Guardian Cryptic 28,425 by Philistine

68 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,425 by Philistine”

1. Very nice. Enjoyed all the long clues – managed to dredge PROSOPAGNOSIA from the memory (more or less). Also admired OUVRES and STIR-CRAZY. Many thanks to Philistine and manehi.

2. A nice bit of fun this morning. One (very) minor quibble would be that ‘this will shed light on’ is an iffy definition for stew-in. Thank you Philistine and manehi.

3. Sorry, screw-in.

4. Nho SCREW-IN as a light bulb, always screw-cap or bayonet-cap

5. This was fun and relatively unthreatening. Was pleased to create PROSOPAGNOSIA from the building blocks alone, but didn’t properly parse MARRY IN HASTE so thanks to manehi for that (I’m not convinced I could properly parse it even now, but such is the way of Philistine’s accursed reverse-clues).

   MONUMENTAL and UNADULTERATED were my favourites today.

6. The Romulus clue was pretty neat. In fact, they all were and I had a lovely hour pottering through this, enjoying the surfaces. I don’t want my remains to be seen in a mausoleum though. No prob with the medical condition, though if it’s not in your area you’d need to have read Oliver Sacks or something. I do think plump is more comely than obese, but that’s not even a quibbletinissimo. Nice one, thanks Philistine and manehi.

7. Thanks Philistine, and manehi for parsing MARRY IN HASTE (and for tactfully avoiding the allusion!)

   Agree with your and others’ favourites, and JerryG and Shirl’s quibbles.

   Also very much liked IRRUPTED (I guess a burglary chez Murdoch would be in the papers!)

8. Thanks Philistine and manehi
   I found this on the whole easier than Philistine usually is. I did need a wordsearch for 7d – I knew what it would mean, but I couldn’t remember the word.
   Favourites ROMULUS and OEUVRES.

9. A dnf for me today as I didn’t recognise PROSOPAGNOSIA (I had a rough idea but reshaped the anagram ineptly, leading to a monumental screw up). NOD ONE’S HEAD, REMAINS TO BE SEEN and GROUSE MOOR all raised smiles. My favourite is probably I ASK YOU for the neat inclusion of the broadcaster.

   Yesterday several posters admitted to seeing B&Q and reading BBQ; I have to confess I never see OEUVRES without thinking of eggs!

   Thanks Philistine and manehi

10. Thoroughly satisfying crossword with smiles all the way. This pastime doesn’t have to be impenetrable to be enjoyable.

    Lovely misdirect of game in GROUSE MOOR.

    Many thanks, both.

11. [BTW, the inclusion of SCREW-IN (and, like Shirl @4 and eb @7, it’s always been a screw-cap chez nous) does give me the opportunity to answer a question posted here a while ago when I mentioned my second favourite ‘changing-a-light-bulb’ joke. I did post an answer at the time but it was quite late into the evening. My favourite remains “How many folk singers does it take to change a light bulb? Five: one to put in the new one and four to sing about how good the old one was”.]

12. Thanks Philistine and manehi.

    Good challenging solve. Managed to miss PROSOPAGNOSIA even when every single across clue was in, and OEUVRES is one of those words you overlook when trailing mentally through the aplphabet for solutions.

    Is there a term for clues such as 21ac ROUGH IDEA, where the anagrind finds its way into the solution?

13. Very enjoyable.

    Favourites: ROMULUS, REMAINS TO BE SEEN, ROUGH IDEA, MARRY IN HASTE, NOD ONE’S HEAD, ASSENTED (loi).
    Got the anagram bit, but I did not really get why RESHAPE = into a cube.
    Why does SCREW-IN = this will shed light on? Oh I see, now. That was a stretch!

    New for me: prosopagnosia.

    Thanks, both.

14. [PM @11: 😀 Just for old times’ sake, what was your 2nd favourite again?]

15. michelle @13 – As I see it, RESHAPE just refers to changing one shape into another – nothing to do with cubes per se.

