Guardian ‘Prize’ Crossword 28,500 / Philistine (17 July 2021)

42 comments on “Guardian ‘Prize’ Crossword 28,500 / Philistine (17 July 2021)”

1. Yet another Saturday puzzle to give me plenty to think about and to enjoy while doing so. I particularly liked ENDEAR, DEADLINE and WITTGENSTEIN. I also liked the two examples (PLEASURE and CLAPTRAP) of a word taking up two entries, each being a word. In the clue to INTACT I wasn’t sure how the phrase ‘to leave Her Majesty’ told us to remove ER.

   Thanks to Philistine and Gaufrid.

2. Gentle solve, but had to enjoy a puzzle which included WITTGENSTEIN (my FOI). In my college days, while on my way to the lab I used to pass (without realizing it) the house where he once boarded. Since then he’s become one of my philosophical heroes, and I believe the house now has a brass plate.
   Got an uneasy snigger of relief out of my LOI (EXCHANGE).
   Thanks Philistine for a pleasant diversion.

3. Thanks Gaufrid. I was surprised having finished that this had proved so testing on the way – many anagrams, but some were pretty deft.

4. Alan B – I wasn’t sure how the phrase ‘to leave Her Majesty’ told us to remove ER. I think it’s in the sense of leaving your umbrella on the train!

   I found this mostly very straightforward, with WITTGENSTEIN suggesting itself – ‘philosopher (12)’, and the Scunthorpe/austere place/SPARTA connection was also a little obvious, but having been to the former probably helped make it so. I liked ‘essentially 10% off’, for the idea if not the challenge, and EXCHANGE similarly. DEADLINE was the only one that really held me up (can’t remember why), but the answer was amusing when it finally came.

   Perhaps this is what Gaufrid means about Philistine’s crosswords having “lost a little of the extra ‘sparkle’ that they used to have.” If the definition or synonym too easily prompts the answer, it’s less of a challenge and so less joyful when the penny drops. I’m sure it’s only temporary; still one of my favourites.

5. I doubtfully justified 26a to myself by render being an r-ended word. If not, could someone expand on Gaufrid’s explanation?

6. Dan Milton – ‘Provide plaster’ as a single and not very cryptic definition would be the act of plastering a wall. Then ‘plaster’ itself would be the noun or verb RENDER, and to RENDER is to ‘provide’ a service to someone.

7. Loved FENG SHUI for its surface and allusion to the answer.
   Why is/was the news at ten?

8. Loved the use of split words in the clues to get SUPERBLY and CLAPTRAP.

   And the G-MAN in LEADING MAN made me smile

   Enjoyed this though there were a few I couldn’t parse.

   Thanks Philistine and Gaufrid

9. Enjoyable challenge.
   New: TRAMP steamer.
   Liked: SUPERBLY, PRETENCE, ENDEAR, DIRECTOR, ATTENTION, RENDER (loi).

10. Dan at 5.
    Render as a noun is ‘a first coat of plaster applied to a brick or stone surface.’. Thus one parsing is a double definition: 1) provide & 2) a coat of plaster

11. Philistine/Goliath never disappoints. Favourites included OVER THE LIMIT (amusing surface), UXORIOUS, DIRECTOR, and TRAMP. Thanks Gaufrid for the write-up.

12. Thanks for the blog and a very apt summary, a bit humdrum but skilfully done. A lot of anagrams, agree with Fiona Anne @9 about SUPERBLY and CLAPTRAP but would only like to see this trick once per crossword.
    10% off is very original but basically meaningless, essentially 10 is the blank space between 1 and 0.
    If it means the E of TEN, then write TEN.
    UXORIOUS is also potentially lovely but does not quite work.
    Unorthodox offer on vacation – gives U and R , or “unorthodox OR ” but not UX and OR .

13. PDM @7 for many years on our channel ITV there was a programme called News at Ten , every weekday.
    It always opened with Big Ben striking 10 o’clock. When ITV changed their schedules the BBC moved their news programme from 9 to 10 but it is just called The News.

14. Thankyou Roz @13 for the sound picture of Big Ben at 10.

15. Many thanks Philistine and Gaufrid. A pleasing solve and a trim blog. It was nice to recall words (UXORIOUS and WITTGENSTEIN) I’d forgotten I knew. Loved CLAPTRAP and DEADLINE. Thanks for E … explaining 10%!

