Guardian Cryptic 29,620 by Philistine

66 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,620 by Philistine”

1. loonapick, I took ‘Do’ to be the definition in PASS MUSTER; no need for&littishness

2. ACIDIC
   AC+I+DC divided by I

3. Thanks Loonapick. I think you have ACIDIC right.
   AC (current) + I (current) + DC (current) divided by I (current). Like you, not sure about IMPORTANT MATTER, but your explanation is better than anything I could come up with. Again, disappointed by use of French (in NEBULOUS)
   KVa @2 – you were more succinct than me

4. Only Iran, Imam and Goliath first go through the acrosses. Thought Monday …? Hmm. A few downs later and it atarted weaving together. Bunged in pass muster unparsed, good clue. Thanks Phil and loona.

5. I think the explanation @1 will do. Loved this puzzle. Thought it might be a write in because I had so many across clues (in the top half) on the first pass. Then it got chewy but the taste was good. Loi was 10d which I really liked when I worked it out. Very clever. Also liked the trick with BARDIC and GOLIATH was a neat reversal. Couldn’t get the de in DEBRIEF until I read your blog. Very obvious now. Agree with the parsing for 20a. At least, that’s what I had. Thanks both.

6. import + ant(i)matter

7. PM@1 – of course you’re right – I may have seen that with more time.

8. The Christian Dior reference I found a bit weird. And I had forgotten where I’d ever heard of SLOANE RANGER. (Probably in another British crossword, I guess.)

   Everything else fell into place without any dramas.

9. Muffyword@6
   IMPORTANT MATTER
   Your explanation seems correct (stuff with reversed charges=antimatter). Thanks.

10. Thanks to loonapick for the blog – and I’m sorry to learn it was a rush. I am always grateful for what our wonderful bloggers share with us in the midst of their busy lives.
    I really enjoyed this one very much. 1,5a SLOANE RANGER held out the longest, though like Geoff Down Under@8, I’m sure I’ve encountered it before in other crosswords, along with something to do with Chelsea Tractors, which we in Australia call Toorak Tractors with reference to a fairly posh Melbourne suburb.
    Big ticks for the long ones which helped me enormously with my solve – 11a RUSSIAN ROULETTE and 8d EAR-PIERCING attracting lots of ticks! I also really liked the misdirection (Rue de Frère) in 10d, REMORSE. No complaints from me about the use of those pretty common French words, RUE and NOUS (in 6d NEBULOUS) , but then I’m doing Duolingo at the moment to try to resurrect my schoolgirl French, so I liked those little touches.
    Many thanks to one of my top favourite setters, Philistine!

11. That’s how I parsed it Muffyword @6, import (bring in stuff) + ant(i)matter (reversed charges missing one).
    EARPIERCING I took as a CD of bling (what gets put in the piercing) which is loud (piercing).
    How does “Do” = PASS MUSTER PM @1?… Oh. OK. It’ll do, it’ll pass muster.
    Favourite was FEEL REMORSE for the deceptive “Rue”.

12. I didn’t fully parse PASS MUSTER, and was held up in the SE by SMOOTHIES and BARDIC. Otherwise there was enough to get a toehold into this (RUSSIAN ROULETTE being first in) and work through fairly steadily, with one or two needing the help of this blog.

13. ACIDIC and ANTiMATTER both tickled me.
    My thanks to P&L.

14. Thank you loonapick..
    I was surprised not to see
    Philistine’s trademark medical clues here. He msy have taken leave from his daytime job this Monday.

    We have a lot of chemists here.
    I took ACIDIC as not basic, meaning not alkaline, is that right?

15. paddymelon@14. You are correct.

16. I’m not a chemist paddymelon @14 but my dad was one (what is called a pharmacist in Oz). I learnt enough in high (grammar) school to know that bases (alkalis) are the opposite end to acids. ACIDIC was a clever clue especially in its definition so you have it right. I’m still trying to work out what the alkalinity increasers and the Ph decreasers do when I add them to my pool, but I just do as I’m told by the pool shop. 🙂

17. For a very brief while I did wonder whether the “fury” component of the simply excellent 1,5 ac clue might be “rage” and therefore be part of a certain Mr Farage’s make up. But wrong number of letters for his forename, and I’m not even sure if he’s a Londoner, either.
    Lovely puzzle as ever from Philistine, with only last one in ACIDIC causing hesitation with its “not basic” definition.

