Guardian 28,887 – Philistine

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I was a little slow to get started on this, but then everything started slipping nicely into place. Thanks to Philistine.

We have a mini-theme of words derived from the names of planets, or rather the gods they are named after: HERMETIC (Hermes, the Greek equivalent of Mercury), VENEREAL (Venus), MARTIAL (Mars, the god of war) and SATURNINE. There’s also HERCULEAN, Hercules being the son of Jupiter. Am I missing any more?

 
Across
1 POSTHASTE Very fast job, as the reformation (9)
POST (job) + (AS THE)*
8 VENEREAL Sexual and genuine after breaking even (8)
EVEN* + REAL
9 COYOTE Reserved hotel inside for Wile Ethelbert? (6)
COY (reserved) + the “inside” letters of hOTEl – in the Road Runner cartoons the middle name of Wile E Coyote is (I learned today) Ethelbert
10 PERSIA Praise revolutionary Iran once (6)
PRAISE*
11 TANGIERS More appetising with or without first sip of sherry or port (8)
TANGIER (more appetising) + S[herry] – the Moroccan city is more correctly called Tangier, hence “or without”, but this form is, or was, commonly used by English speakers
12 CHINOS Trousers needing inch off, so sent back (6)
INCH + reverse of SO
15 HERMETIC The woman’s satisfied if coming first, being completely tight (8)
HER (the woman’s) + MET (satisfied) + I[f] C[oming]
16 PROCLAIM Declare it’s proper to drink cola, shaken or stirred (8)
COLA* in PRIM
19 CEASED Cold alleviated and stopped (6)
C + EASED
21 MUTINEER Rebel sounds quiet between these walls (8)
A cheeky homophone of “mute in ‘ere”
22 KEEP ON Continue working after brief look back (4,2)
Reverse of PEEK + ON (working)
24 REFORM Measure for Measure partly correct (6)
Hidden in measuRE FOR Measure
25 IMAGINED Philistine’s with a drink, exhausted, drained and unreal (8)
I’M (Philistine’s) + A GIN + E[xhauste]D
26 ONLY JUST Merely, purely, barely (4,4)
ONLY (merely) + JUST (purely – perhaps as in “just wonderful”)
27 NULLIPARA For a start, looks like new au pair’s out, one being childless (9)
Anagram of L[ooks] L[ike] N[ew] AU PAIR
Down
1 PIECE Section is said to be calm (5)
Homophone of “peace”
2 STEPSON Tramples family member (7)
STEPS ON (tramples)
3 HYENA One may laugh and laugh about desire (5)
YEN (desire) in HA (a laugh)
4 SPLOTCH School briefly covers up conspiracy smear (7)
PLOT in SCH
5 ECCENTRIC Bizarre report of former lover, silly cretin (9)
Homophone of “ex” (former lover) + CRETIN*
6 JOYRIDE Mr Bloggs introducing the start of your free pleasure trip (7)
Y[our] RID (to free) in JOE (Joe Bloggs, name for an unspecified person)
7 SATURNINE Gloomy nature’s in fashion (9)
(NATURES IN)*
13 HERCULEAN Vacating house before nuclear meltdown is very hard (9)
H[ous]E + NUCLEAR*
14 STATESMAN Political figure, one from 20? (9)
Someone from the USA (America in the non-continental sense) could be a “states man”
17 CHICORY Leaves trendy gold jewellery at last (7)
CHIC + OR + [jeweller]Y
18 MARTIAL Belligerent mother’s on trial when leader demoted (7)
MA + TRIAL with the T moved down a place – this took me much longer than it should because I was expecting to need a synonym of “trial” rather than the word itself
20 AMERICA Continent of Asia has heart ripped out by organised crime (7)
CRIME* in A[si]A – continentally speaking, “America” is really two, North and South
22 KHAKI They say you might need this to start the engine in the shade (5)
Homophone of “car key”
23 OMEGA Times (long and short) come up with a letter (5)
Reverse of AGE (a long time) + MO (a short one)

92 comments on “Guardian 28,887 – Philistine”

  1. Having got coyote and hyena I was hoping for some kind of dog theme. Pretty straightforward.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew

  4. I had the opposite experience to Andrew – got off to a flyer before getting stuck on nullipara and mutineer. Thanks P and A.

