Guardian Cryptic 29,358 by Philistine

71 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,358 by Philistine”

1. Very enjoyable puzzle. My favourites were OUIJA, DOCTOR, ORIGAMIST, FILIBUSTERER, and I liked the interlocking clues 5ac and 8d. MNEMONIC was a good clue too – even if I struggle to remember how to spell it, let alone how to pronounce it!

   Like loonapick, I suspected it might be a pangram after I solved clues containing Q, X, J but I see it had no Z.

   New for me: ANURIA; DILIGENCE = stagecoach.

   Thanks, both.

2. I think DIAMONDS are forever was an advertising slogan before Bond got hold of it. I liked NONE THE WISER and COMPLICIT, and MNEMONIC for the “It can’t start with MN… hang on, it could!” moment. Thanks Philistine and loonapick.

3. Never heard of giro, and didn’t know diligence could be a coach. Nor XS size zero. INCHOATE & ANURIA are new to my lexicon.

   A good level of difficulty, and quite enjoyable. Thanks Philistine & Loonapick.

4. I really enjoyed this, but I did suddenly have the penny drop moments for DUE DILIGENCE, DIAMONDS and MNEMONIC. That meaning of DILIGENCE being a stage coach is in older literature, possibly Dickens. I also knew ANURIA from medical records.

   I needed the blog to parse FILIBUSTER – I didn’t see the us and (terrible)*, although I should have.

   I would quibble about XS being size 0, a size 4 in UK terms, it really depends on whose sizing.

   Great fun, thank you to loonapick and Philistine.

5. I too paused a bit on check for giro. Think it should have had an indication that it was a non-UK English spelling, but it was clear enough once you’d worked out what the definition was, though not sure the surface made a lot of sense. But I don’t like to quibble with a nicely inventive puzzle, with the expected nod to his profession in ANURIA. ‘Diligence’ for a coach used to be fairly well-known. Like loonapick, I liked FILIBUSTERER after wasting time trying to fit ‘disaster’ for terrible mess into the word. Pleased to get INCHOATE as well, whilst learning that I only had a fuzzy idea of the meaning of the word. Thanks to Philistine and loonapick.

6. Not that the UK Post Office is quite what it was, but it issues/(d) Giros, and back in the day, before everyone had to have a bank account, benefits were paid in Giros which could be cashed at Post Offices.

7. Good puzzle that fell with patience, the NW corner proving the toughest. I have a vague recollection that INCHOATE features in one of the carols sung at Christmas but cannot recall which. INCOGNITO, FILIBUSTERER and NONE THE WISER, three anagrams in a row, are probably my faves though I did like the cheeky lift and separate in DOCTOR. I was less keen on the ‘check’ = GIRO and was disappointed to see ‘definition for wordplay’ in ANURIA (which is very wittily defined) but suspect I’ll be the only one.

   Thanks Philistine and loonapick

8. DIAMONDS
   The Bond movie reference: Agree.
   Found this bit online:
   The iconic tagline ‘A Diamond Is Forever’ was written by copywriter Frances Gerety at Philadelphia agency NW Ayer in 1947. At the time, De Beers was looking for a campaign that would help boost the sales of diamonds which had fallen during the Great Depression.

   ORIGAMIST
   GIRO appeared in a recent puzzle and a couple of puzzles quite some time ago in the sense of a ‘payment transfer system’. GIRO cheques: TILT. As loonapick has observed in the blog, can’t see why the US spelling is used except that the surface works all right with the ‘check’.

   COTD: EXCESS

   Thanks both!

9. Ditto Tomsdad@5 re inchoate, which I thought meant sort of as-yet-unformed or unmanifest … tho I guess not a mile away from basic. Knew anuresis, so anuria was ok [but then there’s enuresis, kind of the opposite, maybe it’s that that I knew , whatev… ]. Anyway, nice puzzle ta Dr Phil and ta loona.

