Guardian Cryptic 28,607 by Philistine

83 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,607 by Philistine”

1. I liked this, except for the ones I didn’t! I just didn’t have the patience for parsing ACID TEST or TUMBLEWEED. And while I got ASKING easily, I didn’t think it was fair. I did like HIBERNATE. Definitely a mixed bag today.

2. Thanks for the blog – hadn’t understood saudi or acid test.

3. It was harder to parse than to solve/guess some of my answers. I did not parse 17ac, 2/22d, 8d.

   Favourites: CROSS-DRESSER, APRÈS SKI, SAUDI.

   Thanks, both.

4. thanks for the blog – very helpful! I couldn’t fully parse 21d (legit but sneaky), likewise, 19d the Quarex clue had me stymied even though I backed into the correct solution — is there a King Quarex?

5. Under the hour, so brighter sparks will be well under, but for this plodder far from a write-in with only four in after a peruse of the acrosses. Then it unlocked steadily. Quite liked the qua red trick [tho writers using ‘qua’ alert the wank detector imo], but agree with Dr. Wh about bothering with convoluted Lego-type parses. Peter, 14ac is tom+a+hawk … minor point. Enjoyable, thanks both.

6. … although we inside tum bleed was ok, acid test was a bung and shrug; adding coupon to it and then anagramming to get deposit account definitely falls within my ‘can’t be arsed’ territory…

7. … me @5, should be qua rex, not qua red (bleep autocorrect)…

8. This will split the audience I predict. A rather curious mix of not terribly cryptic write-ins, three well hidden playtex, some fiendishly convoluted, (tortuous even) charades, culminating in an excellent compound anagram.

   I had ticks for BIREME, CARIB, HIBERNATE, ESTIVATE, ACID TEST, and ASKING, but thought that SWIM WITH THE TIDE, CROSS DRESSER, GREENS and SCHOOL were barely cryptic.

   ORCA was my LOI from crossers and I did laugh when I saw how it worked.

   I also noticed that PRECARIOUS can be made from by inserting ‘e-car’ and ‘o’ into prius.

   Thanks PeterO and Philistine.

9. There was lots to enjoy here for me. I made slow but steady progress.

   PDMs for BELOW THE BELT and TOMAHAWK were nice. SAUDI was cheeky. Liked ROBUST for its cleanness, BEEB and ORCA.

   I agree with others about the torturous parsing of ACID TEST and TUMBLEWEED. Did anyone get these by parsing them first? If so, you have my admiration for your skill and/or perseverance.

   LOI was, and I never thought it would happen, the hidden BIREME! That was a new word, as was ESTIVATE.

   Thanks Philistine and PeterO.

10. What Blah @8 said, plus I loved TUMBLEWEED and SALACITY. I own a flat in B&H but that deadly sin has sadly passed me by. Tough old week.

    Ta Philistine & PeterO.

11. There were several I thought rather strange and couldn’t parse, but they all looked much better clues after PeterO explained them, particularly quarex. I was looking for some kind of reverse clue, the lift and separate evaded me.
    Still not sure about “swim with the tide” though. It’s not an expression that comes to mind for me and it was my last one in after a lot of staring. Does it really mean “don’t make waves”? It just means “take the path of least resistance” to me, like the almost identical and snappier “go with the flow”.

12. pdp11@9, yes I did get “tumbleweed” by parsing it first. I began by inventing a lovely new, though implausible, word “theulcweer” instead.

13. I too thought first of ulcer but rejected on grounds if improbability and then proceeded to tum which quickly fave me tumbleweed. However I could not parse acid test at all. Liked some of this a lot but agree the double defns were weak clues. Liked esp ESTIVATE and SAUDI. Thanks to Philistine and PeterO

14. Enjoyed this. I needed Andrew’s help in parsing 17a, but I think that it’s a fair clue even though it’s a tough one.

15. A relatively straightforward end to a difficult week but as I put Estimate in 25ac, strictly speaking a DNF. Choosing a computer game King for 19dn was, IMHO, 11ac!! Thanks to Philistine and PeterO for some clear explanation.