  6. Pottered happily through this until staring blankly at the two little buggers in the SE, then it hit, oh ‘car key’ … groan, clang, and then loi keep on. The G-ers said something about a theme so I looked … nup, too dim to see. All good fun, ta PnA.

  7. Crossbar @1. Was about to say hyenas are cats, when I discovered they’re neither cats nor dogs, according to San Diego zoo, and I fogured they’d know. Just when you thought things were simple!

  10. I enjoyed this. Never heard of NULLIPARA. I’ll see if I can throw it into my next dinner party conversation. I’m surprised that 21a didn’t give a clue to the dropped “h”. Normally something to do with London’s East End does the job?

  11. Very straightforward solve today and very pleasing. Agree with TassieTim @5 that REFORM was a great HA. Nho of NULLIPARA but crossers helped. Thanks for explanation of COYOTE and isn’t SPLOTCH a great word. If we never discussed homophones ever again, it would be too soon.

    Ta Philistine & Andrew.

  12. I was about to say that there’s enough ‘homophones’ in this for the comments in this blog to break a record. No complaints from me.
    Like TassieTim @5 I thought REFORM was a great hidden clue. I also like KHAKI (shhh…. stop it).
    I did wonder whether MARTIAL=belligerent, but Chambers set my mind at rest. I also struggled with AMERICA as the clue read like AA is next to an anagram of CRIME, but “near enough’s good enough”.
    I also didn’t pursue the fact that TANGIERS can also be Tangier so thanks for that explanation Andrew.

  14. [Crispy@7 I’ve always thought of hyenas as some sort of canine, but not necessarily one you’d want to domesticate. Ah well, I’ve been wrong all along.]

  15. I second Bodycheetah @3 and others: MUTINEER was indeed cheeky (as was KHAKI) – but I like them!

    Other ticks were for 11ac TANGIERS (I liked the precise cluing), 25ac IMAGINED, 26,6 ONLY JUST, 27ac NULLIPARA, 5dn ECCENTRIC, 13dn HERCULEAN and 17dn CHICORY.

    I’m not so keen on MARTIAL = belligerent in 18ac. (Chambers did not set my mind entirely at rest, Tim C. How about “soldiers’ mother”?)

    Lots of fun – many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  17. Tim, im 20d, I thought that as the letters of CRIME were ripping out the heart of Asia, they were taking its place?

  21. [Crossbar @24. I’m sure when I’ve been on safari they’ve been referred to as cats. Given that the females have a pseudo penis, I should have realised they were not what they seemed]

  22. I hadn’t heard of Joe Bloggs–over here It’s Joe Blow. File under “trans-Atlamtic cultural differences.”

    Instead of talking about homophones, we’re talking about not talking about them, which is almost as bad. I’ll say this, though: the two groaners (mute in ‘ere and car key) were both so silly (in a good way) that quibbling would be mean-spirited.

  23. For once I spotted the theme while solving, but too late to be of much use. I did spend a fair bit of time looking for where “mercurial” could go though

  25. Phew! This is the first one I’ve finished for ages. I was beginning to think I’d lost it. So thank you Philistine for restoring my confidence. I had to check that NULLIPARA was a word, but otherwise firmly in my comfort zone. And as I think DrWhatson said yesterday, ‘homophones’ don’t have to be exact; definitions aren’t always.

    Oh, and I didn’t know about Ethelbert COYOTE, but once I had a crosser or two it became obvious.

