Guardian 29,711 – Philistine

88 comments on “Guardian 29,711 – Philistine”

1. Found this great fun – OSTRICH raised a smile, it was good to see ANAPAEST making an appearance, and I enjoyed the cheeky def for EXCLAMATION MARK. Yes, over all too soon, but very enjoyable even so. Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

2. Thanks Philistine and Andrew
   Yes, great fun. I laughed at OSTRICH, OS CARS, and GOA MISS.

3. Loved ANAPAEST, OSCARS, E MARK, MINERVA, J POTATO and EARDRUM.
   Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

4. What MOH and muffin said.

5. Lovely puzzle and not too difficult for this relative novice. Somewhat defeated by ANAPAEST though, as I only know it without the third A, which I see in Chambers is the American spelling (as well as in my native Dutch).

   Really liked OSTRICH, EXCLAMATION MARK, OSCARS, GO AMISS and NEOCONS today

6. If I’m permitted one very minor pedantic quibblet… in 10a, “this country” properly speaking isn’t GB, it’s UK… but UIKLET doesn’t work, obvs. “In this island” would have done the job, but we shall let it slide…

7. On reflection it looks straightforward, but on my first quick pass I only entered MINERVA and JACKET POTATO. ANAPAEST works well enough but I’ve never seen it before and will never use it. I only think of 1D in the negative e.g. wouldn’t GO AMISS. Be would have been my choice of 2-letter word if it weren’t in the clue. Anyway, I didn’t think it was that easy but it did all tumble pretty quickly and I enjoyed what felt more like a challenge to me than it did to other early commenters. Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

8. This must be one of my quickest Philistine solves but it’s up there with the most enjoyable. As Andrew implies, this would be a great puzzle to enthuse a newbie.

   I loved ESCARGOT, WALRUS, EXCLAMATION MARK, OSTRICH, MINERVA, CITADEL and, especially, ANAPAEST, remembering the day I learned this word in an English lesson, when my friend passed me a cartoon of a stick girl she’d drawn, labelled ‘Anna Peastick’.

   Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

9. MOH@6. A pedantic quibblet about your pedantic quibblet. GB isn’t AN island – it’s a number of islands.

10. [I’ve always been puzzled when British teams compete in sporting events as “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. How is that different from the UK?]

11. [It’s not, muffin@10. It is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Thus UK is bigger than GB.]

12. Muffin @10, I’m guessing it’s because the Manx Missile, Mark Cavendish, was a great asset to Team GB, but the Isle of Man is not part of the UK.
    It is right in the middle of GB and NI, though.

13. [I thought so, Auriga. I wonder why they use “GB and NI” instead of “UK” then?

    Thanks also MCourtney. What would it have to be called to include IOM as well, then? Is the IOM part of GB? It’s all very confusing!]

14. Quite a tough puzzle. I disagree with Andrew that this could be a Quiptic. On my first pass I did not solve a single clue! Glad I persevered though.

    Obviously it is relative, whether we find a puzzle easy or hard. But to read a whole lot of posts saying how easy this puzzle was – either on the Guardian blog or here – just makes me think you are more experienced than me, and often it just makes me feel dumb!

    I could not parse 1ac; 22ac apart from CARS.

    New for me: ANAPAEST.

15. [Irritatingly, in the Olympics we’re now referred to as just Team GB.]

16. What Eileen said @8. Fun and straightforward apart from ANAPAEST. NEOCONS, EXCLAMATION MARK and EARTH SHATTERING were favourites.

    Ta Philistine & Andrew.

17. Personally, I have always rather treasured the time a French commentator translated Grande Bretagne as Great Brittany, prompting indignant splutterings from (I think it was) Rolf Harris. Kinda accurately states our modern place in the world.
    Good fun and nothing too impenetrable: particular favourites ESCARGOT, OSCARS, EXCLAMATION MARK (brilliant definition!), ASYLUM, OSTRICH, ACROPOLIS. But I’d certainly agree with michelle @14 that this is way above Quiptic level.
    Not entirely convinced that haute cuisine is an anapaest – minute steak and fish ‘n’ chips are both di-di-dah while I’d have thought haute cuisine was dah-di-dah. But that’s probably just me being thick.
    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

18. NeilH @17

    I must admit to the same thoughts about haute cuisine – but it’s just such a lovely clue. 😉

19. Over too quickly (apart from briefly trying to make King Edward be a MASHED POTATO) but a pleasure to solve. favourites ESCARGOT, UNTIL, ANAPAEST, ‘EARDRUM, OSCARS and lots of others. And one of the occasions when it was important not to ignore the punctuation(!)