16. Am I right in recalling that a tomahawk was also a kind of cruise missile?

17. A mixed bag, as others have said. Some that were almost impossible to parse (I’ll add VENDETTA to the others mentioned). One – SALACITY – which my source gave as a word from c1600, and which several other sources didn’t have at all when I tried to check if the word existed. I had CAB = American taxi, which left me without a definition (thanks, PeterO). I did think that HIBERNATE was brilliant. Thanks for the challenge, Philistine.

18. I enjoyed this, but after getting estivate and hibernate I was hoping to discover a theme!

19. A curate’s egg. LOI was the well hidden BIREME. Agree with RR@11 about SWIM WITH THE TIDE. Parsing much harder than solving.
    Thanks to Philistine and to PeterO for the parsings.

20. Thanks PeterO, I got into a terrible mess with ACID TEST involving ACT = order, Coupon = face = ID, SET up = TES, also didn’t spot the “Philistine nonsense”, if it is that, in SAUDI, nor the surgeon’s tip.
    I did swap the M for V in ESTIVATE, although I think the clue if anything just tells us to insert a V into “estimate” rather than replace the M with it.
    Agree that a couple of cds are not the best but otherwise enjoyed the struggle and PDMs, thanks Philistine.

21. ravenrider @12 – impressive!

    theulcweer could be a portmanteau neologism for queer/odd theology/religion (possibly of Welsh origin). The world is crying out for such a word!

22. As others have said, rather a mixed bag today. 1ac certainly lulled me into a false sense of security!

    I managed to parse all except ACID TEST – and that shouldn’t have been as difficult as I found it, as we’ve had several clues of that kind lately.

    I had ticks for APRÈS-SKI, the craftily hidden BIREME, TOMAHAWK, ESTIVATE / HIBERNATE, OVERBOARD, LA BOHÈME, TUMBLEWEED, PRECARIOUS and ASKING.

    Thanks to Philistine for the workout and PeterO for the blog.

23. Struggled parsing bits of that, and still don’t understand ACID TEST, though I did get then all in.

    BIREME, as ever with these ‘REME rowing boats which we only hear of nowadays in crosswords, put me in mind of the quinquireme in John Masefield’s cargoes. Here is the lovely Joanna reciting it.

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO

24. ravenrider @11 – “swim with the tide” means conforming with normal behaviour, opinion, etc (Chambers) and “make waves” is to stir up a fuss, cause trouble (SOED). Perhaps not strict antonyms but close enough?

25. Me @23. Finger and glide typing trouble there with the link, and them not then.

26. Was totally flummoxed by ESTIVATE, which I now remember, and by the parsing of ACID TEST and LASTLY. But very enjoyable – TUMBLEWEED, ORCA and LA BOHEME in particular. Thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

27. Thanks for the blog and puzzle. Isn’t aestivate normally spelt with an A at the beginning? I imagine this is the US spelling, so shouldn’t a hint be given for that? Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned!

28. Fast beginning, very slow middle part until I eventually thought that SWIM WITH THE TIDE might tick the box for 5d, and then light bulbs popping all over the place as I eventually saw CAPE TOWN and APRES SKI. SALACITY last one in, it had to be that with the lustful definition, but needed PeterO to clarify the parsing. Also couldn’t parse ORCA, as (d)Orsa(l) simply wouldn’t do as any kind of a killer. Parts of this felt quite watery/marinelike, with BIREME and OVERBOARD in the mix as well. SAUDI made me smile…

29. Even with the explanation, I can’t make much sense of ‘acid test’. Is it ‘an ID test’ with the ’n’ somehow mysteriously disappearing ?

30. JamesG @27, it’s all part of the “use less of everything” movement. 😉

31. I always love Philistine’s witty work. I was foiled by 17ac partly because I mulishly insisted on reading “acid test” as “id test” (increasingly required these days for just about everything from house purchases to setting up a bank account) plus … Well yes, exactly, what could the remains two letters be? I feebly thought maybe c was an abbreviation for coupon but knew it couldn’t be, really. Did not work hard enough to see the extra word play and buy-one-get-one free anagram. Thanks PeterO for your due diligence in sussing that.

