It’s Philistine, with a rather chewier offering than usual for a Monday but really rewarding to work out.
Philistine is up to all his tricks, with a medley of anagrams and an abundance of ingenious subtractions and substitutions, along with a couple of uncontroversial homophones and one (for me) unfamiliar word at 19ac and the customary medical reference in 9ac – all with a generous sprinkling of wit.
My favourites were BATTLE, APPLE OF DISCORD, CYCLE PATH, PICTURESQUE, CLASSISTS, A FEW and COLD SHOULDER.
Many thanks to Philistine for the fun.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 I replaced usual cover in vehicle for the environment (8)
AMBIANCE
I (from the clue) replacing u[sua]l in AMB[ul]ANCE (vehicle) – an alternative spelling of ‘ambience’
5 Plant agents to chase back pay, essentially (6)
ACACIA
[b]AC[k] [p]A[y] + CIA (agents)
9 Audibly drop stone when liable to faint (8)
SYNCOPAL
SYNC (sounds like – audibly – ‘sink’, drop) + OPAL (stone)
10 Fight for barista’s original frothy latte (6)
BATTLE
B[arista] + an anagram (frothy) of LATTE
12 Safe places where mighty stable hands overlap (11)
STRONGROOMS
STRONG (mighty) + GROOMS (stable hands) with the G ‘overlapping’
15, 17 Bone of contention as global giant Ford switches leaders hosting dance (5,2,7)
APPLE OF DISCORD
APPLE (global giant) + OFRD (ford switching initial letters) round DISCO (dance) – the apple, inscribed ‘To the fairest’, dropped by the goddess of Discord at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, leading to a dispute between Aphrodite, Hera and Athena and ultimately the Trojan War, after the judgment of Paris – see here
18 City Council cleared pedestrians and traffic at first in what produces this? (5,4)
CYCLE PATH
C[it]Y C[ounci]L + P[edestrians) A[nd] T[affic] in EH (what)
19 Nerd’s machismo, aimless and misguided (5)
SCHMO
An anagram (misguided) of MaCHiSmO minus the letters of ‘aim’
20 Nice to see truce’s arranged in exasperation (11)
PICTURESQUE
An anagram (arranged) of TRUCES in PIQUE (frustration)
24 Create trendy outlet (6)
INVENT
IN (trendy) + VENT (outlet)
25 The guy’s in a hole that’s sticky (8)
ADHESIVE
HE’S (the guy’s) in A DIVE (a hole)
26 Sore about concealing posh car’s faults (6)
ERRORS
An anagram (about) of SORE round RR (Rolls Royce – posh car)
27 Something for the media in après-ski treats (5,3)
PRESS KIT
Hidden in aPRES SKI Treats
Down
1 Relative in a position to provide help (10)
ASSISTANCE
SIS (relative) in A STANCE (a position)
2 Turn pack around in times of serious financial difficulty (10)
BANKRUPTCY
An anagram (around) of TURN PACK in BY (times)
3 To start auction: chairs of really nice oak, potentially (5)
ACORN
Initial letters of Auction Chairs Of Really Nice
4 Seeing ahead a very conical structure (12)
CLAIRVOYANCE
An anagram (structure) of A VERY CONICAL
6 Last but one in university course displaced by street bigots (9)
CLASSISTS
CLASSICS (university course) with the penultimate letter replaced by ST (street)
7, 13 Copper melting test: hot, fast and can really hurt (4,2,3,5)
CUTS TO THE QUICK
CU (copper) + an anagram (melting) of TEST HOT + QUICK (fast)
8 Some voiced a sigh of relief (1,3)
A FEW
Sounds like (voiced) ‘a phew’ (sigh of relief)
11 Slight effect of halter top in winter? (4-8)
COLD SHOULDER
Amusing double / cryptic definition
14 Regularly have anecdote prepared for unplanned occasion (2,3,5)
AD HOC EVENT
An anagram of alternate letters (regularly) of HaVe + ANECDOTE
16 Look at start of revelation (3,6)
EYE OPENER
EYE (look at) + OPENER (start)
21 Odds are off on heavier ones, but they’re not (5)
EVENS
Even letters of hEaViEr oNeS
22, 23 Help getting through edit? (4,4)
TIDE OVER
TIDE is a reversal (over) of EDIT
This seemed a bit scary at first, especially for a Monday, but it steadily fell with the NW holding out longest. AMBIANCE was an unfamiliar spelling but a nice clue. Favourites included ACACIA, SYNCOPAL, STRONGROOMS, APPLE OF DISCORD, CYCLE PATH, PICTURESQUE, the amusing COLD SHOULDER, AD HOC EVENT and the loi, A FEW. A proper workout.