20. I enjoyed this.

    Amazing coincidence, sometime last year I wrote the clue, Income tax alarm…king becomes anxious!

21. I thought UNTIL was a clever one. Enjoyable puzzle, thank you Ph and A.

22. Crispy @9, I fear I must persist in my quibbleting – I’ve always understood that GB was the geographical name of the (single) large island that comprises England, Scotland and Wales, so not including the Scottish islands, Anglesey, Lundy, Isle of Man etc etc, which are classed as part of the British Isles.

23. There seems to be a typo in the clue to WALRUS: RSPC isn’t a recognised abbreviation, so either RSPCA was intended, or (as your blog suggests), RSPB.

24. bridgesong @23
    RSPCA seems more likely, as walruses aren’t birds!

25. moh@22 I understood that, geographically, “Britain” refers to the large island but “Great Britain” is the large island and the smaller islands of England, Scotland and Wales (not the Isle of Man.) Confusingly, “Britain” is also used politically as shorthand for the UK.

26. NeilH@17 ‘haute cuisine’ has the same stress pattern as the other two – there is secondary stress on the first syllable but the primary stress falls on the final one. Notice for example how the stress in ‘MINute’ transfers to ‘steak’ in ‘minute STEAK’ but doesn’t disappear completely.

27. Agree with MOH @ 22 re GB vs UK vs British Isles.
    Whilst we’re quibbleting I think there’s an anagram indicator missing in the blog entry for 3? AGHAST*
    I’d also rate this well above Quiptic level as I am now at a level where I can usually smash Quiptics in 30 minutes or so, this took me significantly longer.
    Thanks to Philistine for a very well clued puzzle with plenty of “oh, yes” moments, and Andrew for the blog.

28. [MOH @ 22. According to both Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Ordnance Survey:

    – The British Isles include the whole of the island of Ireland;
    – Great Britain includes the various islands around the mainland;
    – UK is GB plus Northern Island.
    I tried to post a link to the OS explanation, but it didn’t work]

29. Michelle @14 I was already with you @7.

    I don’t know about you, but when a niche word like ANAPAEST is one of the first in, I think “Oh god, I may hardly know any of these!” Psychologically, I am then looking for complexity that might not be there. The clueing for that word was quite clear, but it may have all felt easier if that one had gone in last.

30. Is anapaest an anapaest? I think the third syllable is short.

31. [Crispy @28, that’s interesting. I think the Wikipedia entry on Great Britain (OK, maybe not the highest authority in such matters) actually bears us both out. This is clearly a can of worms, and I now realise I probably should have left my tin opener in the drawer.]

32. Cryptocyclist @30, I think anapaest is actually a dactyl

33. Martin@7 – yes, I did see you comment@7 and was thankful that I was not the only one! It is often hard to describe why I find a certain puzzle tough or difficult, but not solving a single clue on my first pass of the clues is usually one of the indicators of difficulty level!

    Anyway, I am glad I persevered because in the end I managed to solve the whole puzzle and even enjoyed it mildly 😉

34. [I Googled GB too, and the hits didn’t agree on whether or not it included the smaller islands.]

35. There’s no need to quibble about GB! “Britain” and “Great Britain” are both frequently used as shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Wikipedia: “Great Britain is sometimes used as a short form and is the name used by the UK in some international organisations”.

    “In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.” (Churchill)

    “If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the high seas” (Roosevelt)

36. The British isles is an expression which is not always popular in the Republic of Ireland for obvious reasons. The expression Hiberno-Anglican Archipelago is one which resolves the problem – but it’s a bit of a mouthful! Unsure if the Anglican part will give equal offence to Scotland and Wales

37. My first few in were mostly through definition rather than an understanding of how exactly they parsed – UNTIL, HYENAS, GAUCHE and GIBLET. But did find this an easier solve than is normally the case with this fine setter. Loi was ANAPAEST, which had to be that through the clueing and four crossers in place, but I had to look that one up for complete clarity. Many thanks Philistine and Andrew…

38. The United Kingdom technically refers to the UNION of the KINGDOMS of England and Scotland in 1707 to form the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’. This was then united with the Kingdom of Ireland (which had been a dependant territory of England since 1542) to form the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ in 1801. It was then modified again to just Northern Ireland in 1927, following the secession of the Irish Free State (now Republic of Ireland).

