Another appearance by Philistine in the prize slot and as it’s exactly 12 weeks since his last appearance it falls to me to blog it again (and it’s the third time this year).
Although this was perhaps on the 3 down side, it was not without its challenges, particularly when it came to parsing 5 down. I wondered if 3 down and its synonyms were perhaps a coded message to those posters who complain about Philistine’s (and other setters’) puzzles in the prize slot being too easy? Timon and I enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing another Philistine puzzle in the prize slot on 19 October.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FASTENS | Fixes tennis nets after slice returns (7) |
| Hidden and reversed in “tennis nets after”. | ||
| 5 | LURCHED | Tempted to carry Olympic torch, at last took faltering steps (7) |
| Final letters of Olympic torch in LURED. | ||
| 9 | NEEDS MUST | Mused around at home? It’s necessary (5,4) |
| *MUSED in NEST (at home). I wasn’t entirely happy that the definition adequately indicated the verbal phrase in the solution. | ||
| 10 | PARSE | Analyse possible pass across the pond (5) |
| My original suggestion that this was a homophone is clearly wrong: it’s P (ARSE) where ASS in the USA is the equivalent of ARSE in the UK. Thanks to all who pointed this out. | ||
| 11, 12, 21 | LIKE FALLING OFF A LOG | Enjoy dropping rubbish and go back for 3 (4,7,3,1,3) |
| A charade of LIKE FALLING OFFAL plus GO (rev). | ||
| 12 | See 11 | |
| 14, 18 | A PIECE OF CAKE | 3 one might have with tea (1,5,2,4) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 15 | KNAVERY | Mischief in Kenya, oddly so (7) |
| Odd letters in Kenya, VERY. | ||
| 16 | CORDOBA | Company board rebuilt city (7) |
| CO *BOARD. | ||
| 18 | See 14 | |
| 20 | RESCHEDULE | See 5 across out to find another date (10) |
| SEE *LURCHED. | ||
| 21 | See 11 | |
| 24 | CLIMB | Scale camel’s head and leg? (5) |
| C(amel) LIMB. | ||
| 25 | ABDICATED | Diminished Richard IV gone inside, having stepped down (9) |
| DIC(k) (the fourth letter having gone) inside ABATED. | ||
| 26 | EYEWASH | Blarney Stone finally located next to trees (7) |
| (Ston)E YEW ASH. A slightly loose definition, perhaps. | ||
| 27 | EXTINCT | No more metal for a spot on (7) |
| TIN for A in EXACT. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FINAL | Terminal Five is not always ‘Ladies First’ (5) |
| Initial letters. | ||
| 2 | SPEAK UP | Boozer up for 3? I can’t hear you (5,2) |
| SPEAKEASY with UP for EASY. | ||
| 3 | EASY | Could be a yes-or-no challenge (4) |
| * A YES. | ||
| 4 | SAUSAGES AND MASH | Classic fare is great success, including an American Smooth — about time! (8,3,4) |
| AGE (time) in A US SAND (an American Smooth) in SMASH. | ||
| 5 | LITTLE KNOWLEDGE | Dangerous thing, a short weekend? (6,9) |
| WEEKEN(d) giving WEE (a little) KEN (knowledge). Thanks to Gaufrid for suggesting what is surely the correct parsing. I came up with A SAT (being a short weekend!) (Standard Assessment Test) may show a little knowledge… The dangerous thing is a reference to Alexander Pope’s An essay on criticism, although the exact quotation is “a little learning is a dang’rous thing”. | ||
| 6 | REPENTANCE | Note conclusion of atonement in punishment and remorse (10) |
| RE (note) (atonemen)T in PENANCE (punishment). | ||
| 7 | HORMONE | Growth for one in hospital getting no more treatment (7) |
| H *(NO MORE). A definition by example, really. | ||
| 8 | DEEP-FRY | Climbing weed on Stephen Cook (4-3) |
| PEED (rev), FRY. Worthy of Paul. | ||
| 13 | XENOPHOBIA | Swirling in a box: hope and fear (10) |
| *(IN A BOX HOPE). Nicely allusive to Pandora’s box. | ||
| 16 | CORACLE | Boat picked up sea forecast (7) |
| C (homophone “picked up”) ORACLE (forecast). | ||
| 17 | RESPITE | Break in hostility after war game ends (7) |
| Last letters (ends) of war game, SPITE (hostility). | ||
| 19 | KILOTON | Amount of explosive is what 23 may have, covering nothing (7) |
| O (nothing) in KILT ON(what Scot may have). | ||
| 22 | GODOT | One waited for dog to come back separately (5) |
| DOG TO (both rev). | ||
| 23 | SCOT | Caledonian mother leaving something for luck (4) |
| (ma)SCOT. | ||
*anagram
Thanks bridgesong. I agree some 3dn and some which needed quite a lot of staring at before enlightenment. I knew what the answers had to be but couldn’t explain them to myself. I spent some time trying to fit a B into 2d and knew the metal was TIN in 27a but the logic of that escaped me for some time.