18. TimC@11
    IMPORTANT MATTER
    I think
    bring in=IMPORT
    stuff with reversed charges=ANTiMATTER
    (Didn’t parse it while solving the puzzle but this is how I read it now)

19. Hardest Monday for a while. No complaints just chewier than normal.

    Thanks Philistine and loonapick

20. Another one here who interprets “stuff with reversed charges” as ANTiMATTER. ACIDIC is certainly “not basic / not alkaline” as per paddymelon@14 – tho technically that definition also allows neutral.

    Bling for EAR-PIERCING is just a straight definition (by class), just as preacher for IMAM.

    My quiblet for today is that LET for permitted doesn’t pass the substitution test; there’s no (entire) phrase in which the two can be interchanged without needing further tweaks, because let equates to permitted to.

    Otherwise a top-notch Monday puzzle.

    Thanks both

21. You could well be correct KVa @18 thinking about it (reversed charges by itself is a bit thin for anti matter).

22. Another fine puzzle from Philistine. Not thematic but a bit zeitgeisty with all the REPRESSION and right-wingers. Interesting to see the inclusion of GOLIATH , Philistine’s pseudonym in the FT.

23. Clever, witty and a beautifully constructed puzzle, with basic French to boot (I’m also doing Duolingo JinA). Lots of ticks throughout with favourites RUSSIAN ROULETTE, DEBRIEF, IRAN for the definition and ACIDIC. SLOANE RANGERS were upper class women, of which Princess Diana was typical, living in and around Chelsea and Kensington and their male counterparts were Hooray Henries. The terms seem to have died out now.

    Ta Philistine & loonapick.

24. Thanks Philistine and loonapick

    I should think Philistine chuckled when he spotted GOLIATH, given that it’s his alter ego in the FT.

25. Brilliant start to the day / week!

    I really admired SLOANE RANGER, RUSSIAN ROULETTE, PASS MUSTER, NEBULOUS, FEEL REMORSE, PILAU and the meaningful use of ellipsis in 16/19down.

    (paddymelon@14, Philistine’s doing his daily round in the very last clue. 😉 )

    Many thanks to Philistine and Loonapick.

26. A little bit of self-recycling from Philistine at 1.5. Compare ‘Space in New Orleans for a Londoner (6,6)’ at 20a in #29049 on 20th April 2023.

27. I battled through this with a good deal of creative checking, guessing and putting in words I was sure I’d made up (BARDIC, TOMATILLO) but which must have lurked somewhere in my brain. I revealed ACIDIC – would never have seen that – and didn’t parse everything. Still, not bad for a beginner, I thought.

28. So he is Eileen@25. 🙂

29. I’m with those for PAST MUSTER = do, and antimatter being the stuff with reversed charges. I also didn’t have a problem with ACIDIC when I worked it out – neutral pH is water (pure distilled) on that scale.

    GOLIATH amused me as that’s Philistine’s setting name for the FT.

    SLOANE RANGERS live(d) around Chelsea, Sloane Square, with the big department store Peter Jones, up Sloane Street to Knightsbridge being their stamping ground. The postcodes of that area are SW1, SW3 and SW7. When Diana Spencer was found living in Battersea, postcode SW11, there was a coinage of the ‘Sonly Rangers because it s’only just over Battersea Bridge to Sloane Square.

    Enjoyable crossword, thank you loonapick and Philistine.

30. Shanne @29: it’s Chelsea Bridge but I liked that, hadn’t heard it before. Batteries sometimes called South Chelsea

31. Battersea!

32. Oh, so that’s how you parse GOLIATH! It was obvious that that’s what it was, but I couldn’t sort it out. I agree with PostMark@1 that “do” will do as a definition for PASS MUSTER, though it took a long time to spot it: Rue for FEEL REMORSE was another nicely hidden one.

    ACIDIC was an opportunity to use several of the scientific terms I’ve learned from crosswords, and I parsed IMPORTANT MATTER as Muffyword@6 did.

    The top half went in much quicker than the bottom, with SMOOTHIES holding out the longest. Thanks Philistine for a nice Monday surprise (and some sensible ellipses for once) and loonapick for the blog in trying circumstances. Oversleeping is a pain: you never quite catch up for the rest of the day.

33. AlanC @30, I just cycled or walk those bridges, forget their names. The other trick was postcoding Battersea as SW1(1). The Battersea Arts Centre is an amazing venue, but very Sloane-y at the time (I lived in a flat share on Theatre Street for a bit).