39. In French, all syllables of haute cuisine are stressed equally, so not really an example of anapaest

40. I thought this was hard! For ages I only had JACKET POTATO and CAMEL. I was pleased to figure out the anagram for EXCLAMATION MARK – not straightforward with the 75% bit and the hidden definition. I finished it in the end but it took a while and I couldn’t parse everything. I had no idea that ‘ost’ was German for ‘east’.

41. Lots of chuckles throughout this puzzle. Favourite ACROPOLIS. Like some others, I hardly got anything in on the first pass, but it felt quite gentle in the end. Great work Philistine!

    I think the definition in OSTRICH is “reality denier”, only half of it is underlined in the blog. Thanks to Andrew also!

42. As others have said, the question of what Great Britain means is very hard to answer, and what geographers say may be different to common usage. When you throw in UK too, most people who live here would probably struggle to say what islands are included. The issue is complicated by the status of places like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands which (I hope I am correct) are Crown Dependencies and share their monarch with the UK but are not part of it

43. I found this quite tough to get started and struggled to finish.
    Also another dissenting voice against the old colonial term British Isles.

44. Curious how a puzzle can feel really difficult when doing a first scan through the clues but on completion and review turns out to have been straightforward.
    On a personal level this may equate to me generally starting when I first wake up at c. 05:00. Then taking a more in-depth look during and after tea and toast, or after a round of golf. Or both.
    New to me was ANAPAEST but fairly clued and an easy solve after getting all the crossers.
    I say ‘new to me’ but at my age I suspect I have seen and forgotten so many arcane words during my crossword solving years.

45. I am in the camp of starting very slowly with barely a toehold after the first pass. After that things slowly came together. But I would not describe this as easy, let alone Quiptic level.

    ANAPAEST was new to me, yet also one of my first ones in.

46. To answer muffin @10, I think the UK Olympics team is called Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GBR) to distinguish from Ukraine, which is UKR.

    This was a delightful solve. I liked the reverse clue for EARTH-SHATTERING, the wordplays for ESCARGOT and OSTRICH, the OS CARS, GOA MISS and EXCLAMATION MARK (!)

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

47. Oh well, I was pleased with myself for finishing until coming here and being told it was quiptic level.
    Anyway I thought it was excellent. My LOI was POMPOM which was a terrific clue. The coincidence being that this Pom got his Ashes tickets this morning.
    Thanks all.

48. My only comment on the UK/GB discussion is that its about time that we dropped the ‘Great’!

49. A delicious puzzle!!! I loved seeing this one gradually unfold. I ticked clue after clue, only held up by a couple of incomplete parses for 21a ANAPAEST and 2d UNTIL (the latter now seems so obvious!). Many many thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

50. Layman @45 – forgive me if it’s what you meant…it’s a ‘reverse anagram’…if you ‘shatter’ EARTH, you get HEART

51. Thanks for the blog , I did not get many cold-solving the Across , a few more with the Downs , when I put them in I found the grid very helpful , lots of first letters . To make it last longer people should try each clue individually without using the grid .
    Very classy puzzle , UNTIL my favourite out of many but I did keep hoping for the trademark fission clue .
    KNICKERS very similar to the first ever clue from Paul , I spent too long trying to fit divers into the answer .

52. Nice puzzle. I would have said it’s on the gentler side, but not that it was easy.

    Geographucally, I liked the two Easts and the whole UK/GB discussion above.

    Philistine pulled a little bit of a fast one today with “30 seconds” = “half a minute” = MIN, because generally a friend of your friend is not your friend. If he had used “tin” to clue “is able”, say, because both = “can” there would have been objections. Maybe the MIN case passes because one of the steps isn’t straight synonymy, or maybe because it’s just fun.