16. I misplaced vowels in 7d, but enjoyed the puzzle.
    I always try to complete the puzzle on my iPad without writing out anagram fodder and without using aids, so I accept that I will sometimes be tripped by words I don’t know or cannot spell.

17. [eb @14: Panthes posed the question and it was in the blog for last month’s Paul where a surrealist comic was clued. How may surrealists does it take to change etc etc? A fish.]

18. Postmark @11: nice, but my favourite remains:

    Q: How many Anglican Churchmen does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: Change?

19. drofle @ 15
    thank you!
    I see that I was overthinking. I get it now.

20. I entirely agree with William@10: clues don’t have to be fiendishly laborious to be good, and there were some lovely ones here, with plausible surfaces too.
    Favourites the burglary chez Murdoch, OEUVRES, ROMULUS and RESHAPE.

    Thanks for parsing PACED (I was even considering half of DECAPITATE in reverse: just couldn’t see it). Also failed to parse ASSENTED and MARRY IN HASTE. I got as far as the A1 SONG bit of 7d but didn’t know which vowels went where in the rest of it.

    After yesterday’s reprimand, the question may be: how many lightbulb jokes does it take to annoy Gaufrid? (It’s always a screw cap in this house too.)

21. [PostMark @17: How many programmers does it take to change a light-bulb? None – that’s a hardware issue]

    PostMark @11: Known as ES or SES here as although their real names are E27 or E14 as opposed to the more usual BC (Bayonet Cap) used in the UK https://donsnotes.com/home_garden/light-bulb-size-reference.html

    Tricky one today but mostly because 7d was a DNK and I struggled and struggled over 19a.

    Thanks Philistine and manehi

22. Like Gladys @20, I agree with William @10.

    A most enjoyable puzzle: favourites today were ROMULUS, (definition) STIR-CRAZY, GESTAPO, IRRUPTED (surfaces), ROUGH IDEA , MARRY IN HASTE (construction) and PROSOPAGNOSIA (which I met most recently just the other day, when looking for something else, but I can’t remember what. I liked the neat link with 1 and 19ac.

    I hope my friend crypticsue enjoys 18dn. 😉

    Many thanks to Philistine for the fun and manehi for the blog.

23. Very enjoyable with the best bits for me being the parsing (and yes essexboy @7, maybe the allusion as well) of MARRY IN HASTE, and PROSOPAGNOSIA. Had a mental blank and couldn’t see the parsing of PACED, but as others have pointed out, overall I found this a bit gentler than usual for a Philistine puzzle.

    Thanks to him and manehi

24. Is the word for a puzzle that is harder than a write-in, but you manage to complete with a little effort a SCREW-IN? I agree with gladys and William that this was a great example of an accessible crossword that just presented a bit of a challenge.

25. LOI and favourite ŒUVRES. I can’t help wondering if anyone ever produced a crossword where you had to fit ligatures (œ, æ) into a single square.

26. Some really good stuff and good fun even if a couple went un-parsed. One quibble for those of us unfamiliar with obscure medical conditions is that the anagram of ‘apropos’ gives alternative solutions, and I do hate a Google!

    Thanks Philistine and manehi.

27. Nice puzzle to while away half an hour, but I was stumped at the last by 7D. Obviously an anagram but I couldn’t crack it – so thanks to our blogger. Like others above, I thought 10A was very weak.

28. Brilliant, William @18. Trollope would’ve loved it.

29. MARRY IN HASTE was clear enough, but I couldn’t parse it. Not convinced by the light bulb.
    Thanks Philistine and manehi.
    [How many software engineers… That’s not a software problem!]

30. [blaise @25: if anyone can fit ligatures, I guess it would be Philistine]

31. This was very enjoyable and nice to see my old factory, NEW SCOTLAND YARD included. essexboy @7: well-spotted re the (intended?) allusion in MARRY IN HASTE. My favourite was I ASK YOU and I think manehi’s double parsing of RESHAPE makes this a particularly clever clue. Not too difficult in the end but lots to enjoy

    Ta Philistine & manehi

32. re 9A I’ve just noticed (thanks to the sometimes useful Twitter) that today, 21 April, is the traditional date for the founding of Rome. Nicely done, Philistine!