10. A nice steady solve. Top ticks for DOCTOR, ENCORE & ORIGAMIST – Chambers has “check” as an alternative spelling albeit marked as usually US

    Michelle @1 you’re not alone in struggling to pronounce MNEMONIC 🙂

    And I’ll never get bored of OUIJA clues

    Cheers L&P

11. Given that the board is named after “oui” and “ja”, that’s hardly a cryptic clue, surely? INDEX suffers likewise. A strange mix of gimmes and real obscurities today!

12. Very enjoyable, especially the NW corner which held out longest and had my favourites today, DOCTOR and OUIJA. Have not seen ‘giro’ in a long time; are they still in use? I only remember it from the 1980s joke (or perhaps older) when we had 3 million unemployed in the UK – ‘What’s green and gets you drunk?”. Thanks Philistine and loonapick for the excellent blog, especially for educating me on ‘diligence’.

13. TassieTim @2: I had exactly the same thought process re MNEMONIC.

    PostMark @7: we talked about the directionality of “for” recently on General Discussion (@66 onwards). I said at the time that personally I thought that “definition for wordplay” could be ok depending on what seems fair in a particular clue. 2d seems to me a perfect example of it working fine – ie you can get NU in ARIA from ANURIA. And of course it makes a good surface.

    Enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks Philistine and loonapick.

14. Thanks Philistine and loonapick: fun as always. My tea tray has a new dent after revealing OUIJA! INCHOATE was new but gettable, and so was ANURIA (sneaky definition) once I stopped trying to fit 3-letter Greek characters into AIR.

    Giro is less well known than it once was, now that benefits aren’t paid that way. Having worked for a solicitor, I know DUE DILIGENCE as that annoying business of having to provide I.D. to prove that you aren’t a money launderer: as for DILIGENCE itself, I learned it here: didn’t know it was also in the English dictionary.

15. ANURIA is of course fairly common in males of a certain age. I for one am glad I had a rebore done a few years ago which made a huge difference. I found the definition of DIAMONDS as “forever” to be weak (and yes I know the phrase).

    Favourite was OUIJA and I don’t care if it’s a chestnut. I’m sceptical about the claim by Mallimack @11 that the name comes from the French and German words for yes. If that was the case why isn’t it called OuiNein or JaNon? This Guardian article says that the name “was coined by Helen Peters, a medium who was using the board with her brother-in-law Elijah Bond one night 1890 in Baltimore. When she asked what they should call it, the planchette spelled out “Ouija”, which the board told her meant “good luck”.”

16. Didn’t know giro, first thought “gen” in diligence was referring the information in the clue, (got there eventually, though unparsed), ANURIA was a new word, but finished without much fuss. Nice puzzle. Liked 1d. Thanks to Philistine and Loonapick

17. Thanks Philistine and loonapick
    I completed the grid quite quickly, but needed a couple of parsings, Favourite was LOI ANURIA.

18. Tim C@15
    DIAMONDS
    On second thoughts, I feel this should be treated as a CD.

19. I remember Girobank and Giro cheques and associated them with the UK Post Office, but I’m not sure I ever realised that Girobank was a publicly owned bank, and quite innovative and influential in it’s early days (so says Wikipedia). Yet another case of national vandalism when it was sold off. In German, a current account is a “Girokonto”. I don’t know the etymology, though it looks similar to gyre or gyro- in the sense of circulation.

20. Lovely stuff with the NW corner last to yield here too, with this particular setter probably happy that he could have found somewhere to include both DOCTOR and the medical term at 2d, which was my loi then looked up for confirmation. And yes, that old chestnut OUIJA appeared there as well. What a pleasure as always with Philistine…

21. I’d heard the term DUE DILIGENCE without ever being sure of what exectly it meant. Then, immediately after finishing the crossword I came across the following in the of the Guardian’s UK articles today:
    A 2021 House of Commons transport committee report made shockingly clear that before rolling the “no emergency lane” policy out, ministers driven by the desire to save money failed to do due diligence on the safety risks attached.

