Guardian Cryptic 29,068 by Philistine

95 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,068 by Philistine”

1. Enjoyed this whilst doing it, and even more thanks to your parsing, Manehi. Bit dubious about Black Tie = Dinner Jacket, though. Thanks to Philistine too.

2. I am always pleased to see that Philistine is the setter, and this puzzle was no disappointment.

3. Very enjoyable. I couldn’t parse LOCAL, but should have, as I’ve seen this trick before. Took me a while to remember the Wye valley. Favourites were PROLIFERATES & BREAKFAST IN BED. The latter was in a recent puzzle in Australia. I chuckled then, and chuckled again today. Thanks Philistine & Manehi.

4. Enjoyable puzzle. Favourites: CRAP TABLE, BLACK TIE, IN THE RAW.

   New for me: THREE PIECE suite of furniture; CIALIS = viagra/medication used to treat erectile dysfunction.

   I could not parse 24ac – ah, that’s very clever.

   Thanks, both.

5. Crispy @1 – maybe “need commitment of” is doing double duty?

6. Grid completed, several parsings were beyond me, 10a a particular frustration! Thank you manehi for the elucidation. Really liked 25a construction.

7. So much to like/SALIVATE about this Philistine puzzle. Nice balance of clue types with all sorts appearing – anagrams, homophones, charades, reversals, lifts-separates, subtractions, etc. Nods to French, Latin and American habits with TAROT, TOGA ( forming ARGOT ) and CRAP TABLE respectively.

   Fave was DEWY EYED for clue formation / splendid holiday I once had in the Wye Valley.

   VIAGRA Wednesday, WEED yesterday and VIAGRA and CIALIS today – it’s been an IFFY week !

   Reminded by Rolling Stone Keith Richards’ SOCIALISM, here’s an earworm from BOB DYLAN’s VEHICULAR ( on highway ) album :

   https://youtu.be/a6Kv0vF41Bc

   At NEWPORT ( although USA ) – a yesterday solution.

   Thank you Philistine and manehi.

8. Well, certainly a red letter week for me: Philistine and Picaroon both completed in consecutive days, and enjoyed!

9. A nice challenge for Friday morning with some parsings harder to work out than the solutions.

10. I’m with Dave E@8 feeling very pleased with myself. Enjoyed this. Thanks Philistine and manehi.

11. The world is out of joint. Struggle to complete Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s, and then having braced for what must surely be a brutal Friday we are presented with a write-in. A nice enough puzzle but surely Monday fare? I’m getting old, I need my routines…
    Thanks to Philistine and Manehi.

12. Thanks Philistine and manehi
    Great fun – favourite of the week. A bit easier than usual for Philistine, though I didn’t parse 10a or 24a. Favourites were LOCAL and ARGOT (“wraparound”!).
    “Valley” for WYE is very loose – there are lots of other three-letter valleys (Taw, for example), and it’s a bit unfair on overseas solvers.

13. Excellent write-in.

14. Oops. Couldn’t parse 24 (well, I’d never eat an egg in bed, messy idea) so I thought it was a Pauline clue about “fast in bed”, sharing a theme with Viagra/Cialis. But who was begging? What was broken? Tea-tray duly applied.

15. Thanks for such a clever and varied set ofclues, Philistine and to manehi for unravelling so elegantly. Thanks too to Flea@7 for reminding us of Dylan’s extraordinary (and prescient) performance

16. And many thanks to those who say ‘a write in’. Lovely to be reminded of your brilliance.

17. Oh good, Philistine. This was a lot of fun (if a bit easier than his usual level) as the pennies dropped. Some of Philistine’s trademark lift and separates: inDEED, WRAParound, the egg in bed. Favourites BREAKFAST IN BED, OYSTERCATCHERS (for a splendid anagram), RED LETTER DAY (for a funny surface), ELEGY, CHILE (for a 3-way homophone).

18. Crispy @1
    If you receive a formal invitation that ends “Black tie” it means “wear a dinner jacket”; “white tie”, I think, means wear a tailcoat.

19. I’m just dashing out, so more or less what gladys said @17.

    Many thanks to Philistine and manehi.

