Guardian 29,467 / Philistine

68 comments on “Guardian 29,467 / Philistine”

1. I enjoyed this puzzle. My favourite was THINE (thanks for the terrible joke!).

2. Superb from start to finish. Loved PAVEMENT ARTIST, ONSET, TRAINSPOTTER, RING IN THE NEW, THINE, SHAKER (hilarious) and just about every other clue. Setter at the top of his game.

   Ta Philistine & Eileen.

3. Thanks Philistine and Eileen
   Lots to like, but too many unparsed for it to be an unqualified delight. Favourite OVERTRUMP.

4. Absolutely brilliant! Couldn’t parse everything, but when I came here, they all illicited “Oh – of course!” reactions. Don’t usually list favourites but THINE and TRAINSPOTTER would be mentioned if I did.

   Thanks P and E

5. I started with Quaker for SHAKER the realised there was only one 8 letter word at 16d that could end in Q.
   I laughed at the budgie cover and at your Yorkshire joke Eileen.

6. Great crossword.

   Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

   Didn’t see Thine parsing; so thanks. Loved Trainspotter and Shaker

7. Me too Eileen, having two DNFs after 3 weeks of no crosswords, at last a perfectly clued crossword with wonderful surfaces. My favourite was FOI ANATHEMA. Thank you Philistine and Eileen for parsing.

8. Some of the surfaces might charitably be described as gibberish but I thought there were some lovely clues here including THINE, IGNITING & my LOI THE THIRD PERSON

   Cheers P&E

9. Philistine hits the spot again. TRAINSPOTTER, OVERTRUMP and PAIR OF TROUSERS were amongst my favourites. Thank you P and Eileen for the blog and the joke… You both cheered up my morning.

10. Thanks Philistine for a delightful puzzle and Eileen for the blog & Tennyson link.
    I loved all of this, especially the surface for EXEUNT, ‘winning there’, ‘slime’, ‘budgie cover’ and ‘not as planned’.

11. Loved the Yorkshire joke. 🙂 There’s another one on that page that goes with one of the PETS< in 27a STEP DOWN: 'A Yorkshireman walks in to a vet and says
    "Ay up, can tha tek a look at our cat? It's not bin it's sen lately." "Sure." says the vet. "First things first, Is it a Tom?" "Nah" he replies "I've got it 'ere wi me"'
    In stark contrast: the surface of 24a EXEUNT – very sad. 🙁
    Thanks P&E

12. good morning 🙂 sorry to be a pain but I’m very new to the scene. Can someone please help me understand how PAIR OF TROUSERS is the answer for “as they are”? Have a great day and thanks

13. BeKind@12: it’s because a pair of trousers are restrained by braces in the clothing sense.
    A very enjoyable puzzle – especially ‘thine’. I did not manage to parse ‘The third person’.

14. Dyu mean like “Is traitor up to tech firm’s five pieces afoot?”, cheetah @8? We’ve seen worse I’m sure, and sometimes their nonsense ness is itself amusing. Enjoyed this puzzle from the Phil, ta him and Eileen.

15. BeKind2006 @12 – Welcome!

    The clue’s a little complicated: ‘as they are’ refers to the fact that trousers are restrained by braces, like ‘oft’ and ‘agitator’ in the wordplay of the clue – a clever use of the two meanings of ‘braces’.

    Please continue to ask if things aren’t clear.

    (I’ve taken so long to find a way of explaining this that I see that George @13 has beaten me to it – more succinctly! 😉 )

16. Most recent comment on the Guardian site is complaining that knowing who played Sherlock in the very popular BBC drama of the mid-2010’s is “a step too far” as far as General Knowledge is concerned. I’m sure that person has no issue with bible pulls, or side characters in Carry On films, or any of the other meaningless ephemera that crossword setters expect people to have to hand. But God forbid you knew who was the star of a hit show after 1951.

17. Test message

18. Fru @16. I agree with you, but perhaps the “of late” is a bit inaccurate. The programme finished, from what I can see, in 2017. Also, when Eileen says Benedict Cumberbatch “plays” Sherlock, “played” would be more accurate. He’s certainly more recent than Basil Rathbone! It might also be one of those bits of GK that are more UK than global.