16. I think you have said it rather well, Gaufrid, despite your struggles. There were some very neat clues in this crossword and, for me, a few murmurs of approval but not much sparkling going on. I think sheffield hatter@4 has maybe hit the nail on the head.

    I thought this was most accessible for a Prize and the various devices used were clever enough to give pause for thought. Loved EXCHANGE and thought PRETENCE was a clever device which you could argue was taking liberties, as Roz@12 has done, but I think it’s fair.

    This was definitely the other end of the scale to the previous “prize” from Paul and as rodshaw@2 hinted maybe too much at the end of the scale (thought welcome from the Grauniad editor eh Roz?)

    An enjoyable diversion and thanks to Phillistine and to Gaufrid for the blog.

17. I have the same problem with UXORIOUS as Roz, the answer was clear, but I couldn’t work out a clean way of obtaining UXOR.

    Nice to see Wittgenstein clued. I’d imagine he would be a favourite of many here.
    Further to the above quibble, I can’t come up with a better clue so perhaps I should have heeded
    “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

    Thanks Philistine and Gaufrid

    Thanks

18. Blah @17 ….. to pursue unorthodox offer after separate vacation.

19. Roz@18 That’s quite good actually. I like the dissonance of a devoted husband on a separate (presumably from his wife) vacation. Perhaps it was at her instigation?

20. Certainly on the easy side. I thought OVER THE LIMIT was great, even if unappealing. Gaufrid summed the whole experience perfectly.

    Ta both

21. SH @4
    Thanks for your response. Since posting my comment I convinced myself that ‘to leave’ (in the clue to INTACT) must in this context mean ‘leaving behind’, just as you indicated with your example of the umbrella. But at the time of solving I thought the word order looked wrong, considering that we actually want ‘Her Majesty to leave’!

22. Roz @12. I agree with you about UXOR (and your amended version of the clue @18 would have worked, I reckon) but I think you’re being a bit harsh on the setter with your stricture about ‘essentially 10’ is the blank space between 1 and 0. We often see wordplay involving the names of numbers – I think I can remember something to do with an unfinished 11 for the letters ELEVE, or something similar, recently. I don’t think an instruction to take the middle letter of the name of a number is in any way unfair or ungrammatical. And if it’s un-Ximenean, well – welcome to the Guardian!

23. sheffield hatter @ 22 I did not explain my point fully , the E from TEN is then mixed with percent to give pretence. The letters of an anagram should be present in the original clue.

24. 24 ac seems to work OK but the definition is a bit sexist – uxorious applies to either spouse

25. Roz @23. Yes, I see your point, and of course Ximenes would not have approved. But we’ve seen this sort of thing many times in Guardian cryptics and I think you’d have to accept that there was nothing unfair about the clue.

26. Only if they are both female, or is that a sexist word too.

27. You are right Biggles, thank you

28. sheffield hatter @ 25, seeing it many times does not make it right. It is hard to call this clue unfair when it is so easy but it is definitely unsound as Sir Arnold would say.

29. PRETENCE was one of the ones I couldn’t parse – can see now it is not so hard – but after staring at it several times this week still didn’t get it.

    I think I am going to have to write in big letters OFF IS AN ANAGRAM INDICATOR and put it by my laptop. For some reason I nearly always miss anagrams indicated by off – such a little word hidden in the surface.

30. Thanks Philistine and Gaufrid.
    Personally, I don’t have any problem with UXOR. It depends on where you imagine the brackets to be… (unorthodox offer) on vacation. I’m relaxed about 10% also.

31. Thanks Philistine and Gaufrid.
    I enjoyed this, especially the tribute to DIRECTOR Jean RENOIR, an artist like his Dad.
    Also enjoyed subversion and platform.

32. Graham @30. It depends on where you imagine the brackets to be… (unorthodox offer) on vacation. That could just as well lead to UR rather than UXOR, depending on how you read the bracket! See Roz @18 for a version that seems to work, instructing the solver to vacate each word separately.

33. I see the issue with the wording in the UXORIOUS clue, although the intent is clear.
    Perhaps two indicators? –
    As a devoted husband, promises to pursue unorthodox clothing offer on vacation
    Enjoyed the solve, but it I personally prefer a bit more head-scratching for a Saturday puzzle.
    Thanks, Phil and Gaufrid.