20. I googled LOCAL DIET for help with 15a and found it means only eating food grown/produced as close as possible, so that’s another possible parsing 🙂

21. Lots of wonderful ‘aha’ moments when the penny dropped. Some very clever clueing and lovely double definitions. Really enjoyed this despite only getting one on a first read-through. Many thanks to Philistine and manehi for parsing TAROT and ARGOT – I was pleased with myself for managing all the others!

22. Wit and elegance as is the norm with Philistine. But it does sometimes grate with me when we get the rather dismissive, almost scornful “write in” comments. However, loved the BREAKFAST IN BED and the splendid anagram for OYSTERCATCHERS. Enjoyed the journey throughout…

23. Thanks, Philistine & Manehi!
    Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog!
    Liked IN THE RAW, RED-LETTER DAY and IFFY.

    muffin@18
    Is BLACK TIE=dinner jacket? Doesn’t seem so. Shirl@5 has a point (will there not be a part of speech mismatch?).
    Extending your logic, can we consider the ‘of DJ’ bit as the def (and of course, treat ‘BLACK TIE’ as an adjective)?

    CHILE
    I was thinking that the E in CHILE should be pronounced more like the E in ‘let’. Looks like it is pronounced that way in Spanish, but not in English. No surprise that the homophone guardians are quiet.

24. …in other words, hear to hear to Steve The Pirate@16…

25. IN THE RAW was a new expression for me. Lovely puzzle overall and 24a was superb.

26. I really enjoy Philistine and this one was a delight – though I couldn’t completely parse a few, so today’s blog was even more valuable than usual! I couldn’t figure out RAW in 10A – and both IFFY and BREAKFAST IN BED were beyond me.
    I originally had CARD TABLE, which made sense at the time, but eventually the penny dropped – and made me grin, as did
    ARGOT.
    SOCIALISM was one of my last in, and I spent an unconscionable length of time wondering why/how it was an alternative to viagra. Really a very very very long time. In the end I decided it must have something to do with “up the workers”.
    How wrong I was…
    Thank you Philistine for the fun – and huge thanks to manehi for clearing everything up so brilliantly.

27. KVa@23: CHILE is pronounced ‘CHEEL-ey’ in Spanish, but not in English, so no objections from this quarter.

    I liked ARGOT, LOCAL, ELEGY and some others. Failed to parse DEWY-EYED, and was held up by EPILATION (I’m more familiar with DEPILATION, which seems to be exactly the same), but on the whole easier than a typical Friday though by no means a write-in.

28. Not a write-in for me, though I did speed up after a slow start.

    Highly enjoyable puzzle with some imaginative constructions and great surfaces – RED LETTER DAY has both. Too many favourites to list, most of which have already been mentioned. The drug was well spotted in SOCIALISM (this seems to have been familiar to most. Does this reflect the demographics of our happy band? 🙂 ).

    I’m with muffin on BLACK TIE. At the bottom of a formal invitation card it indicates the dress code. It could just as well say ‘dinner jacket’ (tuxedo) because that is what it means – noun phrase for noun phrase.

    Thanks to S&B

29. [I had several abortive attempts to post today. Perhaps it was because I tried to be clever and used the generic name of the pharmaceutical in 4dn. Caught by the spam filter perhaps?]

30. I thought ‘wrapround’ was a typo but it seems to be an alternative to wraparound. With Steve @16 on the write-in thing, ridiculous claim in my opinion. Anyways, Gladys @17 summed it up it nicely and nothing IFFY about the clues including BLACK TIE, which seems perfectly acceptable.

    Ta Philistine & manehi.

31. Not too taxing for a Friday, and all good fun…Having got 24A, I then put in Maine for 22D. Goodness knows why, as it really would have been a very weak clue…That mistake held me up for a while. With thanks to both.