19. Fru @16

    I had originally intended to comment that that clue might be more tricky (not a step too far) for non UK solvers but when I read the Wiki entry that I gave the link to, I found that the series had been aired beyond these shores.

20. Yesterday ran away with me, so I ended up completing yesterday’s Qaos puzzle and today’s Philistine in succession. Both very enjoyable, but I love the humour in this one. As others have mentioned, THINE is a ridiculously brilliant pun, PAIR OF TROUSERS, TRAINSPOTTER and METATARSI are great.

    All this talk of my home county has me remembering a great clue I saw recently: Grasp the Yorkshire hairpiece (4).

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

21. Crispy @18 – I take your point but googling ‘Sherlock’ revealed several hints that another series is very much on the cards

22. Lechien @20: awful but I did chuckle.

23. Fru@16. Agreed. Or obscure cricket terms or long ago sporting heroes – Ashe comes to mind.

    Great puzzle and helpful blog as always. Loved the geeky Hogwarts teacher and the terrible Yorkshire joke – made me snort.

24. Thanks Philistine for a great crossword and for bringing back memories of working for a MARQUEe hire firm as a summer job in the late sixties when I was a student (erections all over Cornwall!). One day we were putting up a largish tent (120×40) for the local Conservative Association in a town fête. We’d got all the hard work done — bashed in the pegs, laid out the poles, spread the canvas — when the guy representing the Association came up and complained that it was in the wrong place “That marker flag’s supposed to be in the exact centre of the long side.” I was about to explode when my teammate apologised and said that we could move it but it would mean missing our lunch. He thanked us and left. So we moved the marker flag and went to the pub to eat before finishing the job. When he came back he gave us a ten quid tip for all the extra effort we’d put in: a lot of money in those days…

25. [Eileen @21. Thanks for that. The interweb is full of rumours like that, so I won’t hold my breath, but I’ll watch it if it appears]

26. Fru @16, Crispy @18 and Eileen @19 (and maybe others), I can attest that Benedict as Sherlock has made it to this society of convict reprobates from the Old Dart. 🙂

27. Tim C @26 – Hurrah! 🙂

28. [I don’t know if anyone else here does Sy’s Weekend crossword in the Guardian, which is a straight test of general knowledge? A clear round is rare, and one of its ongoing annoyances is Sy’s insistence that solvers should be intimately familiar with the complete cast and character names of all major recent US TV series. Merely needing to know who last played Sherlock is child’s play when faced with a demand for the first name of the character played by Jessica Hecht in Breaking Bad (a typical example this week). ]

29. Good puzzle but didn’t parse THINE. I’d parsed BIBULOUS as bib you loose and am glad of a better analysis.
    Thanks both.

30. I really enjoyed this – Philistine was the other setter I was hoping for last week, (we got Qaos yesterday) as he’s another setter I find entertaining and am usually on the right wavelength to solve his problems. Bottom right took me the longest to resolve, but all succumbed. Various answers sailed in on sight, and others took a bit of chewing over. I thought SHAKER or Quaker when I read the clue, and the position of the Q made the choice obvious.

    As a geocacher, I’m aware that London is covered with caches referencing the Cumberbatch Sherlock series and original books, (also Harry Potter) starting with a series that dates back to 2001 and the more recent AdLabs taking people to locations various linked to both, much enjoyed by foreign visitors, from the different languages in the comments.

    Thank you to Eileen and Philistine.

31. [Bekind2006 – Welcome!! I do hope your pseudonym means you were born in 2006 and are still a teenager…. Do tell if you are – it would make my day, and all of us who hope, and believe, that 15² helps to encourage our shared addiction for many years to come!]

32. Back to Philistine – always a pleasure to solve, though I failed to parse BIBULOUS or identify the budgie cover (ha ha) or the farm in (g)RANGE (I just went with orange after struggling in vain to find a fruit with F(arm) in the name of a mountain range. Nice bit of misdirection.)

    I liked OVERTRUMP, THINE, TRAINSPOTTER, ANATHEMA and the two gins and it.

