsing of it and the Z in Mitzvah, and thanks to Philistine for the increased vocabulary.

  13. Eileen, downunder, banzai goes with kamikaze; different theatres of war (my dad was up there) and subsequent movie-watching (Zeros, kamikaze pilots yelling “Banzai!”, etc).

  14. I struggled a bit with this, but it was an enjoyable solve.

    Anyone who has watched Second World War films is probably familiar with BANZAI. When I saw Parker, I thought of Charlie and Robert at first – that’s how my mind works! My initial thought about nags was, of course, horses, which no doubt was deliberately misleading.

    I particularly liked the QM and TEAR DUCTS.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen for pointing out the theme.

  15. The DUP seem to be a godsend to setters. Nice to know they still have some value. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing but especially QUESTION MARK, DELIBERATE & MERCURIAL. Many thanks to P & E

  16. Finished this one unaided except to go to Collins to confirm PUDIC, but a good challenge. I loved DARTAGNAN, TEAR DUCTS and QUESTION MARK, and got held up a bit by not remembering the British spelling of draft/draught. An excellent puzzle, notwithstanding a weak (imo) Spoonerism. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen.

  17. Thank you Philistine for an enjoyable puzzle and Eileen for a helpful blog.

    I thought this might be a “ROTARY CLUB” theme what with Saturn, Mars, Mercury Venus and Bacchus …

  19. I really enjoyed this. Nice mix of interesting devices and the right level of difficulty for mid-week. SCIMITAR is one of my favourite words, too. Thanks.

  20. Yes, as others have commented, an OK solve with a little looseness here and there.

    Had to look up MITZVAH.  Heard it many times but not stopped to consider its meaning.

    Many thanks, both, nice week, all.

  22. Lots to enjoy, though I missed the theme. Same favs as you Eileen. PUDIC was a new word for me, but qas familiar with BANZAI, seems like it might be an antipodean thing perhaps.
    Thanks Eileen for your blog- and the link to Dorothy Parker, quite the wit. Thanks to Philistine for the fun

  25. I didn’t know the meaning of Banzai, pudic was new to me, and Mitzvah was only familiar as part of Bar Mitzvah. The wordplay for the words I didn’t know was clear so fair enough for me.

    I would have put marital in if I didn’t already have banzai and felt the comma in the clue was a little unfair. Other than that, plenty of nice surfaces, no obscure words, and several “aha” moments.

  31. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen.

    Just beyond my reach but I still enjoyed TEAR DUCTS and QUESTION MARK.

    [Cookie you’re on fire today, unearthing themes and sub-themes and even incorporating contributors. Lost in admiration.]

     

  32. Thanks Philistine and Eileen

    I tried very hard to make 27a CHARLIE – after all, a “char” is a fish….

    No theme for me, of course.

  33. A very satisfying puzzle, the variety of neat and clever clues much appreciated.  I was on Dr. WhatsOn’s wavelength [@1] as well as Philistine’s, I think, because I too noticed the way the setter exploited some familiar devices in such interesting and ‘stretching’ ways (that I would not have articulated quite so well).

    I have too many fabourites to list but will name just my top two: TEAR DUCTS and BACCHANAILAN.

    Thanks to Philistine, and to Eileen for a super blog.

  34. I’ve been dreaming of kippers with brown bread and butter and two perfectly poached eggs since I was very nearly kippered by kipper yesterday. And today I think Eileen and I have been done like a pair of kippers. What with Dorothy P. and Martial surely it had be epigrams. Also deLIBERate; it only means book but it’s there in the title of one of his anthologies. I wouldn’t be surprised if Philistine engineered this to coincide with your blog Eileen, with your love of the classics. Bravo Cookie for digging deeper. Is it my imagination, or has Philistine kippered us with a dummy theme more than once ?

    Great puzzle; thanks Philistine and Eileen and thanks to The Don for the kippers.

  35. Beaten today. Missed what is apparently a theme and didn’t get DARTAGNAN- even though I saw it was an anagram- or UNCARED FOR.The latter because I misspelled 18ac – IEN instead of IAN. Still thought this was pretty good!
    Thanks Philistine.

  36. Thanks to Eileen and Philistine

    In 7d is Philistine inviting us to perform the reverse of what happens in 1d (split “upon” into “up” and “on”), and join “may” and “be” together?

  37. Remember BANZAI from war picture library comics in the seventies in war between Japs, Jerries etc. LOI 10ac.

  38. Re HENPECKS, I don’t remember seeing a Spoonerism that incorporates a honophone before (HEX / HECKS), is this new?

  40. RJS @38

    As a spoonerism is entirely a “sounds like”, I don’t think that a homophone is a problem.

    Don’t let that mislead you into thinking that I like these clues, though!

  41. RJS @38

    As I understand it, Spoonerisms are based only on sounds and rhyming, so (unwritten) homophones can be expected to come into play.  HECKS is not really part of the simple transformation involved: from the sounds only, you create ‘pen hex’ from ‘henpecks’.

  46. Don’t think knowledge of BANSAI is an “antipodean thing”; far more likely a boy/girl thing (as confirmed by Eileen, Julie …) since no boy (or manchild) could avoid the inevitable use of it in every comic, book, film of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s that portrayed Japanese fighters of the second world war – especially, as already mentioned, kamikaze pilots who always screamed it on impact. More recently, Japanese game shoes (as first introduced by Clive James) have brought it back to an European audience. I’m sure it is familiar to every man over a certain age!

    (Ironically, BANSAI was the one clue I ticked!)

    Many thanks, both and all.

  47. [il principe, marienkaefer – please desist from ruining others’ pleasure by detailed discussion of other crosswords. We don’t all solve our puzzles in published order – for various reasons. Thank you.]

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