Guardian 29,333 / Philistine

68 comments on “Guardian 29,333 / Philistine”

1. What a wonderful start to the week, although certainly not one for beginners. Many ticks but special mentions for REREDOS, AUTOCAR, REMINISCENT, PALPITATION, APHRODITE, JACK SPRAT and EMPLOYER. Not a clunky clue in sight. Such a clever setter, without being showy. I parsed REREDOS as you.

   Ta Philistine & Eileen.

2. I hadn’t seen that sometime crossword favourite REREDOS, but re-re-dos as third attempts is certainly the correct parsing.

3. LAYETTE, EXECRATION & AUTOCAR were new to me. But I had no “Huh?” list.

   I started slowly but things picked up and it was an enjoyable solve, thanks Philistine & Eileen.

4. Very pleasant surprise indeed. I think Philistine is one of our very best setters and when his name is at the top of the day’s puzzle, it makes my heart sing. I loved so many clues in this one. My top favourites have already been listed by Eileen and AlanC@1. However, I just have to mention 1d RUDDER too, which gave me a big smile. The UK tautological publication AUTOCAR at 5a was a guess but otherwise, “No worries”! Not that it was an easy puzzle, but I had so much fun working my way through it. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen – you two make for an exceptional combination!

5. I particularly liked TALE which was a good example of how to write a “sounds like” clue unambiguously (‘sounds like’ indicator at the beginning or end so you know what the definition is).
   Thanks Eileen and Philistine for a pleasant start to the week.

6. I’m not normally here this early, but after a sleepless night I thought I would check in for an explanation for the only clue I didn’t get: 1a: REREDOS. I’m sorry my head is still bleary and I don’t understand how it works. Could you explain where the thirds come in? I saw three notes RE, RE, and DO but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Many thanks for the blog and to Pasquale for an entertaining puzzle. I’ll try and get some sleep now!

7. matematico@6
   REREDOS
   REDO-a second/further attempt (noun)
   RE-REDO: third attempt (so to speak)

8. Excellent stuff as ever from Philistine. Enjoyed the journey all the way to loi COSMETIC…

9. KVa@7. Thank you very much for the explanation, should really have seen that. I can happily go to sleep now.

10. That was fun, chewy for a Monday, but very entertaining. I laughed at REREDOS when I saw it.

    Thank you to Eileen and Philistine.

11. Appreciative groans for RUDDER and JACK SPRAT, thanks both

12. Having recently got out of the habit of doing the G on a daily basis I was pleasantly surprised on jumping back in to see that there was a distinct difference in difficulty between today’s quiptic (perfectly pitched for that slot) and this regular cryptic. Good! I presume the influence of the new editor?

    A very good puzzle from Philistine, one of the most reliable setters in terms of quality I reckon. Liked STRIKER, PROTEGES and JACK SPRAT.

    My only slight eyebrow wiggle was for the anagram part of EMPLOYER, for a couple of reasons: firstly although it’s not necessarily a convention as such, I do prefer it when setters give us a hint about a lift-and-separate word via a ‘!’ or a ‘?’ or wordplay; and second, even when one accepts the l&s device, I found the cryptic grammar a little odd, with (what I understood to be) a nounal anagrind before the fodder. Am I missing a way in which “winder MERE” can be read as an anagram instruction?

    Thanks both!

13. Thanks Philistine and Eileen
    Chewy for a Monday. I don’t think I have ever heard DISCREPANT (though I know discrepancy, of course). I tried taking US out of Portuguese, not spotting the two Us.
    Favourite was REREDOS.
    pH isn’t actually a test of acidity; it’s a measure of the hydrogen ion concentration, and pHs greater than 7 show the solution is alkaline rather than acidic.

14. Favourites: REREDOS, JACK SPRAT.

    I parsed 1ac in the same way as Eileen and others @1 @2 @7 etc.

    New for me: palpation = groping, touching (for 14ac); LAYETTE; AUTOCAR magazine.

    I was happy to see my birthday get a mention at 25/26 🙂

    Thanks, both.