53. It is RSPC in the paper but it does come at the end of a line so perhaps the A got chopped somehow .

54. Very clever and enjoyable for me. I would agree with those who said it wasn’t Quiptic level, if only because of the many novel devices, like the deletion of the jay going round, the punctuation mark as definition (not unprecedented but something that could well throw a new solver), and some of the puns like OSCARS and POMPOM (which I’d hyphenate). But I liked all those! Good to have some new devices that are fair. Also particularly liked the cleverly hidden definition for PUNISHED (LOI) and the reverse anagram for EARTH-SHATTERING.

    Also praise for the placement of JACKET POTATO (another one that might disconcert someone who doesn’t know the King Edward potato that shows up so much). The grid is almost completely disconnected from top to bottom, with only two lights shared. The two-part answer meant a lot of extra footholds in the bottom half.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew!

    [With all the disputation about GB, Philistine may have gotten away with something even more controversial–there’s a legendary rant from an ornithologist (reproduced here) about whether it was OK to call jackdaws crows just because they’re in the crow family. I guess the rant includes the idea that if you’re going to call jackdaws crows, you may as well call jays crows too, and one person’s modus tollens is another’s modus ponens.]

55. Great fun, but defeated by the nho of ANAPAEST. Got the wordplay right but lost the flip on where the anagrammed letters should go.

    I laughed at a few of these: OSCARS, PUNISHED, EXCLAMATION MARK, OSTRICH, HYENAS.

    Great fun for the early week even if ultimately a fail.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew

56. [matt w @54
    With respect, that “rant” is nonsense. If you just use the term “a crow”, you are referring to the crow family – Corvidae. – so including ravens, jays, magpies and so on. If you want to make sure that you are referring to a specific “crow”, you too need to be more specific – Carrion Crow, Hooded Crow. etc.
    The black crows used to follow a rule: if you see more than two “crows” together, they are rooks; if you see fewer than three rooks, they are carrion crows. However recently around here they have forgotten this rule!]

57. NeilH@17 and Redrodney@26 – I’m almost certain that the examples given in the clue are DACTYLS, not ANAPAESTS.

    I’ve not seen anyone else comment this, here or in the Guardian comments, but surely the stresses fall on FISH, MIN- and HAUTE in standard English pronunciation?

    If anyone has a thought, let me know. My credentials (for what it’s worth!) are a BA in English, MA in Comparative Literature and a somewhat lapsed but previously very strong interest in poetry.

58. Thanks P and A. No quibbles from me. I thought this was terrific. Very witty, with lots of interesting trickery. Another proof that a crossword can be great without being super difficult. Chapeau!

59. Staticman @55 Why not just look up words beginning with ANAP? There aren’t that many. Surely picking up a dictionary isn’t cheating? You’re going to learn the word one way or another. Obviously, it’s your puzzle and you can do what you like, I’m just interested.

60. Great fun. Thanks Philistine. My favourite was UNTIL, once I had seen Andrew’s explanation. Hidden in plain sight! Thanks Andrew too.

    Like Michelle above, I struggled at first pass to get anything into the grid, but once a couple of light bulbs came on it became a steady solve, helped a lot by mostly accessible definitions. Not quiptic level in my view, but I find that recognising the definition is more than half the battle most of the time.

    As noted by Ravenrider @42, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are Crown Dependencies, not part of the UK. (Laws differ somewhat, and they were never part of the EU for example.)

    Thanks Andrew too.

61. Thanks Philistine for a super crossword. I thought this was going to be a challenge (my FOI was ESCARGOT) but somehow everything fell into place rather quickly. Tons of good clues including UNTIL, OSTRICH, and EXCLAMATION MARK. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

62. A quaint name Crown Dependency , translates as tax dodging .

63. Trochee trips from long to short;
    From long to long in solemn sort
    Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
    Ever to come up with Dactyl’s trisyllable.
    Iambics march from short to long.
    With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
    One syllable long, with one short at each side,
    Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride —
    First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
    Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer. S T Coleridge

    I learned a shorter and slightly mangled version of this from my father as a yoof. The examples in the clue aren’t anap(a)ests. The first two are da-di-da, and “haute cuisine” as Pent*** points out @39, has three equal stresses — I’d say in both French and English. A sesquispondee, perhaps.

    It’s news to me that we added the a to anapaests, usually we Yanks take away the a or o in medical and other words of Greek origin. Was this just putting on airs or what?