22. 18A – I think this may be Philistine having a bit of a joke with us. The Parliamentarian Lord Birkenhead who was famous for his witticisms was told by a judge “I’ve listened to you for an hour and am none the wiser”.
    Birkenhead replied “None the wiser my lord, but certainly better informed”

23. Easier than it first looked, I thoroughly enjoyed the ingenuity of the clues. Lots of ticks already mentioned above. There was a howler of a spoiler in the G thread which made MNEMONIC a write-in. ADROIT setting all round.

    Ta Dr Phil & loonapick.

24. Philistine at his most ingenious and playful – I loved it all (and thanks for the reminder, Shirl @22 🙂 ).

    It ‘s more true than ever that I have too many ticks to list but I most enjoyed those that made me laugh, especially ANURIA, where I agree with Lord Jim @13.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Philistine and to loonapick for a splendid blog – you’ve made my day between you.

25. I liked the discussion on Giros above. Anyone growing up in punk-era UK will remember a Giro being the ubiquitous euphemism for unemployment benefit.

26. I find it at least a little interesting that you can’t have crudités in the singular. So you can’t dip a single crudité so to speak.

27. A wee problem with 2d but got there in the end.
    Well, someone had to say it.

28. George @ 27
    🙂

29. TomsDad@5 et al: GIRO is the correct UK spelling (I don’t know if the US even has giro cheques, or checks). GYRO is a Greek dish, something else entirely.

30. I think the definition at 27ac has to include ‘about’.

31. Thank you Philistine & loonapick for a delightful workout.
    Loved the ‘indoor court’, the deception in ADROIT, INCOGNITO, the ‘terrible mess’, ENCORE, ‘wild dance’, and LATER.
    After getting 1a/d and seeing ‘finger’ at 23a, I thought we might be treated to moore James Bond … but (1d) no.

32. poc@29
    ORIGAMIST
    GIRO’s spelling wasn’t being discussed. I think the blogger and a few comments wondered why check instead of cheque was used in the clue.

    Jackkt@30
    REASSESS
    Agree with you

33. Excellent puzzle with some beautiful words. I found this relatively tricky – not because the constructions were tortuous, but because Philistine has carefully chosen words which disguise the type of clue. So there were a lot of Duh! moments. My usual strategy is to look at the first few across clues, and if the solutions don’t leap out at me I move on to the first few downs. So ANURIA was actually my FOI! (I agree with Eileen and Lord Jim that this works fine – most cryptic clues are commutative with their solutions).

    I don’t think ‘basic’ is quite the same as INCHOATE, but close enough for these purposes – and it made a great clue.

    Like Eileen @24 I had too many ticks to enumerate.

    Many thanks to the Levanter and loonapick

34. J&k @30&32 agree about about 🙂 Deliberate misdirection? I started down the RE+ASSES route but that left the S dangling so back to the drawing board

35. I parsed 26a slightly differently taking half of ‘once more only’: onCE moRE ONly which I felt was neater

36. This puzzle just served to reinforce why I like Philistine so much as a setter. Yes Eileen@24 and Gervase@33, I also too many favourites to list. But I do have to mention the wonderful Leonard Cohen earworm evoked by ‘dance (me) to the end of love’ in the clue for ANECDOTE at 16d.
    Thanks in abundance to both Philistine and loonapick.
    Now it’s time I got around to DOING THE DISHES (6,15d), having prepared the food as well!
    [Had to smile at the witty Bond references in the last line of your post, wynsum@31]

37. I really enjoyed that with, unlike others, the NE being last to fall.

    Lots to like mostly mentioned but anyway I loved FILIBUSTERER, COMPLICIT, ORIGAMIST, MNEMONIC (which I can pronounce but had to check spelling) – and DIAMONDS made me smile and I got straight away partly because recently there was a similar double definition leading to SPADES

    Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

38. First encountered this meaning of “diligence” in the phrase “diligence
    du Lyon” – thank you, Dr Comfort.
    Thanks too to Philistine and loonapick – lots to like here as others have said.