Re 10a, I think I convinced myself that pass = P + ASS, which would be the American (across the pond) version of P + ARSE. Tenuous, but I agree the “American pronunciation homophone” doesn’t work. I enjoyed this too – thanks to setter and blogger.
I got the same explanation for 10a as Quirister, and I thought it was clever. Speaking as an American, I’ve never heard any of my compatriots pronounce “pass” with an “r” sound in the middle–but even if they did, the vowel for us is different: “pass” has the same vowel as “cat,” not the “a” in “father” that “parse” has. So definitely no way it’s a homophone in American. (There are Americans who insert an “r” in the middle of a syllable, for example talking about going to “warsh” the windows–but they still don’t have the right vowel to make “parse” mean “pass.”)
Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong. I agree with Iroquois@3 about PARSE (the obvious answer but I could not make it work). I did not get to this puzzle until Friday and found some of it EASY, but I needed help with a lot of parsing and was defeated by SCOT and EXTINCT.
It will be interesting to see the comments that follow. This x-word was, in a word, easy. Like 3d, and 12a. All over and done with, inside an hour. So much for a week’s entertainment, let alone a prize offering.
Rather than universal understanding (which would imply an increased need for editorial responsibility) I increasingly suspect that people’s differently thinking styles mesh differently with different compilers. For this example, fortunately mine corresponded to Philistine’s way of thinking. But the x-words that followed this week past were quite at odds.
Did in fact the editor(s) perceive this x-word as being harder than those that followed in the week? What was the experience of other solvers?
A minor pick is 16d, where I would see a difference between the source and the product thereof. Agree Q@2 and I@3 re 10a, is a stretch, maybe but a stretch. 22a good for the construction, but one waiting must be a gimme. 8a good for the need to split the name in two for the solve.
Ta Bridgesong and Philistine for the puzzle.
I live in the States now, and work with parsers, so often hear the word several times a day, in the non-crossword context (NLP). No confusion with pass at all.
Unusual to see two “A for B” clues in the same puzzle; not a problem, but having seen the first, one is rather primed for the second.
Thanks both.
My favourites were NEEDS MUST, LIKE FALLING OFF A LOG, DEEP FRY, SAUSAGES AND MASH.
I could not parse the DIC in AB/DIC/ATED; 2d speak up; 5d little knowledge.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong.
Not terribly difficult to complete, but with some deviously elusive wordplay. Without KILOTON I never would have gotten, let alone parsed, SCOT, and even after getting the two long phrases and guessing EASY for 3d, it took me way too long to see the well-disguised anagram. I loved SPEAK UP, NEEDS MUST, and PARSE once I figured out how they worked, and RESPITE for its surface. My only question mark was at 27a. The clue seems to imply that “no more” with “metal for a” gives “spot on,” but it’s actually the other way around.
Regarding PARSE, I don’t think Philistine intended to suggest anything about American pronunciation. As Quirister wrote, I think the clue suggests that since the English “arse” is the American “ass,” then p+arse could become p+ass “across the pond.”
Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.
Parsed 10a as Quirister @2. Works for me.
My margin note says Easy except for oracle as ?verb, ?noun in 16d. Not quite so easy actually, as I missed the cute wee ken parsing of 5d and the tin for a in 27ac, d’oh. Smile groan for the short Dick in abated. Quite fun, leaving time for Dean Mayer and Jeff Pearce in an Oz weekend broadsheet (hope that’s not non-u to mention). Thanks Philistine and Bridgesong.
[JinA if you’re online, hope the Stones concert was terrific]
Small point on 22 – the definition is surely ‘One waited FOR’. It wasn’t Godot who was doing the waiting!
Thanks for an enjoyable crossword, which does seem to confirm the trend for some Saturday puzzles to be no harder than many weekday ones. I have no problem with that (except on occasions when I’ve got a long train journey to fill).
Thanks bridgesong [and Timon].
The device used in 10ac is a Philistine trademark. I’ve seen half a dozen or more now [the first one was in a puzzle I blogged and completely foxed me] and I’ve just about got used to looking out for them now. The most recent example was in Philistine’s Goliath FT Prize puzzle two weeks ago, blogged on Thursday: Pains from smalls (6).
Many thanks to Philistine for another great puzzle.
5 dn Pedantically peeved by this, since what Pope wrote was that A little learing was a dangerous thing. He was too intelligent to think that of knowledge however little.
Jonathan
JASH @13
Speaking of pedantically, I feel bad pointing out that you had a typo in “learning”! It is such a common misquotation that the solution works, anyway. I failed to PARSE it though, so thanks to bridgesong for the blog.