32. Muffin @18. I’ve never been invited to those sorts of things!

33. Sometimes I find the crossword difficult while others find it easy and vice versa. I find it interesting to read the spread of opinion on any given day.
    Personally I found this both straightforward and thoroughly enjoyable although with all the erectile dysfunction (clue for tree lice?) products it’s starting to feel like my spam folder around here

    Cheers P&M

34. Thought 24a was just lovely when I saw it.

35. Very enjoyable, thanks Philistine and manehi.

    Crispy @32 – if you ever read PG Wodehouse, when Bertie Wooster talks about “dressing for dinner”, aka “putting on the soup and fish”, he means black tie. That’s actually informal/semi-formal dress, eg when you’re a house guest at Brinkley Court, not special occasions. Formal wear is white tie. If an invitation specifies black tie, that’s to ensure you don’t turn up overdressed.

36. BREAKFAST IN BED was one of the cleverest clues I’ve seen for ages.
    Didn’t quite finish, being defeated by IN THE RAW, but manehi’s explanation makes perfect sense, of course.
    Like some others, I wasn’t troubled by DJ = BLACK TIE, though in recent years it seems to have become the done thing to wear ties (and sometimes matching cummerbunds) that aren’t black. I am obliged to Muffin @18; should I ever receive an invitation stating “white tie” I shall now know to decline.
    There are regular moans on here about obscure general knowledge being required; pace Gervase @28, I think being expected to know the brand name of an alternative to Viagra is about as obscure as it gets.
    Once I’d realised CRAP TABLE wasn’t a reference to MFI (showing my age), I was reminded (showing my age even more) of the one-liner from I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again – “This is a crap game” “Yep, it sure is pretty bad…”
    Thanks, both

37. manehi, thanks for parsing IN THE RAW. I’d never have worked out WEARIN T…H. And to me DJ=”disk jockey,” I don’t travel in dinner jacket circles. Come to think of it, though, I don’t move in disk jockey circles either.

    Every river has a valley, I suppose, but how does that make one=the other? Certainly “Hudson Valley” is a familiar phrase over here, but I’ve never heard anyone call the Hudson a valley.

    Got everything last night except IN THE RAW, whose parsing was miles beyond me. Thanks to Philistine and manehi..

38. I suppose you could “write-in” IN THE RAW or BREAKFAST IN BED or DEWY-EYED or SOCIALISM without bothering to parse them.
    I prefer to work out the splendidly knotty wordplay to get the pdm and prove I’ve got the right answer, before writing anything in.
    For me the only write-ins were old chestnuts like THREE-PIECE and CHILE.

39. IN THE RAW. Very clever, which of course is why I didn’t get it.

40. Loved BREAKFAST IN BED – begged, once manehi eggsplained that. Thank you.

41. NASALISED made me snuffle and choke with laughter. That’s only one of the reasons I don’t like Mr R Zimmerman, even though I’m a folkie from way back.

42. BREAKFAST IN BED was a write-in for me, since as a 16-year-old I won an Observer clue-writing contest with “Asked for part of breakfast in bed” = BEGGED.

43. Gervase @28 – Obviously, I knew CIALIS only by reputation…er…for a friend…er…read it in a book somewhere…

    Anyway, it was apposite for today’s puzzle, which wasn’t very hard…

44. John Wells@42. pressIMed!

45. Lovely crossword to crack.

46. A very enjoyable solve once the pennies started dropping. Liked 8, 2, 6 and 13. Couldn’t parse 10 or 24 so thanks to Manehi, and, of course, to Philistine.

47. What larks! Congrats with your prize at sixteen years old, John Wells@42, and very funny/clever effort for second prize, paddymelon@44. Though you’re probably considerably over the age limit now to compete!

48. I really enjoyed this, but I like Philistine and find I’m often on his wavelength, so can find his constructions entertaining. There are other setters which I find more challenging. It’s also practice – by this stage I’ve been solving his puzzles as both Goliath and Philistine for a while, so I’ve got used to some of his tricks that caught me out when I first encountered to them.

    (No I didn’t know CIALIS – I just worked out what was missing from crossers and SOM).