33. Lovely stuff as ever from Philistine. Smooth progress apart from loi THINE. Reminding me of a book I read a while ago about the Wethered beer brewing family, with the title The Power And The Brewery. So named after the version of the Lord’s Prayer the young Wethered children in church on a Sunday used to chant. Instead of “For THINE is the kingdom, the Power and the Glory…”

34. Tough puzzle. I failed to solve 10ac MARQUE.

    Favourites: VANISH, METATARSI.

    I did not parse 23ac or 25ac.

    Thanks, both.

35. Always a joy to see Philistine’s name at the top. Fully agree with Eileen’s view on this joyful solve. I don’t think there’s ever been a Philistine that hasn’t delivered entertainment…..
    I was particularly tickled by TRAINSPOTTING

    [Could say more, but disturbed by two 20 minutes ‘phone calls in last hour (and now know my day is lost) – I solved this in bed at about 4am, when telephones don’t intrude!]

    Bless you both, Philistine and dear Eileen

36. A deep and appropriative groan for TRAINSPOTTER, which I parsed,and SLIME , which I didn’t.

37. Thanks in abundance to Philistine and Eileen.
    Both of these have already been feted, but TRAINSPOTTER@14a definitely my highlight – brilliant – as was another stand-out, the OVERT RUMP@15d.
    Philistine in a very playful mood, to my delight!.

38. Oh, and THE THIRD PERSON, I knew it was an anagram, and I had THE PERSON, but if I removed AS I couldn’t make PERSON and then it clicked.

39. On of those days when taking a break and coming back to it makes everything clear. Delightful puzzle, blog and Yorkshire jokes.

40. [gladys @28, I’d never finish a Sy, I’m terrible at pub quizzes and struggle with the G Quick! Born to autodidact lefties, at primary school I knew about the great composers, Renaissance artists and the structure of the atom, but not what happened in Dragnet, Sunset Strip or The Three Stooges last night… ]

41. I saw Philistine’s name and for once managed to think, right, I’m going to be on the lookout for a lift-and-separate. I even identified 23a as a likely candidate, but spent a while wondering how “s lime” could work. Then the penny dropped.

    And I toyed with the idea of (Christian) SLATER for 26a but couldn’t see why a slater would vibrate. Another penny dropped in due course.

    A very pleasant puzzle with lots of clever devices. Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.

42. This was right in the Goldilocks zone for me: just the right level of challenge, variety and dodgy jokes (slim-e = THIN-E); everything fair and very little untoward (I wasn’t 100% sure about the definition for PAIR OF TROUSERS, though the wordplay was great).
    Numerous ticks including ONSET for hiding its answer so cleverly in a plausible setting, the geeky TRAINS POTTER, the anagram for RING IN THE NEW, and BI the “unfussy lover”.
    Great stuff and thanks to P&E.

43. Enjoyed the puzzle. The “I had a car like that” Yorkshire joke, always at the expense of a
    Texan, has travelled beyond Yorkshire.

    Thanks, Phililstine and Eileen.

44. A delightful puzzle, challenging and amusing. Many thanks Philistine.
    COD for me was TRAINSPOTTER for the obvious humour. I also liked THINE, parsing it on a second look a couple of hours later (doh), PAIR OF TROUSERS for whatever device was used, MARQUE for its brevity and BIBULOUS for the cropped top and just because it’s a great word that should be used more often.
    I forgot to go back to RING IN THE NEW and missed the well disguised anagram.
    Thank you Eileen for your usual clear and accessible explanations and the bonus joke.

45. re 26-I think there is a Christian SLATER-I found the word also referred to a er naughty product
    Just my perverted mind, I guess but I was only trying to fill the grid m’lud!

46. Very late to the blog today – having had some problems posting on 225 earlier in the day. I didn’t get the interlinked GIGOLO, THINE or BIBULOUS right at the end. With the first of those, I was genuinely thrown by Philistine’s choice to go with ‘definition for wordplay’ which I did not expect so all my solving efforts were focused on trying to make the wrong part of the clue give me a solution for ‘solo’ or ‘top solo’. IGNITED, TRAINSPOTTER and EGGS BENEDICT were my favourites today.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen for the usual high quality blog

47. copster @45
    Fortunately (?) I don’t know what product your “slater” refers to, but did you know that it’s a dialect word for a woodlouse?