15. I had a slow start and bizarrely GUY FAWKES NIGHT was my FOI. Things picked up after that. Thanks to PH who is my favourite setter and Eileen who always brings light to the darkness

16. Clever, inventive – and good fun.
    Thanks Philistine!
    TEAL, JACK SPRAT and REMINISCENT were very satisfying and, like Julie @4, RUDDER made me grin – though I stared at it for ages before the penny dropped.
    Thank you Eileen for the blog, and for reassuring me I wasn’t the only one uncertain about the parsing of REREDOS.
    Seeing Walt’s name reminded me of a joke told by a Scottish mate:
    What’s the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney?
    Bing sings – and Walt disnae.
    (I’ll get my coat)

17. Thank you Philistine & Eileen for a great start to the week.
    Liked all of it but especially ‘a few knights errant’, the ‘fickle destiny’ and ‘raises idiot’
    I also searched in vain for an anagram of Portugee before seeing the light!

18. Thanks Philistine for the lovely puzzle and thanks Eileen for your excellent blog!
    Top faves today: AUTOCAR (I repeat again it’s quite nice), DRESS R (great surface-another gear), STRIKER (In cricket, one is in -to score! There is a slangy layer too!) and EMPLOYER (for the ruse employed to divide the lake).
    TAUGHT
    Agree with Eileen’s comment. taut=rigid? A slightly flexible wordplay!

19. I did a lot of this with no thought to their parsing. Things just dropped in

20. Great to see a Monday puzzle from other than the usual suspects, and this was an excellent one – not beginner level, though.

    Many good clues, amongst which the clever RE-REDOS took top prize from me.

    Many thanks to the LEVANTer and Eileen

21. A nice surprise for a Monday. I made it re-redos too, and liked it. LAYETTE was sneaky – does still = AYE or still = YET? I picked the wrong one first, of course. As it’s Philistine, there was also the winder-mere and the deceptively missing “us”, and the medically groping PALPATION (I have AF, so I know about PALPITATIONS).

    Other favourites JACK SPRAT, GUY FAWKES NIGHT, WALT DISNEY and TEAL (just because it happens to be my Mum’s maiden name).

22. Usual Monday difficulty but such a beautifully constructed and elegantly clued crossword. A delight to solve.

    Praise for EMANCIPATE, EMPLOYER and APHRODITE.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen

23. Michelle@14 Many happy returns for every 5 November. Hope every one is a cracker!

    REREDOS I had a vague visual memory of the word from cryptics, but wasn’t quite sure of the spelling. The initial R I took to be the third letter of Screen and was looking for something tricky. I so wanted to put GOS at the end for attempts, but I’ll never forget how to spell it now after RE RE DOS. Made me laugh.

    EMPLOYER. Had PLOY in the middle and then EM ER outside. Missed the winder indicator.
    I might have seen it if I hadn’t first found on Wiki: Emer Kenny is a British actress and screenwriter. She is best known for playing Zsa Zsa Carter in EastEnders and its spin-off EastEnders: E20, Danielle Reeves in Pramface and Penelope “Bunty” Windermere in Father Brown.

24. Just adding my appreciation to those of other commenters and to Eileen who, as usual, has summarised the puzzle perfectly.

25. I also liked TEAL and TALE. Nice they weren’t cross-referenced. Each was very special.

26. Really enjoyed this. Especially LOI REREDOS

    Cheers PE

    [just boarding a 12 hour flight to Vietnam with 15 cryptics from the archives for company 🙂 ]

27. Couldn’t get 1a inspite of all crossers. But the cluing parses very fairly and I learnt a new word today, so that’s good.
    Thank you to Eileen and Philistine.

28. Not much more to say
    Just nice seeing Phil on Monday and Eileen blogging

29. KVa @18, if one is on strike, one is either withdrawing one’s labour or facing the next ball. But, aisyk, a striker is a footballer, not a cricketer. Language, endless fun!

30. Despite being a heathen I’ve visited many of Britain’s wonderful old cathedrals, so I knew REREDOS, and liked the clue. Other favouites include 5 November, WALT DISNEY, TEAL and many others.
    I suppose if something is taut it is relatively rigid compared to when it’s loose, but I share Eileen’s reservation. And like Rob T@12 I wasn’t happy about the anagrind for EMPLOYER, my least favourite clue (the definition wasn’t great either – unless it’s a very small company one’s employer isn’t usually one’s boss – but I accept that the two can be the same).
    But these were minor flaws in a generally very good puzzle.
    Thanks Eileen and Philistine.

31. Bunged but didn’t suss redoing the redo, and post-parsed the 2 us after only protege would fit with def and crossers. A bit dim. But a harmonic Monday from the Phil, keep him at the crease or podium, and thanks Eileen.

32. I like the new policy of varying the setters on Mondays. This was good fun. Yes EMPLOYER was pushing the boundaries a bit but that’s what Philistine does.