39. Such a neat puzzle
    Brevity-soul of wit
    I can say thank you Doctor here as there is no spoiler rule!

40. I really enjoyed this. I knew Giro (old enough to remember them) and diligence (from reading French novels), but I spent far too long trying to find a four-letter synonym for ‘door’ to put round ‘ct’ to make a word meaning ‘professional’ before the penny clattered to the floor. D’oh!
    Thanks Philistine and loonapick.
    Tha

41. Very enjoyable solve from the DOCTOR.

    ADROIT now seems so simple, I’m not sure why it was my LOI, and I liked the surface. Maybe I had forgotten about the chestnut OUIJA but I enjoyed the wordplay, as I did for FILIBUSTER and INCHOATE, which lacked my ‘man’ for being. NONE THE WISER was a good anagram and I liked the definition for ORIGAMI.

    Thanks Philistine for the entertainment and loonapick for the explanations, especially for the coach.

42. Thanks for the blog, great set of clues with lots of different wordplay, ORIGAMIST my favourite. Is there a mnemonic for how to spell MNEMONIC ?
    My students made one for me last month for Pi- day , they said it is not original but they have adapted it – Wow. I need a drink , alcoholic of course, after the extra lectures involving quantum mechanics Roz is now offering each Monday.

43. Surely the quickest Guardian puzzle ever?
    And a quote from my favourite artist at 16D.
    Loved it!

44. ‘Coach’ as a synonym is like ‘fish’ in that it seems like it could stand for just about anything, and hence a pet peeve of mine.

45. Earworm – (apart from 1a and DSB’s DIAMONDS Are Forever) – this from 16d ANECDOTE:
    ‘dance (me) to the end of love‘

46. ludd@35
    ENCORE
    Both parsings work. Yours is neater? I think so too.

47. FILIBUSTERER is a word by the rule “Add ER to a verb and you get the person who does it” but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that longer form used. Have any of you?

48. […continued from@45 – as Julie in Australia@36 and Goujeers@43 have already said. – Leonard Cohen – terrific stuff.]

49. I don’t see any issue with 1A, the tag line is (was?) very well known and the answer went in instantly for me. I had heard of INCHOATE but, it turned out, thought it meant something else entirely! And like many others, DILIGENCE as a coach was new to me. Being an English ex-pat in the US, the controversial ‘check’ passed me by entirely.

    Thanks Philistine and loonapick

50. Excellent puzzle today by Philistine. Just the one flaw, as others have highlighted -there should have been an indication in the clue for ORIGAMIST that it was using the US spelling of “cheque”. As it was, the parsing of that one didn’t work.

51. Lovely puzzle, very enjoyable.
    Thank you FrankieG@45 for the link to that beautiful Leonard Cohen song. I knew someone would eventually provide one. Happy to go to sleep with that ear worm.
    My favourite clue was my last in, FILIBUSTERER, a great word. I finished in the NW corner, loving OUIJA, ANURIA, DOCTOR, ORIGAMI. Other gems were ANECDOTE, MNEMONIC, INCHOATE.
    I hadn’t known that diligence = coach.
    Thank you Philistine and loonapick.

52. The predecessor to the Matrix franchise was Johnny Mnemonic (1995) – alas, wholly forgettable.

53. Roz@42, that’s a nice adaptation of a mnemonic credited originally to Sir James Jeans and extended by others to 32 digits. This link provides the details and some others, including one based on Poe’s The raven that I hadn’t seen before.

54. As I didn’t know either giro as a benefit check or diligence as a stagecoach, those two were BIFDs for me. And to all the gripers up there, he could hardly have said something like “American check” since a giro is not a thing here–he’d have literally been lying. So I don’t think there is a way to work in an indication of an American spelling there without being either ungraceful or unfair. Also, the Americanism is in the clue, not the answer, which makes it a little less necessary.