Anyway, I enjoyed this once the phrases for EASY went in giving all those crossers. Thanks to Philistine for a fun and varied challenge.
Re 10ac: I am reminded of a programme on Radio 3 many years ago where they were comparing recordings of William Walton’s Façade, settings of poems by Edith Sitwell for reciter and ensemble. One of the poems starts “Long steel grass – The white soldiers pass – The light is braying like an ass.” It was pointed out that to a normal English speaker, grass/pass/ass do not rhyme. Only in two recordings did the words rhyme. One was an American reciter, who used a short ‘a’ for all three words, the other was Sitwell herself, who pronounced “ass” as “arse”.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong
A minor point, but I think WEE in 5D just gives ‘little’, with the ‘A’ of the Pope near-phrase coming rom the clue itself.
5d I parsed as short = LITTLE and week end = K = KNOWLEDGE but I prefer Gaufrid’s version. I’ve only come across K = knowledge as part of GK on this site so it would be a tad self-referential. An online dictionary gives this usage – as one of 53 – but it isn’t in Chambers so it doesn’t count!
Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.
Snap with Pino @17 re weekend – ‘k’ as an abbreviation is common in business settings e.g. in knowledge engineering – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_engineering. OTOH, agreed that Gaufrid’s reading is more elegant. BTW, I’m not sure about bashing the ‘knowledge’ in this. The ‘misquote’ seems to be largely coeval with the phrase from Pope (and may even have preceded it) and has been in use since: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing.html.
Many thanks both – lots of fun solving and a great blog.
Enjoyable puzzle – particularly liked DEEP FRY, could indeed have been Paul, and LIKE FALLING OFF A LOG, a write in for Yorkshire Lass whose dad was a butcher. Thanks for the help with parsing PARSE: we got the accepted conclusion but were uncertain of it.
I’ve just emerged from today’s Enigmatist and thought I’d flush my head out with the Philistine. A nice gentle solve although KILITON took the crossers to see. Liked GODOT.
Thanks Philistine.
I failed to parse LITTLE KNOWLEDGE, even after having another last go before coming here. Thanks to Gaufrid and Bridgesong for the enlightenment. Ilike it a lot.
I did work out how to parse PARSE though, being wise to what I have dubbed elsewhere ‘the Philistine device’.
The grammar of the phrase NEEDS MUST is fairly mysterious anyway, perhaps because of its archaic origin.
As g larsen pointed out, Godot didn’t wait but was waited for (please note, chinoz).
Ximeneans might complain about “first” in 1d and the rolling together in 3d of wordplay and def in “yes-or-no”, but they really shouldn’t be doing Philistine’s puzzles.
Nice pdm when I finally understood “weed” and abandoned STIR-FRY as candidate for 8d.
I think it’s right to say(?) there hasn’t been a Richard IV, so the IV had to be doing something else.
In 4d, is ‘an’ in the clue a synonym for A in the answer? I don’t think you can say ‘a US sand’ is synonymous with “an American Smooth”: ‘sand’ and ‘smooth’ are only synonymous in the verbal sense.
Reasonably easy, though harder than falling off a log, I’d say.
Not sure why Tony@21 directs me to take note of Godot being waited for – perhaps he missed the title of the play?
Bridgesong, re 22a, I think you should have underlined the whole of “one waited for” as that is the definition, not just “one waited”.
Roberto@23 – as already pointed out at @11 above.
Chinoz @22: in your original comment you said “one waiting must be a gimme” thereby repeating my error in not underlining “for” as part of the definition of Godot.
Thank you Bridgesong – I now see that there was a (mis-) interpretation: In my original comment I was focusing on the ease of solution and so threw in a quick, but evidently ill considered, word grab of the clue.
Apologies to Tony if my response was short. But being told so directly to suck eggs on the basis of an incorrect interpretation does get the dander up. Perhaps a more neutral suggestion of possible error could also figure, and then we all might feel respected?
Looking forward to the new week of x-words and commentary.
Ch.
g larsen@24 you are right, my apologies, but I was responding to the later posts regarding the same point. Perhaps bridgesong should have corrected the initial post.
Roberto, thanks, no problem.
There’s a misprint in 6d in the current Prize. Anyone care to email the editor?
Online I mean of course, don’t know about print (but the PDF has it).
Really enjoyed the puzzle as always with Philistine. Struggled parsing 5d and had to call in assistance.
Thank you Philistine and bridgesong.
“First”, does not, has never, will never, mean “The first letters of the preceding five words”. Wake up for God’s sake.
I consider myself a normal English speaker and I pronounce grass, pass and ass so that they rhyme. Perhaps Dormouse needs a broader viewpoint!