  26. Very slow start, steady away for a while then the last few clicked into place nicely. I will confess to a few instances of hitting the Check button on parts of wordplay before the penny dropped on the full word. I consider this acceptable as it stops short of a full Reveal 🙂

    I presume I’m not alone in finding NULLIPARA a new word. I hadn’t grasped the ‘with or without’ part of TANGIER(S) til I got here so I feel educated, thanks Andrew. I’m not sure what ‘and stirred’ is adding to PROCLAIM, as ‘shaken’ alone is an anagram indicator; I spent too long thinking I’d missed something on that one.

    SPLOTCH is a lovely word, very nice to see that in a crossword!

    Thanks both.

  27. Finished this in record time for a Philistine – for once his clues seemed more transparent to me, though all nicely done. Fun puzzle, with some great words: POSTHASTE, SPLOTCH, NULLIPARA.

    mrpenney @22: I’m enjoying the avalanche of apophasis 🙂

    Thanks to the Levanter and Andrew

  28. Fun puzzle. Liked STEPSON, JOYRIDE, ECCENTRIC, HYENA

    New for me: Wile Ethelbert Coyote (for 9ac) – I was aware of this cartoon character but had never needed to know how to write out his name in full or even as Wile. E Coyote. As a child, I had assumed it was Wily Coyote!

    I did not parse 21ac.

    Thanks, both.

  30. We’re not homophonophobic!
    thought both were great,and the rest of the puzzle too, thanks Philistine, and Andrew

  31. Philistine gave us NULLIPARA in March, which I just about remembered. It took me a long time to see (hear?) MUTINEER. Did we have a discussion once about why the English added an “s” to place names like Tangier(s), Lyon(s) and Marseille(s)?

  32. Great fun.
    And for me, the appalling (in a good way, as mrpenney @22 says) homophones were the most enjoyable bit.
    Thanks, both.

  33. [Gervase@27. LOL, and mrpenney@22. Way beyond me to homophonise ‘ave a lunch with a poff assiss.]
    I remember essexboy putting me on to apophasis, of which I was guilty at the time. Great word.]

  34. Petert @31: well remembered – I don’t recall it myself. Referencing his day job, Philistine often includes medical terms in his puzzles. Today was the turn of obstetrics and gynaecology. NULLIPARA is probably less familiar to the layperson than ‘primipara’, the term for a woman in her first pregnancy.

    [Another lovely word which is etymologically related is ‘semelparous’ (Latin semel = once) which describes animals, like salmon and most insects, which reproduce only once in their lifetime. The corresponding term for plants is ‘monocarpic’ 🙂 ]

  35. Thanks Philistine & Andrew. My solving experience was similar – slow to get going then everything suddenly dropping into place once I twigged what was going on with the cheekier clues. MUTINEER was a proper laugh out loud moment, very good. KHAKI feels like one I’ve seen before but still amusing.

    michelle @28 – that was the joke – “Wile E” as a homophone(!) of “wily”. I may be wrong but I don’t believe that when the character was originally conceived the E actually stood for anything, and that must be a later invention. Even as a massive fan of Looney Tunes cartoons, I’ve never heard it before and I found the clue very confusing as a result – the parsing was clear enough though.

  37. wordworrier @13 and GDU @17, thanks, that makes a lot of sense. That clue has just gone up in my estimation.
    Eileen @15, I just had from Chambers martial=warlike and belligerent=aggresive. “near enough’s good enough” 🙂 How does “soldiers’ mother” work? How about “Sounds like spoil will be related to war”? Oh, no…. someone’s going to say that ‘tial’ is not a homophone of ‘shall’. 😉
    Panthes @30… homophonophobic… LOL
    I forgot to say in my OP that Wile E Coyote’s middle name was Ethelred and was unknown to me before today. Thanks Andrew and a lot of others for pointing that out.

  38. If anyone is interested, I have checked with my friend who is even more of a Warner Bros aficionado than me and she is convinced that Ethelbert is non-canonical. It’s like the later cartoons when he speaks – it just doesn’t feel right.