    I don’t think of EARTH-SHATTERING (overpowering, say) as “massive” (very large). Other thoughts?

    I never would have got jaUNTILy in a million years, ornithological considerations aside.

    Thanks, Philistine and Andrew.

64. In this country it’s an ANAPEST, so I was baffled by the extra A. I tried ANAPESTA first, figuring that might be a logical variant. Then of course I did remember that we over here do have a habit of reducing the digraphs ae and oe to just e. That’s often tripped me up in these puzzles the first time I encounter a given instance, from h(a)emophila to diarrh(o)ea. Obviously anapests haven’t cropped up here before.

    The best-known example of anapestic poetry: “Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…” Always my example during my time teaching English classes.

    [Re the discussion of UK/GB: words can have multiple meanings, including, unfortunately, geographic words. A certain subset of Latinos get highly offended when the word “American” is used to refer to a citizen of the USA rather than a citizen of the Americas. Sadly, it can mean that too, we have no other word for ourselves, and attempts to invent words like Usanian have died on the vine. By analogy, it’s clear that any term for The United Kingdom or any subset thereof is always going to mean different things to different constituents, and may offend those who feel they were erroneously included or excluded thereby. It’s complicated, because so is language. ]

65. Great crossword that took 2 sittings after a slow start. Tried Trumper as the answer to “reality denier” in 5d but it was soon eliminated by the crossers.
    Thanks to P & A

66. Crispy @ 27, if Great Britain includes the islands that surround the biggest island of GB, does that biggest island have a name? All the others do.

67. I’m another who drew a blank on my first parse – but then KNICKERS hit me and made me smile. (Not that that has anything to do with the crossword.)
    I don’t mind when there are words I’ve never encountered (hello ANAPAEST – I may trouble working you into a conversation), I don’t mind if I can only half-parse some answers and tentatively pencil them in with crossed fingers, I don’t even mind if it takes me an eternity to finish. What I do mind are loose or inaccurate definitions, unnecessarily tortuous parsing, and clues that are just word-salads. (Oh, and also desperate so-called “spoonerisms” that nobody in the real world would ever say!)
    This, however, was a delight from the footballers’ undies onwards. I actually chuckled out loud at several.
    OSTRICH was worth the entrance-fee alone, EARTH-SHATTERING, POMPOM & OSCARS were little beauties, with GO AMISS and CAMEL as runners-up.
    Thanks to Andrew for the blog, especially the parsing of UNTIL, and a Twenty-one gun salute to Philistine for such an entertaining creation.
    And no, it certainly wasn’t a Quiptic!

68. Martin @59 This crossword was not too hard but not too easy for me. To complete such crosswords I use some tools such as thesaurus or sometimes online tools that give me all words that match a pattern. Yes this is cheating a bit, but this also helps you improve your solving and is more satisfying than just abandoning in despair.

    I thought “massive” was a weak synonym for “earth shattering” that in my opinion is more about destroying some important well accepted ideas, facts, or principles, and leaving you in shock.

69. Hi Frogman

    I think that’s all perfectly reasonable. You’re getting more out of the puzzle, learning something and getting better at solving. I enjoy the days when I use nothing at all but I do have a thesaurus on hand. When there’s a parsable but unknown word, like ANAPAEST was for many people today, you either have to look it up somehow or just guess and hope for the best.

70. Just because: this is an example of the perfect placement of a word from today’s crossword. Always makes me laugh.

71. Just because: this is an example of the perfect placement of a word from today’s crossword. Always makes me laugh.

72. [muffin@56 – I’ve heard that expressed rather neatly as “That rook’s a crow, those crows are rooks”. ]

73. What a fun and enjoyable crossword, I looked at it and thought ‘Oh No”. I did my ritual go through the across and down clues and went to sleep, I live on the (West Coast of Canada) so I get the crossword at 4pm local time, I got up this morning I what a difference a sleep makes.

74. Got ‘hashtag’ from letters but not sure I understand the X and Twitter bit.
    Can anyone explain?

75. HASHTAG, I suspect “seeing” is part of the definition. X is somewhere where one will see a proliferation of #s.
    Though Twitter became X nearly aago now, so we should probably move on.