Ta Philistine & Eileen.
I could not parse 1ac.
New for me: spelling of the word AMBIANCE which I usually see as ‘ambience’; SYNCOPAL (loi).
Thanks, both.
Lovely Monday puzzle
Liked: COLD SHOULDER (my favourite), AMBIANCE, ADHESIVE, CUTS TO THE QUICK, PICTURESQUE, APPLE OF DISCORD
Thanks Philistine and Eileen
Thanks Philistine and Eileen
I needed electronic help with this, as I had never heard SYNCOPAL, APPLE OF DISCORD, SCHMO, or PRESS KIT (though the hidden was fairly obvious, I had to Google to find out what it was).
Favourites CLASSISTS and TIDE OVER.
Several were half-parsed, but leaving me sure enough that they were correct. I was able to proceed at a relatively quick pace with much of this, whilst being held up by a fair few. Word Wizard helped to get SYNCOPAL – I’d possibly heard of it but wasn’t convinced as I couldn’t shake the association with ‘syncopation’.
I’m also kicking myself for revealing A FEW: yet another instance where if I’d left it a while and then come back to that last clue, the penny might have dropped.
Plenty to enjoy here, anyway.
Thanks Philistine and Eileen
COTD: COLD SHOULDER
Other faves: CYCLE PATH and PICTURESQUE.
muffin @4 – I thought you must have mislaid your Chambers but I see now it isn’t there!
Collins : ‘a set of documents, usually containing useful facts and figures, given to journalists by a company prior to a product release, news conference, etc.’
Another much more familiar with the Ambience version of that word, so a while before that one got filled in. Hadn’t heard of APPLE OF DISCORD, SCHMO, SYNCOPAL or CLASSISTS before, but they had to be that from the clueing. Loved the overlap in STRONGROOMS. Didn’t find this quite as smooth a solve as normal with Philistine, but plenty to admire nonetheless…
I found this chewier than normal for Philistine and a Monday.
I sort of knew SYNCOPAL – syncope goes with POTS and hEDS, (postural orthostatic tachycardia and Ehlers-Danlos (hypermobility) Syndrome). I’ve made up and distributed PRESS KITS for some job or other. (It’s sort of a double Philistine day – it’s Velia in the FT).
Thank you to Eileen and Philistine
A touch trickier than usual Monday fare, with a couple of nho (APPLE OF DISCORD, SYNCOPAL) and that variant spelling AMBIANCE.
Pedant’s Corner: BATTLE breaks what I always consider to be one of the fundamental tenets of clue-writing, namely that one can grammatically justify the formats “definition from wordplay” and”wordplay for definition” but “definition for wordplay” doesn’t make grammatical sense to me. I’ve heard arguments in favour of this formation over the years but none have convinced me! “Barista’s original frothy latte causing fight” would have been perfectly fine 🙂
Thanks both!
I liked the aimless machismo. Most went in fairly easily, but I struggled with a few including A FEW.
This was just the right amount of chewy for me, helped by getting the two long down clues at 4 and 11 relatively quickly. And for once I had all the right GK – no plants, fish, or birds to complain about!
Schmo, for those unfamiliar, is from Yiddish and is related to the more familiar schmuck (literally ‘penis’). Yiddish is a language rich in wonderful insults.
9A (syncopal) was new to me and, even from the clue and cross letters, I could not complete.
15,17 A : “Apple of Discord” again, I did not know this phrase.
19A: Once again, “schmo” was unknown to me.
6D: Why does “classists” mean “bigots”? Aren’t “classists” people who love beautiful things, whereas “bigots” mean people who don’t like others who disagree with their own likes?
Again, I apologise that English is not my first language so, if my comments are not correct, then forgive me.
Thank you, Eileen and all the other contributors.
Claudia @13 – “classicists” are people who love beautiful things 🙂
By the way, I take my hat off to any cryptic crossword solver whose first language isn’t English! They can be tricky enough when one has spoken English all one’s life!
Thank you, Rob T. I do appreciate your comment. You can put your hat back on!