48. SW corner gave me a few head scratches. Another Uxbridge English Dictionary entry at 2dn always pleases me.

49. Sorry SE corner

50. Ok, I guess I’m being thick here, but how is 1.25% equal to “eightieth”?

51. I am sure if I gave the clue “as they are” no one would give the answer Pair of trousers. So this means “restrained by braces” should also be part of the definition? However that’s also part of the word play, so a bit of an underlining dilemma.

    Thanks Eileen and Philistine

52. Suzy@50

    80 x 1.25 = 100

53. Suzy @50/Dave @52
    Possibly clearer to say:
    (1/80) x 100 = 1.25
    Hence an eigthieth (1/80) is 1.25%

54. Thanks both – one of those days when I had neither the cerebral nor the temporal wherewithal to devote to a fine Philistine, so ended up rushing and revealing. I feel this would have been a 5 had I stuck with it.

    [muffin@: noted your proud papa moment the other day. Reminded me of the old one where a crosswordy couple were having an argument and one says ‘stop confusing the issue, you’re upsetting the child’ (it’s not a great joke…).]

55. Thanks Philistine for a challenging crossword. Despite a few awkward surfaces I enjoyed this with my top picks being IGNITING, TRAINSPOTTER, EXEUNT, THE THIRD PERSON (liked ‘as’), and ANATHEMA. I failed with MARQUE, BIBULOUS, and METATARSI and couldn’t parse THINE. Thanks Eileen for explaining it all.

56. [A classic from Picaroon (27,591):

    Pagans first and then … a US actor? (9,6)

    … and in a similar vein, and one of my all-time favourites (Paul, 27,523):

    Actress was less inclined to sketch Robin and Maurice Gibb, but…? (4,9)]

57. What Shanne@30 wrote (in the first paragraph at least). I too appreciated the humour. In several places I found identifying the answer far easier than parsing it.

    Philistine likes lift and separate, eh? Let’s see if I can remember that one

    it was a blog too.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen

58. Not knowing the source of the well-known phrase “RING IN THE NEW” had my imagination running overtime how it could be a necrophiliacs line. Glad to see an innocent explanation.

59. Lovely Philistine made my day, as always! Such nice comments and parsing too. Thanks.

60. I continue to be miffed at how bisexuality is treated by these compilers. Not that any one is terrible, but they are always faintly offensive and the cumulative effect is extremely tiresome.

61. I did the puzzle just after reading about Italian tennis player Jannick Sinner’s clearance on doping charges and thought for a second 4 Down was about him (“Yielding sinners not at fault”).

62. Eileen (too many ticks to list them all) and Crispy@4 (absolutely brilliant, with lots of “Oh – of course” reactions) say it all for me. Thanks, Philistine for once again showing why you are one of my favourite setters.

    Eileen, I loved the fun you had with “as” in your blog for 8,20 THE THIRD PERSON. I also appreciated your Yorkshire jokes and Tennyson links. Thank you for your typically excellent and engaging blog.

63. Thanks Eileen.
    Super crossword.
    Failed to parse THINE, and revealed 25a, the ‘unfussy lover’ passed me by.
    Lots of outstanding clues, a pleasure to (nearly) solve.
    Thanks P.

64. Brilliant. 14a may be our favourite cryptic clue ever: still giggle every time I think about it. Thanks Philistine and Eileen

65. Failed to parse THINE at all, and BIBULOUS thought that BIB was the top. Also wondered what the farm was doing for RANGE with mountains as the definition and oRANGE being topped.

66. Tank @60 I just dropped in to see if that was just me, glad to see not. It’s a clue component I never get when it comes up and it always jars when I come on here to check the parsings.

67. Many highly concentrated and clever clues

68. Excellent crossword and blog. I enjoyed this throughout, as it was both clever and entertaining (as has been said many times). I loved TRAINSPOTTER and OVERTRUMP.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

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