49. Valentine @37: WYE is a valley like ELY is a cathedral. I’m surprised muffin let that one pass 😉

    I’m inclined to (half)-follow KVa’s suggestion @23. BLACK TIE and dinner jacket are both noun phrases when referring to the clothing items, but in the context of dress codes/events they feel adjectival, like ‘smart casual’. And then they’re equivalent.

    pdm @44, pressIMed, notwithstanding the (no doubt intentional) /n/ → /m/ assimilation 🤣 Thanks P &m

50. Very enjoyable solve; not a write-in.

    CIALIS is well-known to me but then I’ve worked in the pharmaceutical industry (at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it); it makes a change from Shakespeare quotes. I liked the trench coat in IN THE RAW, the TO A T, but I may have seen this before, and the egg in bed, now that the blogger has revealed it.

    Thanks Philistine and manehi.

51. Frankie@38 I’m with you on the parsing although today I did eventually have to “write in” your first two examples, having eventually justified 4d, and am grateful to manehi for the explanations – both excellent. Got 25a first, lucky for me growing up not too far from the Wye, and it occurred to me when solving 26a soon after that I don’t recall seeing these metonymous (is that it? Ely = cathedral etc) terms too often lately, they were generating quite a lot of debate when I started solving a few years ago. Thanks Philistine for keeping up the high standard this week.

52. Anyone using email a few years back would have received a shed load of spam from companies selling Viagra and Cialis. I remember that certain spam filters would block any mail that had the word Socialist in it, just because “cialis” was included in the email.

53. Great fun for a Friday with lots of Aha! moments. Thank you for the parsing of 24A, a type of construction that invariably eludes me even with the answer written in.

54. [eb @49
    I did think about it, but I’ve complained about cathedral = ELY too often!]

55. Like several others I was unable to parse IN THE RAW. Is this the most successfully misleading anagram of all time?

    Lots of playful stuff from Philistine – there was a period when I found some of his offerings incredibly difficult and chewy, but this was more like what I can remember enjoying two or three years ago. Still not a write in though.

    Whilst appreciating the obscurity of the Wye valley to some solvers, the clue itself is perfectly fair. Once you’ve got “in DE__/__ED” and the Y from “happY”, we’re clearly looking for a three letter word for “valley”. There can’t be many options. (I never really understood the objections in previous crosswords to “cathedral”=ELY either. 🙂 )

    Thanks to Philistine and manehi.

56. Gazzh@51 & sheffield hatter@55: Yes, Ely is the oldest of chestnuts, a city, a cathedral, and the ending of so many words:
    respectively, surely, lovely, completely, nicely – and your own lately – on this page alone.
    It’s been a staple in CrosswordLand for the 50+ years I’ve been solving. Also a nice place to visit.

57. sheffield hatter @55: I’m one of the pedants who has muttered in the past about ‘cathedral’ = ELY. Ely is a city and a diocese (‘see’ what I did there?) but not strictly a cathedral any more than Liverpool or Sheffield are. The only excuse is that the said splendid building is far and away the best known feature of that tiny settlement – and there aren’t any other 3-letter ones. Same justification that you use for WYE 🙂

58. I am another who got all the answers but was grateful for help with the parsing. [Shir@52That reminds me of a student in the early days of filters, who couldn’t get anywhere with his internet research on Scunthorpe.]

59. Thanks Philistine. I found this on the easier end of the Philistine spectrum but still I could not parse IN THE RAW, did not know PLUMP = opt, or that DJ = BLACK TIE. My top picks were EPILATION, DEWY-EYED, and SOCIALISM. Thanks manehi for the blog.

60. Gervase @57. That wasn’t quite my justification – there are others, such as Sheffield’s own Don Valley.

    But I agree about Ely’s cathedral being an outstanding feature to the extent that it is not exceptional to hear “Ely cathedral” spoken of by someone who is not a habitual solver of cryptic crosswords. The same could be said of Wye Valley, which is the name of, amongst others, a brewery, a butterfly zoo and an AONB.

61. I love a good puzzle from Philistine and this one was no exception (he is such a consistent setter!). Thanks to both setter and blogger (manehi was helpful as always). Three ticks for NASALISED at 14d [Apropos the comment from paddymelon@41: A friend of mine clearly recalls her Mum asking a 16-year old her – many years ago now – when she was playing Dylan LPs on her portable turntable in her room “Who told that bloke he could sing?” – which was heresy in my friend’s and my books!]
    Mind you, I ticked almost every clue so that is a measure of how much I enjoyed this challenge.
    [BTW, I liked 17a ARGOT a lot too. It is one of the few words that rhymes with my two-year-old granddaughter Margot’s name, although as one side of her family is French Belgian, “escargot” is also a good rhyming word she learned early.]