Claudia @13 It’s a classic case of English never being consistent. The “-ist” suffix could be used to describe either somebody who specialises in a certain subject (e.g. classicist or scientist) or somebody who discriminates against a particular group based on a shared attribute (e.g. sexist or racist). Classist is perhaps less commonly used than some examples but my assumed definition if given no context to help would be “somebody who discriminates against people on the basis of (social) class.”
much tougher than usual Monday – a nice challenge.
Thanks Philistine and Eileen
I could not parse syncopal as I fixated on “audibly drop” as cluing verbal elision ie syncope. Didn’t know the fainting fit definition till now.
Further to Jacob @12, yes, and quite a few of the Yiddishisms are phonetically similar, like shmerril, shlemeal and shmelucca, and then there’s nebbish, all meaning various mixes of dweeb, nerd, stumbledbum, loser, etc. No doubt there are many others, with origins from all across the long and far-flung diaspora.
Although there could be some overlap between ‘nerd’ and SCHMO, they are not at all synonymous. The former refers to social ineptitude, often combined with high intelligence, whereas the latter is ‘a stupid or boring person, a fool’ according to Chambers.
Delightful puzzle from Philistine, witty and quite tricky. Thanks for the challenge.
Thank you Eileen for your usual clear and helpful blog and congrats on 1001 blogs! I missed the 1000th last week.
I hadn’t parsed AMBIANCE – missed the ‘usual cover’.
APPLE OF DISCORD was new to me, interesting to know, as was SCHMO – great word. I knew SYNCOPAL because I worked in the Health field. Syncope is a more common word.
I loved so many of these, including COLD SHOULDER (favourite), SYNCOPAL, CYCLE PATH, PICTURESQUE, TIDE OVER.
Thank you, ravenrider, I think!. English is a very hard language for other countries’ people to learn. I remember from when I was young that a “bow” is a thing used with an arrow or a “bow tie”. Yet one takes a “bow” after a performance with a “cow”. A branch of a tree is a “bough”. A strong person is “tough”. The end of a shirtsleeve is a “cuff”. If I am unwell, I may have a “cough” so I may turn the TV “off”. I could go on but it’s time for this elderly lady (who is married to a knight – untrue! to say goodnight to all.
Love to all,
Claudia
Well, thank Philistine and the G’s editor for something ‘a bit chewy’ this Monday, because, locked out of Maskarade’s Saturday Prize due to not having a printer, I hadn’t seen anything chewy since Dostoevsky on Friday, and that wasn’t exactly a jaw-breaker. A FEW was actually my FOI, and at the end SCHMO (which I had heard of somewhere) needed a long stare (albeit not of the Paddington variety) before disclosing itself. I fear that another bumper requiring a printer will ensue tomorrow … Christmas! Hrumph!
Claudia @ 21 – my heart goes out to you. I remember helping my students, many of whom had English as a second language, through O Level / GCSE English, struggling with these ‘ough’ words: as well as those you mention, through, though, thorough, thought, etc – and, most outrageous of all, hiccough! I often used to say how lucky I was to have been ‘born speaking English’. 😉
His tricks?? You mean, Phyllis Stein is male?
Meatier than usual for a Monday, with a good variety of clue types and some very smooth surfaces.
SYNCOPAL was my LOI and needed all the crossers – I haven’t come across the adjective before, but ‘syncope’ as the technical term for ‘faint’ was familiar.
Favourites:: AMBIANCE, STRONGROOMS, CYCLE PATH, ADHESIVE, BANKRUPTCY.
Rob T @10: I respectfully disagree – clues are commutative as far as I am concerned.
poc @19: I agree that a nerd isn’t the same as a SCHMO, but the latter is such a good word and great to see in the puzzle.
Thanks to the Levanter and the estimable Eileen (1001 and still going 🙂 )
No problems with this, though SCHMO was new and APPLE OF DISCORD was one of these bits of myth that seemed familiar once solved (I do remember about the divine beauty contest but didn’t recall the prize!). Just now realised I hadn’t parsed CUTS TO THE QUICK. Favourites include STRONGROOMS and SYNCOPAL.
Thanks Eileen and Philistine.
[Balfour@22, I don’t have a printer either, but made a table with appropriate numbers of rows and columns in LibreOffice Writer (other word processors are available). Then just display this side by side with the PDF clues. This might be tricky if you just have a phone, but works for me on a laptop display.]