34. I loved this. Main challenges were in my three favourites:
    ACIDIC. COTD. Making sure there were the correct number of currents. Got there! Agree with KVA and Crispy re the parsing.
    FEEL REMORSE. Over-enthusiasm for the French language misdirected me for a while along the ‘Rue Le Freire’. Eventually got to the right ‘rue’. Great clue.
    BARDIC. It took me a while to see the significance of the ellipsis to get BAR.
    Also liked NEBULOUS and SMOOTHIES (last in).
    I didn’t fully parse PASS MUSTER but agree with DO as the definition. Thanks for the explanation.
    Thanks Philistine and loonapick

35. A really brilliant puzzle (esp for a Monday!)

    So many stand out clues, inc ACIDIC, IMPORTANT MATTER, PASS MUSTER, INDULGE, PUBLIC SECTOR and FEEL REMORSE. The definition disguise was top notch!

    Thanks Philistine and loonapick

36. [Shanne @33: I like to cycle over the Albert Bridge, as it’s much wider than the others and I agree about the BAC. The new Power Station is also a great day out in summer].

37. A great puzzle with some easier ones and some really tricky. “Cheese” is usually BRIE so DEBRIEF immediately came to mind. On the other hand the misdirection for FEEL REMORSE was fiendish and brilliant.

    My favourite was PUBLIC SECTOR for the lovely surface, “Boozer clerics to get treated in state-controlled facilities”.

    AP @20: it crossed my mind too that “permitted” and LET are not normally directly substitutable (11a). But does it matter? The first definition for LET in Collins is “to permit” (although there is a note “usually takes an infinitive without to“).

    Many thanks Philistine and loonapick.

38. First two were IRAN and REPRESSION, followed later by IMAM. Hmm. SLOANE RANGER followed by EGOTIST is pretty close too. Needed help with my LOI SMOOTHIES but it’s obvious when you see it.

39. I failed to parse SMOOTHIES, my LOI, because I only remembered the American usage of moot as in “moot point” and quite forgot the British meaning, or even “moot court”.

    Other than that, I’m relieved to see that I’m far from alone in finding this both chewier than a usual Monday and worth the effort.

    Thank you Philistine and loonapick.

40. That was fun. I thought that it was going to be a quick Monday job, but got slower and slower in the bottom half, with SMOOTHIES also (like Ace above me as I type this) my LOI. Did not parse IMPORTANT MATTER; thanks Muffyword@6. And thanks loonapick and Philistine.

41. Very enjoyable and a challenge for a Monday. In common with others I had some parsing queries which have been cleared up by loonapick and other bloggers – many thanks.
    Some brilliant clues but I’ll single out ACIDIC – lovely construction and deceptive definition, and BARDIC – for proper use of ellipsis… Thank you Philistine.

42. Thanks for the blog , great puzzle , so many neat clues but not really suitable for a Monday .
    Going to be very picky about IMPORTANT MATTER , reversed charges not enough for anti-matter although it can be true we also have neutrons , lambda-zero , double bottom xi etc and three types of neutrino all with anti-particles . It is Lepton Number or Baryon Number that is reversed . It was a pretty brilliant clue though .
    I note that AlanC did not reach Number 1 but did appear in 1 Across .

43. Tramp on Friday, Arachne on Saturday, and Philistine on Monday — I can’t think of a better line-up than that! Thanks Philistine for the entertainment with a bit of challenge woven into it. Lots of great clues — EGOTIST (brilliant in its simplicity), DEBRIEF, REPRESSION (nice surface), PUBLIC SECTOR, the playful ACIDIC, and RODEO among others. Thanks loonapick for the blog. [BTW, a little extra sleep is good for the mind & body.]

44. Thanks Philistine and loonapick
    MOOT is one of those auto-antonym words – two meanings virtually opposite to each other. Sanction and cleave are two more that spring to mind.

45. One always learns something from a Philistine puzzle. I’d never come across that meaning of MOOT before. Favourites were the hidden definition in FEEL REMORSE and the nicely surfaced RODEO. Not typical Monday fare, but personally I like it when they mix up the difficulty on different days, “routine bites hard” after all.

46. [Mandarin @45
    You have given me an opportunity to post this great earworm. (Much better than the original, in my opinion!)]

47. Favourites: RODEO, SLOANE RANGER, NEBULOUS.

    New for me: TOMATILLO.

48. I’m not a favourite clues type, but I’ll make an exception for acidic. Loved that.

49. A bit tough for a halfterm Monday. Not helped by looking after the little one.

    Christian Dior was no help to me despite having spent a fortune on the stuff to give to my wife.