    Eileen @36 – thanks for the reminder, I’d forgotten that clue, which I liked despite the slightly problematic nature of it. I remembered the word though – it wasn’t new to me last time either.

  39. [I enjoyed posthaste, less because of the clue itself – one of the easier ones – than because I liked discovering when I began work on seventeenth-century letters that it was then a literal instruction for an urgent letter to be transmitted at all possible speed at each stage of the post. When Charles I sent out an order for the arrest of the “Five Members” in 1642, his letter bears the direction ‘Hast hast hast Posthast’.]

  40. [Crispy@21 according to Wiki, though closer to cats phylogenetically, they have wolf-like bodies, and exhibit both canine and feline behaviours, despite being neither. In which case I won’t beat myself up too much for thinking of them as dogs, but I bow to your superior safari knowledge 😀 ]

  41. Tim C – I have to go out at this moment, so can’t revisit the Chambers definitions just now.
    I was being provocative with the suggestion of “soldiers'” – (belonging or pertaining to soldiers) – just wondered what others would think of it. (I literally have got my coat on now. 😉 )

  42. Like others, a fairly slow start, then I discovered I’d completed the top half, and after some breakfast I managed the lot! Loved the terrible homo****s!
    Thanks P and A

    [PS I have to press the check button every now and again as I need to remove bad guesses or they prevent me from moving on. But mostly I do it in the paper which has been regularly delivered by 7.30 am since the first lockdown! ]

  43. Widdersbel @38, if non-canonical means that Ethelbert is not official then your friend may be correct. Apparently it’s origin was in a comic book “Beep Beep the Road Runner”. The relevant page is here. It seems to have taken on it’s own life after that even featuring in a Jeopardy quiz show question. I suspect that Wile E would prefer to forget it as much as Morse doesn’t like his E either.

  46. I got the better of Philistine in the top half, as I completed it quickly, but he got the the better of me in the other half, as I stalled on several clues. Homophones are a weakness in my arsenal of crossword skills, and I was therefore pleased to get KHAKI (a homophone), which unlocked the rest of the puzzle, including MUTINEER (the other ‘homophone’).

    A well-crafted puzzle. Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  47. Took a few minutes to get started, but eventually got off to an eccentric start. Despite challenges venereal and martial, the top half followed post haste. From there on we continued working, after only a brief look back.

    Thanks Philistine, see you next week.

  52. I found this quite mild by Philistine’s standard, but very enjoyable.

    I didn’t get the mute in ‘ere, very funny! I liked STEPSON for the ‘tramples’, SPLOTCH for being such an interesting word, JOYRIDE for the ‘start of your free’, AMERICA for the surface, and REFORM for a well-hidden answer. A couple of personal quibbles, I would have put ‘For starters’ in 27 and I don’t particularly like ‘if coming first’ in 15 to mean IC.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

  53. Only every came
    across NULLIPARA before in a crossword. Turns out Philistine used it in a Prize back in March. site://www.fifteensquared.net NULLIPARA .

  54. Nicola @44
    I loved your comment about KHAKI. I grew up in Thornton Heath, which is near enough to Kensington – just not as well-known (and we didn’t often say ‘dahling’).

  56. Nicola@44 There are those in other parts of England who would pronounce both Khaki and car with a short a, this preserving the homophone.

  57. SPLOTCH is not a nice word. It’s horrible. I’ve never used it and I can’t foresee a need ever to do so. Disappointingly, it’s appeared in two recent crosswords (the other one may have been in The Times) and on both occasions has had me coming close to throwing the towel in. Enjoyed the rest of this one though and particularly liked KHAKI and MUTINEER. I see one of the homophone purists eventually and predictably turned up. I do wish they would put a sock in it: I think we all get the point by now.