…then there’s words to pronounce or spell properly like pour, poor, paw and pore, though the not at all well off one does sound a little different to the other three…
[Balfour @22: Lack of a printer may have saved you much anguish. Maskerade’s prize puzzle makes Paul’s contentious Jane Austen crossword from last week seem a write-in 🙂 ]
[Is it autocorrect that so often makes Maskarade appear as MaskErade?]
Lots of fun on Christmas Eve Eve. My GK was up to most of it (as a former New Yorker, I had Yiddish enough for SCHMO) but I sort of had to invent SYNCOPAL, which sounded almost like a sort of medical word I didn’t quite know.
Liked PICTURESQUE.
Thanks, Philistine and Eileen. Good start on your next thousand blogs!
[muffin @29: Carelessness, not autocorrect 🙁 ]
[It’s not just you, Gervase!]
If it were autocorrect, it would be Masquerade: there’s no such word as ‘maskerade’ – but ‘Maskarade’ is an opera.
I’m another who would complain that SCHMO does not mean “nerd,” and the distinction isn’t even a subtle one. Yes, they both are pejorative terms for socially undesirable people, but they say different pejorative things. And that’s before you get to the fact that “nerd” has been reclaimed by us nerds as a badge of honor. (“Schmo” is still always an insult.)
Anyway, I quite enjoyed this–chewy, but at the end there was nothing I couldn’t explain. Last one in was SYNCOPAL, which I didn’t know but was clear enough.
Tough but got through it. Had IN ANY instead of AD HOC for ages which slowed me down.
Fave: CYCLE PATH. It was a bit like reading the local Facebook group, a great surface.
Tough for a Monday but always happy to start the week with a finish.
[Maskerade is a Terry Pratchett book.]
[It’s remarkable how many words of Yiddish origin, many more familiar in American than British English, start with the phoneme ‘sh’: schlemiel, schlep, schmaltz, schmooze, schmutter, schnozzle, schemozzle, shtick, shtum, schlong, spiel – and of course schmuck and SCHMO. There are others, but to list them would be chutzpah 🙂 ]
A very interesting puzzle – unusual homophone which was so obvious when found. Also the replacement of two letters by one in AMBIANCE and CLASSIST I don’t remember noticing. I’m also beginning to get the combo type clues – an anagram embedded in a charade hidden in an enigma type…
Thanks Philistine and Eileen for a great Monday puzzle and blog!
Gervase @25: and I would respectfully disagree in turn. For me, some linkers are certainly commutative – ‘and’, ‘is’, ‘in’ and probably ‘with’ all work that way. But some linkers are directional: ‘for’ in one direction – follow the instructions in the wordplay for/to get the solution; ‘from’/’of’ in the other direction – the solution comes from/is a product of following the instructions in the wordplay. But I have learned from previous discussions here that what I was taught was a fundamental requirement is of less significance to many others. Each to their own, I guess. (In similar vein, there are plenty of solvers who don’t just tolerate clue elements doing double duty but actually welcome it on the basis of succinctness.)
Thanks Philistine for the puzzle and Eileen for doing what you do so very well.
All the debate about commutative clues rather misses that, in this case (BATTLE) the definition is ‘fight for’. I submit that ‘for’ in this instance is a sort of red herring misdirection.
Just saying.
PostMark @39: Conventions, dear boy, mere conventions 🙂
Another delightful use of ‘sh’/‘sch’/‘schm’ is ridicule by substitution in repetition: “Godfather, Schmodfather”
Alec @40 – unless there is a secondary and contradictory meaning that I’m not aware of (always a possibility in English, to be fair), the word BATTLE means ‘fight against‘, not ‘fight for‘…
RobT@43
If FIGHT and BATTLE are synonyms, as your example suggests, then one can surely BATTLE for things like justice, rights, honour, truth.
Alec @44 – that makes “fight for” and “battle for” synonymous (which makes sense) but it doesn’t make “fight for” mean BATTLE on its own, which is the answer to the clue… 🙂
RobT@45
Tiens.
You are right. I withdraw to lick my wounds, battle-weary and sick at heart.
A very merry Christmas!
[schmazel tov Gervase @37, a great list 🙂 ]
Alec @46 – and a Merry Christmas to you too 🙂
Thanks both,
LOI was tide over, which was a groan when I saw it. As this is the last regular Xword before Xmas, Merry Christmas to setters, bloggers and all.