62. Great puzzle, though must be my fastest ever completion on a Friday. Failed to parse IN THE RAW though.

    BREAKFAST IN BED was great.

    I didn’t have a problem with BLACK TIE = DJ. They are alternative descriptions for that fancy garb.

    Thanks Philistine and manehi

63. muffin @54/Gervase @57; cathedral is a crossword category of which there are many (but not as many as dog or cat). So, ELY, DERBY, BANGOR, ARUNDEL etc are all clued by cathedral, and the city category could also include ELY. I don’t really see the objection to that. 😉

64. [Robi @63: ELY is the name of a city and a diocese, but the name of its most famous building is The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Just saying 🙂 ]

65. …and I’m just wondering whether on a fine day Philistine can actually see the West Tower of Ely Cathedral in the distance from a high vantage point at Addenbrookes Hospital/The Royal Papworth which is where I believe he’s still employed in his day job. Not many leagues away across to Fens to the Ship of the Fens.

66. eb@49 I did wonder about Ely@26ac too, but that storm has passed by many times.

67. No, no, no… surely ‘begged’ has to be rendered as ‘be-gge-d’ and is therefore scrambled egg in bed? A much more satisfactory offering – an invalid (or one exhausted from righteous labours) (or a lazy so-and-so) can hardly be expected to cope with the complexities of negotiating a boiled egg. 🙂

    Tilt was ‘cialis’ – must keep an eye open for that in the future. (As part of wordplay I mean.)

    [ARGOT (and JinA’s grandaughter@61 (and btw JinA your friend’s mother was bang on imo)) reminded me of the (apocryphal?) story of Jean Harlow being introduced to Margot Asquith and pronouncing La Asquith’s name with a hard ‘T’. No, she was informed, the ‘T’ is silent. As in Harlow…..]

    Great entertainment so thanks both.

68. A new PB for a daily crossword of 12:48 (I did 12:12 in the Everyman once). Unusually for me 5 of them were unparsed though, so lucky I got them right.

69. Here in America, the strange and appalling land of advertisements for prescription medications, everyone who owns a television knows what Cialis is.

    I say Chile the Spanish way, in part because I’ve known many bilingual Spanish-speakers who do, and in part precisely so that it doesn’t sound like I’m saying “chili.” [PS: it is supremely weird that British English spells that word with two L’s. It’s an American food item (yes, American, not Mexican–it was invented in San Antonio, and is thus the classic example of Tex-Mex), and one L does the trick telling you how to pronounce it. Whoever decided that British chili needed an extra L?] But I admit that’s an affectation; most other English speakers say them the same way.

    The Ely = cathedral debate is so predictable you can set your clock by it.

70. mrpenney above Just to add some American oddness to the pronunciation muddle, the town of Chili NY (a bit SW of Rochester) is pronounced Chye-lye, rhymes with flyby.

71. Philistine always delivers a crossword of the highest quality so very pleased to get this on a day off.

    I’m another who didn’t know CIALIS (honest!) and spent a while googling CIAL, thinking the ‘is’ came from the clue

    24a and 25a parsings defeated me- I couldn’t figure out which Y I needed in 24 but 25 I wish I’d persevered more and is now my favourite – even more so if it’s as Alphalpha says!

72. Gervase @64 aka Ely Cathedral. 😉

73. Missed parsing BREAKFAST IN BED AND LOCAL. bEGGed was very clever.
    Isn’t CHILE now chee-lay but very easy to spot.
    Thanks to both

74. mrpenny@69. “The Ely = cathedral debate is so predictable you can set your clock by it.” Yes, but it’s a refreshing change to have the clock strike when the clue is ‘valley’=WYE!

75. Several posters on the Guardian early this morning seemed to be in agreement that “22d (CHILE) is not a state”. Does anyone agree and if so why?