  58. Great puzzle and nice to get into it quickly for once. Really liked Hermetic, Venereal, Eccentric and loved ineer for between these walls even though I didn’t get it. Nullipara??? Such a hard clue on top of a really obscure word.

  59. I’m not surprised that Wile E. Coyote (Genius) keeps his middle name quiet. It was news to me, anyway.

    Not one of Philistine’s toughest, but great fun, with an appreciative OUCH for KHAKI and mute in ‘ere (innit?)

  60. BigNorm @57 – yes “one”. There has been much more homophone discussion/mention/cringe than there has been complaining, so I’m not sure where exactly the sock should go.

  61. Nicole@44 & Petert@56: In Oz we also pronounce khaki and car key the same way, with the long vowel.

    Re hyena: Watched a doco recently on the spotted hyena, and here’s a mind boggler: the female gives birth through their clitoris! Their urinogenital setup is unique, even among the 4 species that make up the family Hyaenidae. The diversity of natural world can be gobsmacking. NB: In evolutionary terms, they are much more closely related to cats than to dogs.

  63. Very very likeable indeed, though I didn’t see the planets/gods connection at all. I enjoyed the blog and comments so thanks to Andrew and All. I also liked PERSIA at 10a – I had heaps more ticks but those favourites have already been mentioned above. Warm gratitude to Philistine: always a challenging but interesting solve when it’s one of his.

  64. Nice straightforward puzzle, Ta for the blog.

    I imagine homophones as garishly pink, bedecked with sequins…

  65. Thanks Philistine and Andrew, I enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    12A – Shouldn’t it be INCH* ?

    I counted 11 clues involving anagrams in this puzzle. According to arecent comment on MyCrossword, up to about 6 is usually considered acceptable. What do people here think?

  66. Katherine @65: I believe the Times has this limit for its setters (together with other rules), though this may refer to clues whose entire solution is an anagram, rather than those where an anagram appears as part of a longer charade. The Guardian has no such regulations.

    Too many for me is when I notice there is a large number of anagrams halfway through the puzzle. Here I went to the end without being unaware there were so many, so no problem as far as I am concerned. But I am one of those solvers for whom surfaces are important – and Philistine’s are usually excellent. For those who disregard them, I guess the variety of clue types becomes more apparent and significant.

  67. Katherine@65: I didn’t notice a surfeit. (found 10, near enough the same). Anagrams are staples. Not only are they more likely to occur than any other type of clue, they help hold the crossword together. Misdirection aside, they are usually easy to recognise and straightforward to resolve, often yielding welcome crossers for tough clues. One wouldn’t want a whole crossword of them, but a third, as here, seems to me ok, provided there is variety in the presentation, again as here.

  70. I’m sure that when I was at school (1960s), we were taught that ‘America’ was a continent. I’m not sure when it split into North and South. Anyone know?

  71. I have to leave before I finish reading all the comments, so for now I’ll just tell the story that I was commenting on a listserve about (among other things) prison questions. I said something hypothetical about Joe Bloggs and his prison experience, having forgotten which side of the pond I was writing for, and somebody rebuked me for violating confidentiality. I had to reply that I hadn’t violated Joe’s because he didn’t exist. As mrpenney says, over here he’s Joe Blow.

  72. [AuntRuth @70: From Wikipedia

    North America and South America are treated as separate continents in the seven-continent model. However, they may also be viewed as a single continent known as America. This viewpoint was common in the United States until World War II, and remains prevalent in some Asian six-continent models. The single American continent model remains the more common view in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and Latin American countries.

    Logically, if the Americas are considered a single continent, we should refer to Eurasia, or even Afro-Eurasia as one.]

  73. I’m sure NULLIPARA would have taken me a lot longer to twig if we hadn’t had it back in March; apparently at the time some of my few remaining unused grey cells were looking for a job, and they did it well.

    I tried for a while to wrestle “tin ear” out of MUTINEER, but it wasn’t to be.