Proof that a simple crossword (not that this was easy, it took me a good while) doesn’t have to be trivial. Some absolute delights in here, especially APPLE OF DISCORD and BANKRUPTCY.
What a pleasure seeing Philistine on a Monday but I’ll take Philistine any day of the week. I found this crossword fairly straightforward but I did do a little ‘reverse parsing’ in a few instances. My top picks were AMBIANCE, STRONGROOMS, SCHMO, ADHESIVE, PRESS KIT (nice to know a hyphenated word in the hidden fodder can become ‘unhyphenated’ in the solution), and TIDE OVER. I agree totally with PostMark @ 39 and, like Alec @40, I saw the definition in BATTLE as ‘fight for’. Thanks Eileen for the blog & Merry Christmas to you.
RobT @45: Very good point. When I think about it, ‘fight for’ and ‘battle’ can be seen as opposites e.g. I will ‘fight for’ a rights movement and I will ‘battle’ a rights movement mean very different things.
Another lunchtime solve here in Connecticut. Not easy, not hard. I just follow the cryptics and ignore the misfired literals, so schmo went right in. Syncopal was the only one I didn’t know.
There seems to be a combat theme here – battle, apple of discord, cold shoulder, cut to the quick. And cycle path is often used as a stand-in for psychopath.
Thanks both and I was thoroughly entertained. A delightful tilt thrown in (APPLE OF DISCORD et seq). This scored a perfect 4 on the Alphalpha scale.
Lovely crossword, thanks!
Gervase@28 For this solver who struggled (but completed) the Austen puzzle Maskarade’s was a write-in. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.
Rob@10 & Mark@39. I think of 10a as a “breakdown” clue. In effect, it describes the way the setter approached the word BATTLE. Take the letters B, A, T, T, L and E to make (‘for’, or as ingredients). B = ‘barista’ s original’, and the other five can be ‘frothed’ to make a latte.
As Gervase@25 says, clues are commutative; at least, this one seems to be. 🙂
sheffield hatter @57 – exactly as I saw it.
Many thanks for all the comments on a lovely puzzle – I’m ready for bed now.
My last puzzle before Christmas (I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve) so, for now, warmest festive greetings, however you celebrate it. (For me, it’s ‘Happy Christmas!’ 🙂 )
Tough going for a Monday but got through it as a relative beginner so am happy. I know the word schmo but would not have said it’s synonymous for “nerd”. I would have said a schmo is someone more slow witted or at least average, hence “Joe Schmo”.
Zoot @28: I managed it too!
Trying the Monday Cryptics having been learning the ‘way of Cryptics’ on the Quick Cryptics and Quiptics. This was the hardest of the Monday Cryptics so far for me. Saw some of the wordplays and got to the answers, but guessed others and worked back to understand the wordplay. Words like SCHMO and SYNCOPAL were new to me although for some reason I know the word ‘syncope’ for a faint from somewhere. Lots of things within things within things to get through on this puzzle. Thanks Philistine and Eileen.
Gervase@37: another great Yiddishism is schnorrer, meaning someone always on the lookout for a free drink or meal. I first came across it in the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers:
Hooray for Captain Spaulding
The African explorer
Did someone call him schnorrer?
Hooray, hooray, hooray
Paw and pore are of course not homophones for many of us, but I’ll leave it at that.
A schmo and a nerd are indeed different, but I thought they were close enough that this clue didn’t bother me.
[Gervase @37 — don’t forget shtupp, a word immortalized in the name of the character Lili von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles. I’ve been told that when that movie was shown on broadcast television in some parts of the US, they bleeped Lili’s surname, at the word is quite vulgar in Yiddish. But they only did so in parts of the country where enough people would know enough Yiddish to complain about it.
Incidentally, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll probably agree that it’s very odd to think that that word is the only reason someone with sensitive ears might be offended!]
Pleased to get one of my occasional completions…
…except I misspelled CLAIRVOYANCE, which wrecked STRONGROOM — grrr! Fixed them both after checking, no problem, but technically dnf
Re use of “for”, I’m happy with “[definition] for [wordplay]”. I suggest it’s simply a reversal in the same category as reverse anagrams and reverse reversals(?), as in “edit” for TIDE OVER