76. Are those posters interpreting “state” as a subdivision of a country? They’re not necessarily right, of course.

77. gladys@75 & muffin@76. I assume they’re thinking CHILE is a country rather than a state. I would refer them to Chambers: country (n) a region; a state; a nation; etc. And if you Google “Chilean head of state” you get links to pieces about the President of Chile, as expected.

    I don’t see a problem. Surely “state” has been used in crosswords to clue a country almost as frequently as “cathedral” for ELY?

78. Chambers:

    A political community under one government
    One of a number of political communities forming a federation under a central government
    The territory of such a community

    NB These are definitions 22-24 for STATE!

79. A number unparsed, so thanks Manehi.
    Excellent puzzle, best of the week for me.
    Thanks both.

80. SteveThePirate @16 – with you there, we are indeed very lucky.

81. A complete wri… Oops, pardon me – this was tough!!
    Loved the OYSTERCATCHERS anagram and seeing SCATHE in the positive sense for a change.
    Big ticks also for UPSETTING, ARGOT and BREAKFAST IN BED.
    Thanks, P,m. Afternoon, all, and happy weekend.

    Shirl @52, isn’t that, rather, what MI5 wanted you to think???

82. Thanks for the blog, really good puzzle, IN THE RAW is very clever, neat use of Playtex for DEWY-EYED , I have seen the “begged” idea before but it was well done. I thought the drug in 4D must be CIAL , now I think the “is” is superfluous in the clue.

83. I see. It may be because Australian (early morning) solvers are more used to a country made up of states, as are US solvers. I had no problem with it, and couldn’t see why anyone would. Thanks.

84. Like nobby@71 I spent a bit of time googling “cial”. I didn’t think I’d led a sheltered life but there you go. Speaking of which, ArkLark@62, “parsing in the raw” really doesn’t sound advisable.
    Thanks to Philistine and manehi

85. [gladys @83
    I remember (I think) that not all of the divisions of Australia are “states”. I can’t remember the details – could an Australian elucidate, please?]

86. “Write in” Ronald @22 here again…really appreciated the humour in our blog today, at the last count the contentious couple of words got mentioned about a dozen times or so, nearly all tongue in cheek, of course….

87. Widdersbell@35 The excellent Wodehouse Handbook Vol 2 p476 defines soup and fish as the full works: black tails, white waistcoat, starched shirt and white bow tie.

88. Muffin @83: the Northern Territory (north-central Australia) and the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra and a smallish parcel of hinterland) are not states.

    The US has territories too, but the ones that are left are what would be less politely referred to as colonies. (The District of Columbia is sui generis–neither a state nor a territory.)

89. Thanks Mr.P. What’s the constitutional difference between a state and a territory?

90. I know the country’s a teeny bit different, but I often lazily pronounce it the same way. At the start of a South American tour several years ago we touched down in Santiago and were hustled into a restaurant on a rather cold evening to be served a rather spicy first course, whereupon it was noted that we were “eating chilli on a chilly night in Chile”.

91. Jellyroll @87 – thanks for the correction. I was going by memory, which is not a reliable source in my case.

92. In the US, a state has ratified the Constitution, and gets voting representation in Congress as well as the right to vote for President. Territories are under US jurisdiction but have none of that other stuff. Each of them has a non-voting member of Congress, but no electoral votes and no Senate representation. In the 19th century the idea was these were places populous enough to have organized government but not populous enough to be a peer to the other states. These days–I mean, Puerto Rico’s population is comparable to Connecticut’s, so…

93. [Yep eb@49. That’s exactly what I meant. 🙂 ]

94. Surprised no one has mentioned the term pro-life being somewhat controversial https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/25/bbc-amol-rajan-phrase-pro-life-roe-v-wade-interview

95. Sugarbutties@94. I agree it’s controversial, and it gave me pause at the time of solving. To be fair, it’s how those who are against abortion describe themselves, and a crossword clue is not the place to abominate them. And I would guess that there may well be many solvers who agree with pro-lifers.

    But there’s all sorts of stuff cropping up in cryptics that have dubious associations. I’ve seen double S clued with reference to the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany many times, for example. Surely you don’t expect the setters to have to avoid anything controversial? I think it’s sufficient to mentally note it without feeling the need to open up a discussion about it.

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