55. Also, I agree that the definition “basic” for INCHOATE seems a little too, uh, basic. In common law, the inchoate crimes (attempt, conspiracy, etc) are hardly what one would call basic crimes! (They share the same philosophical core: how much of a crime do you have to commit before you can be held responsible for it? Not a basic question at all.) I’m sure there’s some dictionary sense that’ll justify it, so I’ll just shut up and await enlightenment.

56. I loved this for having several quirky clues.
    ANURIA took me ages to get. I thought I’d never heard of the word, and was about to look it up … when I suddenly realised how to pronounce it, and then I recognised it! My favourite clue.

    Shirley@22: Your Birkenhead reference was really funny! 🤣

57. MrPenney@55 no need for the legal angle for INCHOATE , it means rudimentary or unfinished so basic is fine . Current theories for sub-structure of quarks and leptons are INCHOATE.
    Tim@53 my students did not say where it was from but said it was not mainly their own work, just some modifications.
    .

58. Roz@42 and TimSee@53 – there’s a super-long version here of the raven with added chapters. I was surprised by the string of 9s (repeated ‘nevermores’ but it checks out.

59. Polyphone@58 I know there is a sequence of six 9s fairly early on. There may have been seven or more found by now but I do not keep up to date with this.

60. When I look at the completed puzzle I can’t believe how long it took to finish it but I got there in the end and parsed everything before coming here to check. I thought FILIBUSTERER was a made up word but it made sense. Had difficulty with giro as a gyro is a Greek sandwich like a shawarma. I think a DILIGENCE coach must have been in the Jane Austen novels. Favourites have all been discussed. Thanks Philistine and Loonapick.

61. Excellent.
    Just failed on OUIJA, probably an old Chestnut but a new one for me.
    A few obscurities, but all gettable from the WP.
    Thanks both xxx

62. Wow, that was tough but hugely enjoyable. I love Philistine. Should have got 1A and 1D a bit earlier but both brought faint smiles when entered. Doctor Diamonds – not my GP unfortunately, otherwise l might visit more. First posting after many years of doing Guardian (only) cryptic and marvelling at all you peeps on fifteensquared.

63. I liked MNEMONIC and the above discussion about it immensely. I also liked INCHOATE, although I thought it meant nebulous. Thank you Ros@57 for providing further enlightenment 😎. Veronica @56 me too re. ANURIA. The ear worm is wonderful as was the clue. Thank you very much Philistine and loonapick.

64. A fine puzzle, and easier than I normally find Philistine. Top marks for the lovely anagram and surface of CRUDITÉS.

65. Thanks Philistine for a solid crossword with ADROIT, NONE THE WISER, REASSESS, and DOCTOR being my top choices. I revealed OUIJA and nho ‘giro’ as ‘check’ and ‘diligence’ as ‘coach’ but solved the clues regardless. Thanks loonapick for the blog. [PostMark @ 7: No, you’re not the only one who noticed ‘definition for wordplay’ in ANURIA! ]

66. Lovely, lovely Philistine! Why don’t we get more of him? Rather too faint praise I felt. He is the most charming setter and his anagrams are legendary.

67. Origamist! Hmmmmm!

68. When I’m not doing crosswords (and whinging about US spellings!), I tend to be reading 19th century literature and so DILIGENCE was very familiar to me. It occurs in many novels of that period, e.g. from my recent reads I recall it cropping up in “Dracula” and also having a prominent part to play at the start of “Armadale” (Wilkie Collins).

69. Shirley@22
    18a I too was reminded of the remark of F E Smith as he then was. His point was that the fact that the judge was none the wiser didn’t mean that he hadn’t been better informed. If Philistine was referring to this he got it wrong so I don’t think he was.

70. KVA@32: Yes, I see it now. The US spelling should certainly have been signalled by Philistine.

71. Just finished this, and so glad I did, as it’s a delight. DOCTOR (in door, indeed!), TANDOORI, MNEMONIC, INCOGNITO and FILIBUSTERER were all ticks, but my favourite was ORIGAMIST. Chapeau, P!

Comments are closed.