    TANGIERS introduced a curiosity, for want of a better word. Often in cryptics “without” indicates subtraction, so going purely by standard cryptic logic “with or without” means “add or subtract”. However, in that expression in regular English, without just means “don’t add”. Keeps us on our toes, I suppose.

  74. [Also on AMERICA as a continent, see the Olympic rings, which represent the five continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. That’s the more common European reckoning. Here in North America, we tend to use the seven-continent model, and the other version strikes us as bizarre.]

  76. Nicola@44. Nah, I’m from Stepney Green (London’s East End, or the land of the cockneys for those from overseas) and we say car key pretty much the same way as the dahlings from Kensington, although maybe less elongated and with back of the throat consonants. Probably all we do have in common with them. Oh, and as you might have gathered, I got mutineer quickly enough, and it did produce a smile…

  77. I still can’t get my head around 11ac. Does the position of the “or” not suggest it’s TANGIER (the adjective) that can be spelled with or without the S? Good fun otherwise! Thank you, P & A

  79. After yesterday’s trio of Brendan, Monk, and Eccles I’m surprised my brain had anything left for Philistine. For some reason I sped through this one — although I found it very easy I also found it very entertaining with HYENA, COYOTE, STEPSON, ECCENTRIC, and KHAKI all getting ticks. Thanks to both.

  80. Gervase@72 I take your point about Afro-Eurasia, but I really don’t see Europe and Asia’s claim to be separate continents for any but historical reasons. While the Americas, like Africa and Asia, are connected by a skinny land bridge, no such thing applies to Europe and Asia. I’m also with mrpenney on this, both of us probably have been educated after WWII. Perhaps my grandparents would have had a different picture.

    Thanks, Philistine and Andrew.

  81. Thanks for the blog , good set of clues here. COYOTE has reminded me that the middle name of Benoit B Mandelbrot is – Benoit B Mandelbrot.

  82. Re: homophones. Instead of the usual debates, perhaps each commenter could offer up a suggestion as to where in the world said homphone works exactly and whoever guesses the nearest (in the setter’s opinion) wins a Mars bar. Bit like an aural version of GeoGuessr.
    Fun puzzle, on the lighter side of Philistine’s range. I thought CHINOS was a gem.
    Thanks, Phil and Drew.

  85. Gavin @83. I thought Andrew had dealt with the parsing of REFORM. It’s hidden in the name of the play ‘MeasuRE FOR Measure’, as indicated by ‘partly’. And commenters here have praised the setter for finding such a hidden solution (see #5 & #12), so I’m not sure what it is that you don’t understand.

  86. phitonelly @82, I love the idea of some kind of broader exchange re homophones rather than the usual polarised grumps, which say either ‘not round here’ or patronisingly dismiss any railing against a ‘norm’. I hugely enjoyed that KHAKI could be read as ‘quait refayned’ or thoroughly Scouse. Perspectives are key.

    And while I’m here I can’t resist mentioning the announcing of Scottish football scores where “Forfar four” regularly comes out as ‘Fawfah foe’. Of course Forfar should be pronounced more along the lines of a person who forffs.

  87. Loved this one. Thanks Phil and Andrew.

    Speaking as an American (i.e. a Canadian), the ambiguities in the use of AMERICA bothered me not at all!

  89. Thanks Andrew and Philistine. Re HERMETIC 15ac: the Hermes involved in the etymology here is not the Greek herald of the gods but the Egyptian god of science and alchemy, Thoth, know in Greek as Hermes Trismegistos = ‘Hermes the Thrice Greatest’. Thank Chambers for that lot!

  91. I speak the “country Cockney” of West Middlesex – definitely common rather than refayned – and the car key worked for me. I was rather surprised to find there were so many places where it didn’t.

  92. Always enjoy Philistine and I thought this was a cracker.

    Wasn’t aware there was any other way to pronounce KHAKI other than CAR-KEY, and I’m from NE England.

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