33. My favourite setter. Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

34. NEW SCOTLAND YARD seems a bit weak for “detectives” – isn’t it the HQ of the Met? But the rather lovely LANYARD construction gets it a free pass from me. LOI was IRRUPTED as I got fixated on the “break in” being an inclusion/envelope indicator until common sense prevailed

    [One for the IT team: how many Microsoft developers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, Microsoft declares darkness a standard]

35. Thought this a delight from start to finish, as is usually the case for me with Philistine. Needed all the crossers to finally get PROSOPAGNOSIA, but several of the longer clues seemed to leap off the page through their definitions. Very much liked the short but clever POST, last one in.

36. Top notch clue for RESHAPE: a good &lit is always pleasing to me and this one was just so slick.
    I found that I was biffing quite a few of these — a symptom of the clear defining that Philistine provides here. PROSOPAGNOSIA wasn’t a biff for me, but then the wordplay made it solvable.
    A great puzzle. Thank you.

37. Thanks manehi, same experience here regarding quick start and chewy finish, i don’t think of 3D objects as shapes but it’s probably fine somehow, so that has elevated the clue yet higher. Also had no idea of parsing the middle of MARRY… – I think it’s a bit weak as you wouldn’t see RRY IN HAS as a clue (maybe in one of these barred puzzles), but I liked the definition a lot.
    Have read Sacks and have a friend with moderate 7D but didn’t recall the word and got lucky jumbling the anagram.
    Well spotted brian@32!
    Here we only seem to have screw-in “Glühbirne” so took me a while to figure that one out.
    All very enjoyable with my favourite OEUVRES, LOI as for blaise@25, I guessed early on how it worked but couldn’t figure out the word and talked myself out of it until all crossers set the pear glowing – thanks Philistine.

38. A very pleasant start to the day with some fine clues.

    Most dictionaries give SCREW-IN as an adjective, but I found it as a noun in the OED: An item or component which is fitted by being screwed in. I particularly enjoyed the clues for GROUSE MOOR and NOD ONE’S HEAD. I thought the ‘short and sweet’ in ASSENTED had something to do with ‘scented’, doh!

    Thanks Philistine and manehi.

39. Thanks for the blog, some nice clues but far too easy overall. Yet more evidence of Guardian setters being told to make their clues easier ?

40. Splendid puzzle for the variety of its clues and vocabulary. Some great surfaces too.

    I initially tried to find an anagram of *incognito+ol for 1ac because I had misparsed the clue as ‘role essentially’ = OL with ‘avoided identification’ as the definition. D’oh!

    Too many highlights to list in their entirety but I particularly enjoyed the lanyard and PROSOPAGNOSIA, because it’s such a beautiful word – almost the LOI but familiar from Oliver Sacks (‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat’ – highly recommended).

41. I loved this crossword. Almost all of the clues were my favourites. Thanks Philistine and nmanehi.

    And thank for all the light bulb jokes too.

42. Robi@38: me too re ASSENTED.

43. I liked it a lot, particularly as I have prosopagnosia. With that in, I made a mad leap for a theme of neurodiversity and and put in genderneutral at 8 down, madly wrong, fitting only 2 cross clues and it should have a hyphen but I was disappointed it was wrong.

44. I knew PROSOPAGNOSIA existed – mainly because I’ve got a rubbish memory for faces myself – but I needed Philistine’s concise clueing to give me a chance to spell it properly.

    I would have liked a qualifying adjective before ‘police’ in 3d (‘brutal’ would do). Other than that, I pretty much enjoyed this puzzle from start to finish.