    We have two homophones (TALE / tail and TAUGHT / taut) that I don’t think anyone can argue about!

    (We share a birthday, michelle @14. I don’t know if you were the same, but when I was a child I thought all the fireworks were in my honour 🙂 )

    Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.

33. For 17d EMPLOYER repunctuating (not ‘lift-and-separating’ – that’s something else) “Windermere” to “Winder mere” didn’t seem to work, if winder is a noun.
    But oed.com says it can be either of two verbs, meaning “To wither; to pine or waste away” or a “variant of winnow” TTLI
    Thanks P&E

34. Oh yes and fond memories of Jack’s lean diet, along with Dr Foster’s puddle, from our Mother Goose. Still beloved tho battered, dog-eared and coverless by the time my sister (10 yrs my junior) outgrew it.
    I wonder who Mr and Mrs Sprat ‘were’.

35. FrankieG@33
    EMPLOYER
    That works better. Thanks.
    grantinfreo@29
    STRIKER
    Not disputing the footballer angle. My goal was to dig for additional layers.
    Still is to…something else might STRIKE!

36. This is the best I can do, gif @34:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sprat

37. A little tougher than the usual Monday, and no less enjoyable for that. NHO 1A but got there by construction. I enjoyed the clever misdirection in 16D, like several others subtracting US before figuring it out.

    Thank you Eileen and Philistine

38. I thought STRIKER might refer to “striking out” in baseball.

39. Very enjoyable but this seemed to me to be a bit tougher than the ‘average’ Philistine.

    I particularly enjoyed the wordplays of REMINISCENT, COSMETIC and WALT DISNEY. I also liked the good anagram in GUY FAWKES NIGHT. I tried ‘palpitating’ at first but the crosser put me straight. Thanks to FrankieG @33 for the explanation that winder could be a verb. I liked REREDOS but thought it deserved a QM.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

40. Much thanks, Eileen @36. Love those old Holbeinesque illustrations. And by the look of that cat there was, indeed, very little left on the platter!

41. Thoroughly enjoyable Monday offering. Eileens explanation of 14a now has me worrying for P’s day job.

42. Did raise an eyebrow at ‘groping’, given all the connotations, when palpation is essential to clinical diagnosis. Still, if there’s anyone who can get away with it, it’s ….

43. This must be the toughest Monday puzzle I’ve ever done. I got six words last night. This morning quite a few more emerged, but I still had to use the check button for a handful more.

    I dunno about taut=rigid. If something is taut it’s a thing like a string pulled tight but not inherently stiff.

    If JACK SPRAT eats no fat at all, he’s not as healthy as he could be — some fat is a necessary part of a good diet. It’s eating too much fat that is bad for you.

    The odd thing about REREDOS as a screen is that it doesn’t screen anything, it’s against the wall behind the altar. I learned the word years ago when I sang in the choir of a Catholic church.

    I don’t often pick favorites, but this one has to be GUY FAWKES NIGHT with its lift and separate of “knights errant.”

    gladys38 So did I.

    Eileen, I too was struck by the illustration in your Mother Goose link. It looked like the work of Kate Greenaway, but was by an American man who lived half a century later, I found. Apparently that style caught on.

    Thanks as ever to Philistine for the puzzle and Eileen for the guidance and links.

44. FrankieG @33 – that does address my query at 12, thanks.

    I never think to check OED, my dictionaries of preference being mostly Chambers and occasionally Collins.

45. Great puzzle although I didn’t like PERV. Also think NESTLE is a bit of a stretch?

46. Thanks Philistine and Eileen. I liked this puzzle, although it took me a little longer than my planned lunchbreak. Favourite bit of it was the US in 16d. For 17d, I saw that winder mere might be a possible way to get to emer, but kind of rejected it as it just didn’t seem to makes sense. Not being from around here, and not knowing about Windermere (now I know it’s a lake and a town), I felt justified googling windermere emer, which led me to the same site as Paddymelon @23. Assuming that Emer Kenny is a household name in the UK (is it?) and her character Penelope Windermere is well known (is she?), to me this is a feasible way to parse it.

47. SwissSteve @46 – to your two closing questions: no and no 🙂

48. I had a celebratory dinner with friends last night that got a little too celebratory, yet for some reason I decided to do this puzzle when I got home. In other words, I solved it while drunk. I must have nodded off, because at one point I looked back at the puzzle, surprised to find I only had one left to go. I remember looking at it for a moment, thinking “It’s Walt flippin’ Disney, isn’t it,” putting that in, and going to bed. Anyway, I can check “complete a difficult cryptic while drunk” off my to-do list.