76. Thanks Andrew and Philistine.

    I’m an ok but not great crossword solver. And today’s felt quite gentle and finish able. Im also a completist by nature. So today (as often) I’m feeling like a failure because I’ve never heard of the word “anapaest” even though I understood all of the clue. Even with all of the crossers it’s a 50/50 gamble. Ho hum. It’s things like this that makes me question whether solving is for me or not.

77. Martin D @74: the hashtag–used originally as a means of making your posts searchable by category–started on Twitter, which was later renamed X by everyone’s least-favorite obnoxious tech bro.

78. I agree with Tangerine@41 – the definition for OSTRICH is “reality denier”, not just “denier”.
    The rest – great fun as ever.

79. 1a – where does the word “said” fit in?

    9a – how does HEART = EARTH-SHATTERING?

    1d – where does “young” fit in to the clue/answer?

    I solved 6 clues.

80. Steffen@79
    1a “you” and “u” are pronounced/said the same
    9a HEART is reached by shattering EARTH
    1d “miss” is often used to mean “young woman” though correctly it refers to an unmarried woman of any age.

81. Pino @80: depends on your culture. I was taught (midwestern US with southern parents) that “miss” was reserved for girls, and if she was an adult, I was to call her ma’am, married or not.

82. [ Valentine@63 and mrpenney@64- ‘you Yanks’ didn’t though take the ’o’ out of foetus, rather we Poms added it. The American ‘fetus’ (“offspring” in Latin ) is the correct etymological spelling. The English’foetus’ ‘looks’ more classical but is horribly incorrect, with ‘foetere’ meaning ‘to stink’] Superb puzzle, thanks you P&A

83. Hadrian @82

    On the other hand some Americans decided to incorrectly remove the ‘o’ from ‘amoeba’

84. Michelle@14 in the unlikely event that you revisit this blog. I had the same experience. I put it down to being on holiday and not concentrating. I found all the surfaces totally engrossing and wasn’t able to break in by seeing bits with their cryptic meanings. Over breakfast this morning it was a different story, but it still didn’t feel easy.

    It feels discouraging, but I remind myself that I do crosswords for enjoyment as well as the challenge. If I’m on holiday and doing other things I enjoy, the crossword has to take a back seat for a few days.

85. @ DavidD 57

    Very late to the party here, but for what it’s worth I don’t think they’re dactyls. My go-to examples for dactyls are names like BENedict or JENnifer. If you pronounced the examples from the clue like that you’d sound like you were correcting a waiter who just read your order back to you as “steak and chips” and “sirloin steak”: “no, I said FISH and chips / “actually, I said MINute steak”. To my mind the neutral pronunciations are FISH and CHIPS and MINute STEAK, i.e. stressed unstressed stressed, which is apparently an amphimacer or cretic. But fish and CHIPS i.e. an anapest is closer to the mark than the dactyllic FISHandchips.

    (Edit: Of course I enjoyed the puzzle as well. Thanks Phil)

86. Charlie@85: Thanks for your detailed response.This puzzled me for the rest of the day, but then I forgot about it!

    I think I agree with you – as individual feet they’d tend to be amphimacers, but in individual lines, they’d probably scan according to how they are placed. So, the following would be an iambic tetrameter:

    I’d like some lovely fish and chips

    (though the first foot here could be a spondee),

    while

    Minute steak tastes good to me

    is trochaic.

    But I recall it’s more an art than a science with regard to English poetry, whereas, IIRC the terms are more precise when dealing with Ancient Greek, which I don’t read. Many thanks again!

87. I enjoyed the lengthy discussion of GB vs UK, including the historical origins. But I ended up asking myself, if anyone in ordinary speech said GB instead of UK, or vice versa, would they be misunderstood? I rather think not, and so GB for this country doesn’t merit even a quibbletino.

    I thought this puzzle was up to Philistine’s usual high standard, as was Andrew’s blog. Thanks both.

88. Completed and parsed

    Could 9a EARTH-SHATTERING simply been “Massive heart”?

    GOA MISS was funny. Opens up a lot of possibilites for similar wordplay — GOA BOUT, GOA GAIN, etc…

    23d CAMEL has probably been done before, but it’s a great clue

    DavidD @86, yes, context is everything. How about:
    Fish and chips from the lake
    and a fine minute steak
    are the best haute cuisine
    that you ever have seen.

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