45. [Roz @39: Just as policemen seem to be getting younger as we grow older, so crosswords seem to be getting easier as we become more adept at solving them. Perhaps Guardian puzzles have become a bit simpler, but that is probably necessary in order to encourage new solvers in the face of so many other distractions. For most people crosswords are just a pleasant pastime and not an Olympic discipline – and there are always barred puzzles for those seeking a meatier challenge.]

46. [Here, here, Gervase @45. Nothing more aggravating than reading how simple a crossword was when you have had to work hard on it. When I think that I am doing them a bit quicker, I put it down to getting better at them. I cannot see any way anyone can objectively judge the relative difficulty of the general run of crosswords without putting themselves back to their previous solving ability – which is manifestly impossible. By all means say “I found this one hard/easy”, but desist from global comments about difficulty levels in general, please.]

47. Is there a minor police/prison theme here, with GESTAPO, NEW SCOTLAND YARD, SCREW-in, STIR crazy, FACE RECOGNITION?

48. Fun. I had a classmate when learning Greek whose aid for remembering the word for face was it’s something you ‘pour soap on’ so that was a help for me for 7d. As did others, I failed to parse RRYINHAS part of 17,22d and also PACED, being fixated on king =R and forgetting cards and chess. OEUVRES and ROMULUS my favs.
    Thanks to Picaroon and manehi

49. [ Gervase @45 I accept that we need some easier crosswords for a range of solvers but the current situation is getting ridiculous. People complain when they are too hard and there is no balance if people do not complain when they are too easy. I have been able to complete Guardian crosswords for at least 20 years, in the last few years my solving ability has not changed but we rarely get any hard crosswords any more. What happened to the policy of two hard crosswords a week ? ]

50. Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

    All has been said so just to register approval for a succulent morsel and to thank manehi for PACED (lazy me) and MARRY IN HASTE (manehi’s superior perspicacity).

    I found myself recently in a hardware shop miming (as always). To my great surprise a screw-in/bayonet converter actually exists and here you are – I ASK YOU! One of those rare moments in life when the universe seems to bow gently in my direction. (For what it’s worth, there are bulbs and screw-in bulbs in this universion – no caps.)

    I think there is a lockdown mini-theme: STIR-CRAZY, “under cover during pandemic”, PROSOPAGNOSIA (I for one am dreading the full blast of public intercourse – when I do meet someone I know, I can hide behind their mask as an excuse for non-RECOGNITION: the plain truth is I know who they are but it’s been too long and I can’t remember their name), OBESE(/RESHAPE?), REMAINS TO BE SEEN?

51. Great crossword. I constructed PROSOPAGNOSIA from the clue which was pleasing. I’m with Postmark @9 regarding the French eggs. Thanks manehi for sorting out the parsing of ASSENTED and MARRY IN HASTE and to Philistine for the whole thing.

52. For those who did not know PROSOPAGNOSIA – maybe you’ve seen it before but did not recognize it.

53. How many Boris Johnsons does it take to change a “screw-in” lightbulb?

    Just one, he holds it still and waits for the world to revolve around him…

54. Delightful puzzle, especially liked SCOTLAND YARD. I have only one — not complaint, but confusion.

    I’ve never called a light bulb a screw-in, it’s just a light bulb. And how is it a screw cap? and what do bayonets have to do with it? I’ve clearly screwed up my interpretation. You must have greater varieties in light bulbs than we do this side the pond.

55. Re PROSOPAGNOSIA, Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat) was a contemporary of two other budding intellectuals at the same London school in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s, Jonathan Miller and Eric Korn…

56. Valentine @54
    In the UK we have 2 different ways of putting a light-bulb* in its holder – 4 if uou count different sizes. Most are called “bayonet fitting”. There are 2 small prongs sticking out of the side of the base of the bulb that locate and twist against a spring to hold it in place. The rest are the screw-fitting that most of the rest of the world seems to have.

    *more if you count the various spot bulbs etc.

57. Valentine @54:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet_mount
    As I thought, it’s a British Empire thing and originates from the way bayonets were attached to rifles – the US having left the Empire before light bulbs were invented.