34. This was much easier than Paul’s cryptic yesterday.

    Not ever having thought the “uxorious” referred to both sexes, I looked it up and found “having or showing an excessive or submissive fondness for one’s wife.”

    Thanks, Philistine for an enjoyable evening last Friday and Gaufrid for an enlightening morning today.

35. Thanks Philistine for the crossword and Gaufrid for the helpful blog.

    I don’t see how there is any greater problem with ‘on vacation’ referring to more than one element than any other cryptic indicator. When we have an anagrind, is it for one or more words? Similarly, when asked to take the regular, or even or odd letters – is it of one or more words? The enjoyment of solving the clues is precisely having to work that out. In a recent Tramp puzzle the clue was “it covers pot belly fine, ultimately coat’s for going out.” It’s not immediately clear which final letter(s) need to be used; the actual ones were actually a surprise which made this a wonderful clue, leading us up all sorts of wrong paths.

36. SH@32 Yes, it could lead to a number of possibilities. Like all/most/some (?) clues, it is ambiguous. As Larry @35 points out the the joy is in discovering the one reading that leads to an answer that satisfies the whole clue and definition, and also fits the grid and crossers. I am not sure I want more explicit instructions.

37. Fiona Anne@8 and others ,

    Aren’t clues involving split words ( often referred to here as “lift and separate” ) a Philistine trademark or am I thinking of another setter ? But then Philistine’s best-known trademark is clues or solutions involving medical terms , so maybe I am getting confused ! But regardless, a satisfying Saturday solve which kept me busy on both days of the weekend. Thanks to Philistine and to Gaufrid for the blog.

38. Brigster@10 re RENDER, I also took it as a double def, but using the verbal sense of “apply a coat of plaster (to a wall)”. I’m not at all sure that RENDER can mean “provide plaster”, as Gaufrid suggests, except very loosely, rather than ‘apply plaster’.

    Roz@23 etc. … but strangely, you don’t object to % for the letters of PER CENT. Is it because of the extra operation involved in taking only the middle letter of ‘ten’? Technically, there’s no space between the 1 and 0 of 10, so you know you have to look for a different representation of the figures, don’t you?

    I also thought it was rather harsh (but again, technically precise) not to allow the ‘exhausticator’ to operate on two consecutive words. This is quite commonly seen with first, last and middle letter indicators applying to consecutive words (without the ‘and’ which would perhaps more properly be seen in a list of operands). Adding ‘separate’ does tighten up the wordplay, though, admittedly (and Phitonelli’s tweak @33 is even clearer, even though one wonders about the surface story).

    Larry@35, your point would be better made if you said what the answer is to the clue you mention, which you don’t even bother to enumerate, annoyingly. Nobody comes here to have to solve badly presented clues but rather to see and discuss the explanation for clearly presented ones.

    JohnB@37, yes, Philistine is known for requiring you to ignoring the space between words — or lack thereof — and that is often referred to as “lift and separate”. However, that term, coined by Mark Goodliffe blogging at TimesfortheTimes, wasn’t originally intended to refer to that technique, but to the case where two separate words which commonly appear together in a phrase, say, need to be treated separately. E.g. one of them is (part of) the definition, the other, the wordplay.

39. Tony Collman@38 – it’s not that I didn’t ‘bother’ to give the solution, or that I wished to be annoying, it’s rather that I didn’t wish to spoil for anyone not having yet done that recent crossword (this Thursday, just past). The enumeration was (3,4). Where solutions are given to a recent puzzle, a complaint is normally made that not everyone will have yet done that particular crossword.

40. Nice one, Larry.

41. Larry@39

    In that case, you probably shouldn’t have made the remarks you did anyway, since they disclosed that the wordplay was based on final letters. You would have done better, in my view, to use a clue which you were sure was old enough not to spoil anyone’s fun, preferably giving the full clue with enumeration and answer, and showing how the wordplay in the clue supports your point. I think it’s also right that you should attribute the clue if you know the setter (which I accept you did in this case) and give details of the puzzle it appeared in, if you know it (which you didn’t, beyond saying it was “recent”), preferably with a link either to the puzzle itself or, perhaps better, the 15^2 post where the clue is explained.

42. Very pleasant puzzle and some petty grumbles above as usual in my humble opinion.
    Thanks to Philistine and Gaufrid

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