    I’m another one who went the antimatter route for IMPORTANT MATTER – I wasn’t fully convinced though.

    Liked REPRESSIONS and SLOANE RANGER (not heard that phrase for decades)

    Thanks blogger and setter

50. I anticipated Roz@42 being “picky” about the definition of antimatter, but I think if you asked a non-scientist on a Clapham omnibus to give an example, they would most likely say positron, which is also what Google comes up with if you search “antimatter electron”. Good enough for a crossword.

    Not yet seen the Monday G-word, so I’ll mention it myself: this was not gentle in the least, and I struggled for the longest time with SMOOTHIES. I was trying to fit in HOT for ‘contentious’, and MOOT was very reluctant to show its head.

    Thanks to Philistine and Loonapick.

51. Thanks both and it entertained for a pleasant time during a train journey.

    gladys@32: Wrong! Under-sleeping is very dangerous, leading to hangovers and recriminations. The rest of the day be jiggered – look after the rest that yesterday has earned first. 😉 (Imho)

    Ace@39, muffin@44: Whence derives this ‘other meaning’ of MOOT pl? And also pl what does ‘moot court’ mean? If I had to have an opinion it would be that MOOT has one meaning (irrelevant) which through usage by those who don’t understand it has been taken to mean ‘arguable’ (and hence ‘controversial’). We must stop this now! Otherwise it will go the way of ‘presently’ and ‘epicentre’. Or even (insert favourite mis-used word….)….

52. Alphalpha @51
    The original meaning was a topic for discussion, for instance at a moot (ancient meeting). The “irrelevant” (no point in discussing it) meaning appeared later.

53. REPRESSION, IRAN, PILAU were my only successes.

    I hope there is a “more Monday” puzzle through the week.

    Thanks for the explanations. Very taxing.

54. Disagree on ear piercing as bling. Bling is an excess of decoration Even if you accept an ear-piercing as the thing in the hole rather than the hole itself it isn’t of necessity bling.

55. I one saw a small ad (in a newspaper (long ago)) offering, inter alia, ‘ear-piercing manicures’. This tickled the burgeoning pedant in me. Little did I know at that time and nothing much has changed.

56. Alphalpha @ 51 The OED has its first reference to MOOT as “ ‘arguable’ (and hence ‘controversial’) “ in 1577, so I’m not convinced that your argument stands up (or it may be moot) 😉 …

57. muffin@52
    “Moot” as an adjective has always meant “arguable” to me. I’ve never come across it meaning “not worth discussing”. It would certainly have confused me if I had.

58. Simon S@56: 😀

59. SH@50 , if my students ever quote “Google” they get sent to Bio-sciences to draw some animals and colour them in neatly .

60. Pino 57,

    I’ve taken MOOT to be capable of meaning “yet to be properly/formally discussed, so not for consideration now”.

    Cheers all.

61. [AlanC@30 – Chelsea Bridge (1941) – the only other “… jazz classic … (7,6)” I could find for Brendan on Saturday]

62. Roz@59. Of course you do. But we are not in a physics seminar – this is a discussion about crossword clues. 🙂

63. For what it’s worth my 1993 Chambers has only one word for MOOT as an adjective – debatable.

64. Oddly enough I found this one easier than most Mondays. Perhaps being old enough to remember Sloane Rangers gave me an edge 🙂

65. Just finished (on Friday🙃), it’s been a hard week with a brutal quick cryptic too.

    Lots to love, lots to baffle. Google NGRAMS puts the peak of Sloane Ranger usage firmly before my birth , with a surprising second peak while in primary schools, so I don’t feel too bad about that one (proud to have got as far as SLOANE R _ _ _ W) before revealing. Believing that Christian Dior was American also didn’t help me (I have no defence here, I don’t have a clue why I thought that).

    Loved antimatter, pilau and ear piercing (always makes me happy to see a relative neologism in a crossword, makes up for all the last century trivia I’m having to learn).

    Only quibblet is the definition of Ad hoc – Chambers defines it as “for one particular purpose” and IMO that ‘particular’ matters. Easy enough from the word play, so not a real complaint, just felt a bit off as a definition.

66. Completed!

    Loved IMPORT ANTIMATTER for “bring in stuff with reversed charges” — very funny and clever. Thanks Roz@42 for clarifying. It seems to me, though, that if antimatter contains any particles with reversed charges (as I think it does), the condition is satisfied for the clue

    BEER HALL could have been “Drink venue where Tarzan Spooner says the dance is taking place”

Comments are closed.