58. Oofyprosser @26. I have often pointed out that anagrams for obscurities can be unfair, but I was familiar enough with PROSOPAGNOSIA that it was not a problem for me today – though you have my sympathy!

    bodycheetah @34. I had a similar thought. SCOTLAND YARD is a metonym for “the serious detectives from that London who come and help rural police forces in crime fiction”, but NEW ditto is simply a headquarters building, or so I thought. I didn’t let it spoil my enjoyment of the clue, nor of the puzzle as a whole, which went in very smoothly for me. Thanks to manehi for parsing (the obvious by definition and enumeration) MARRY IN HASTE, and to Philistine for a very enjoyable solve.

    [gladys @20. After getting my knuckles rapped yesterday – and justifiably so – I am not going to say anything about lightbulbs today.]

59. [Gervase @45 & TassieTim @46. I have had similar thoughts about the relative difficulty/simplicity of Guardian crosswords, though I think you are being a bit harsh on Roz @39, who (if I have remembered correctly from previous posts) is a long-time Guardian reader who likes to do the crossword on the train, so is entitled to have a little grouse when the expected level of difficulty changes, as she perceives it.

    I find that there are days when everything seems easy and days when I can’t make any headway for hours, but it then turns out that my experience differs from others as reported here. Sometimes this is a matter of general knowledge, or being on the setter’s wavelength, but at times I think it can be a matter of how well I have been sleeping and whether my mind is distracted by non-crossword things.

    In research into the enjoyment of crossword solving it has been found that what we refer to as the “penny drop moment” is a major incentive to solvers. I can’t imagine what it would be like to find every clue so immediately penetrable that PDMs are almost impossible to come by.]

60. Very enjoyable — after a solid Goliath in the FT on Saturday it seems that Philistine remains at the top of his game. Favourites included RESHAPE, NOD ONES HEAD, and OEUVRES. Loved the apt surface for INEPTLY. Despite having read several books by Oliver Sacks I missed 7d. My mind is like a cluttered attic — there’s so much stuff in there it takes more effort to find things. Thanks manehi for the blog.

61. As someone who is alleged to suffer from PROSOPAGNOSIA, I got it without parsing 😉

62. WhiteDevil @61: you deserve some recognition for that! Congratulations 😀

63. First time commenter in the blog. I thoroughly enjoyed this one by Philistine. It looked pretty simple initially but had a few clues that needed thinking, one needed cheating with a dictionary since I DNK though I could parse it (Prosopagnosia – thanks to @ngaiolaurenson’s tip for remembering it).

    I thought Reshape (&Lit) and Assented (Composite anagram) were really clever. The elision in Oeuvres didn’t click for me but it was gettable and was my LOI.

    Liked the Reverse Anagram -( Rough Idea) and Harry’s clue which was Reversal for RRY IN HAS was really clever.

    Overall, a very entertaining grid.

64. [Hello Sowmya@63 and welcome, good to hear that you enjoyed the puzzle on all its levels and hope we’ll see you here again! These blogs and the associated conversation can be really helpful in learning the various tricks of the trade and often provide fascinating “further education”, with the occasional inspired/appalling pun along the way.]

65. Thanks @Gazzh – Must admit I’m an occasional lurker and do consult the blog often when I’m stumped. Don’t solve the Guardian regularly enough – something I hope to do more often when I find time.

    By way of introduction, I’m originally from India, live in Bahrain and set for ‘The Hindu’ as Hypatia.

66. [Sowmya @65 – I just found you (as Hypatia) in The Hindu Crossword Corner! Perhaps you were acquainted with Rishi, who often contributed here and sadly passed away very recently?]

67. Hi @essexboy – Indeed I know him well personally and he was a mentor and father figure to many of us who started setting much later. Even in our very last telephone conversation about two weeks before he passed away, he had mentioned about this blog as well as his recent interactions here.

68. [Many thanks Sowmya for responding – and how very touching to know that we were on his mind.]

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