    Also, from now on, I shall think of him as Walt flippin’ Disney.

49. That was fun. It’s our St Patrick’s Day bank holiday here, so I was able to relax and enjoy the Quiptic and cryptic today. I got a few smiles and groans along the way (particularly REREDOS and RUDDER). The wordplay in EXECRATION was fun too. FOI was AUTOCAR, which I used to buy regularly, but haven’t for many years now and LOI was PROTEGES after I removed the two Us instead of US.

    I definitely prefer the “Affectionately move into…” part of the DD rather than “multinational conglomerate”. Nestlé is an organisation vying with Amazon for the top of my “Never, ever buy from” list.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

50. Excellent puzzle. No duffers, and much brilliance. Favourite: REMINISCENT.

51. Had to reveal REREDOS as I’m not familiar with the screen, but it gave me a laugh when I saw what Philistine had done. Lots to like in addition to that one, with JACK SPRAT and RELEVANT among my favourites. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

52. Thanks Philistine for the challenge. For those seeking a gentle Monday crossword you’re out of luck today. This took a bit of head scratching and I ended up revealing REREDOS and AUTOCAR, both new to me. My favourites were EXECRATION, APHRODITE, WALT DISNEY, and PROTEGES. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

53. Taut/rigid works better if you think of muscles rather than string.
    Many thanks to Eileen and Philistine.

54. Eileen@34 re Jack Sprat: the Wiki justification for Charles I as the model – “Charles was a notably short man” – seems to have been stated without irony, although he was particularly short after his “summer of discontent”. 😉

    I completely concur with your assessment of this puzzle – customary wit and devious wordplay indeed. It’s nice to see that others share my view of Philistine as one of our top setters. Thank you both for today’s exceptional entertainment.

55. Re 14A . I frequently help in the training of medical students, in that they need a live body to practise on. They are taught to use an acronym IPPA – Inspect, Palpate, Percuss and Auscultate, From now on the ‘groping’ definition will always be in my mind as I am being pummelled…

56. Eileen! I was shocked to learn that Philistine is out groping on the daily! But I can separate the art from the artist and say I loved this puzzle.

57. I feel it’s been a while, but I have drawn a blank for this crossword despite sitting down to it 4 times.

    Could I please ask for some guidance on even just a few clues (trying desperately not to look at the blog)?

58. It took me a while to get started today too Steffen@57. I still consider myself fairly new at the daily cryptics, but after my first one in, the others started to fall into place. I find that sometimes I just need to get started and get into the setter’s mindset.

    What clues would you like guidance on?

59. @58.

    Any clue at all. I cannot see anything I’m afraid.

60. There was a word I hadn’t heard of before, which is the answer to 28a, but a couple of the longer ones that unlocked things for me were 11a and 22a.

    For 22a, think about what the answer could be. It will either be at the start or the end of the clue. So, it could be “Mother” or “free”. The word “breaking” can be an indication that the previous word is an anagram, so that could give you 8 out of the 10 letters you need. Similarly, the word “bound” can be an insertion indicator, so that could mean “insert a word for ‘mother’ into an anagram of ‘patience’. Does that help any?

61. Thank you. I used an anagram solver website to get the answer.

62. You’re welcome. Some of the other anagram indicators in this puzzle are “suffering”, “sacked” and “misbehaving” if that helps. I really hope you’re able to get going with it, and don’t give up trying 🙂

63. @62…in 3d, RECORD & PARENT is 12 letters in total. How does that create an anagram of 10 letters?

64. In this instance, “parent” is the word that is anagrammed, and we need to think of another word for “record”. Think of what the “D” in a music CD is.

65. A win double if ever there was one today – Philly & Pickers both top notch.

66. Rob T @44,
    I use Chambers and Collins online too, as my go to sources. But, if you haven’t already got it, it’s worth bookmarking OneLook, which allows you to scan multiple sources quickly. In this case, it comes up with Wiktionary and the Free Dictionary among others that list the verbal meaning of Winder. Interestingly, only the fan/winnow meaning is transitive, whereas the fail meaning is shown as intransitive, so the imperative form wouldn’t work in this clue.

67. So, what do English people think “tautology” means? It clearly isn’t the sense that I was taught.

68. Just got round to this after a few days away. I thought 17d was a reference to Emer Kenny who plays Bunty Windermere in the Father Brown TV series.

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