32. [Crossbar @23 not only in crosswords:
    BIREME trained by Dick Hern and ridden by Willie Carson won the 1980 Oaks. Her winning progeny included Trireme and Quadrireme.]

33. [Penfold @32. Well, I never knew that. ]

34. Lots to like, although I got a bit bogged down in the SW corner.

    I didn’t think SWIM WITH THE TIDE was necessarily weak because at the beginning I thought it was something like ???? rock the boat, but there didn’t seem to be an appropriate four-letter word to start with. I failed to parse ACID TEST but particularly enjoyed SAUDI, ROBUST and TUMBLEWEED.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO.

35. The lift-and-separates always get me, especially if they’re in Latin too! Started googling Quarex when I couldn’t come up with anything and was baffled not to find much of use. A weird puzzle for me in that I got most of the clues without help but failed to parse lots of them. ACID TEST and ORCA went in but I didn’t understand them until I came here. Struggled for a while with 5d: I had SWIM WITH THE -I– and it just wouldn’t click. With the fish? With the wind? Got there in the end.

    Favourites were LA BOHEME and PRECARIOUS. New words for me: BIREME and ESTIVATE. Useful to know some Italian when guessing at those.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO!

36. Thanks Philistine, that was richly entertaining.
    Some clues were harder to parse than solve, and I failed the ACID TEST, thanks PeterO for elucidation.
    Also, I was slow to see both the TV and SAUDI.
    I enjoyed the splash of danger OVERBOARD – a school (pod) of orcas, a warship & a missile!
    And I like the how to spend the summer/winter pairing. HIBERNATE is particularly neat, ROBUST too.

37. Bob Gelsthorpe @29: if you take all the letters of ACID TEST, and jumble them up with the letters of COUPON, you get DEPOSIT ACCOUNT.

    Before George joined Harris and J. to constitute the Three Men in a Boat, was the trireme a BIREME?

    Thanks P & P

38. Bob@29

    “acid test coupon” is an anagram of “deposit account”.

    The wordplay instructs us that the answer to the definition rigorous check (acid test) requires coupon (literally the letters in the word coupon) in order to set up (i.e. angrammed) thus resulting in deposit account.

    This device is used regularly by Azed and is called either a compound or composite anagram. I certainly didn’t expect to see it today.

39. If the ACID TEST of a fair clue is that a high proportion of experienced solvers can parse it, then 17ac seems to fail it. Thanks to Sil’s complaints I was alert to the “Philistine nonsense”, which I enjoyed. TUMBLEWEED was my favourite.

40. By contrast to the US nature of ESTIVATE, noted by jamesg@27, I thought folks might be interested in the UK-ness of VET=surgeon, which I just discovered. When solving for VENDETTA last night, I was thinking that most vets aren’t surgeons and most surgeons aren’t vets, but it’s close enough maybe so let it go and see if anyone comments in the morning. Nobody did, so I looked it up just now and Collins has for veterinarian: “Also called: (esp in Britain) veterinary surgeon”. Maybe its because you can use 3 letters for 17 and a space, or maybe some other reason, but I’ve never heard the longer term used in the US.

41. A mixed bag. Many nifty clues, and some oddly clunky (to me!). Hard to know what to trickery to expect, which I suppose is evidence of skilful setting.

    ravenrider@11- 5dn: I briskly put in SAIL WITH THE WIND only to find when I got to 25a that one of the crossers was wrong. Since the crossers are the only guides to correctness with this clue (as far as I can see) I am a bit miffed.

    Very helpful and to me essential blog – thanks PeterO, and of course Philistine…

42. John R @41; I also tried SAIL WITH THE WIND at the beginning.

43. I usually enjoy Philistine, but this one had quite a few well-I-suppose-so clues. Didn’t parse ORCA, CARIB or ACID TEST, missed the Philistine special in LASTLY (though not in SAUDI). SWIM WITH THE TIDE? I tried DON’T ROCK THE BOAT – neither is very cryptic.
    I did like TUMBLEWEED and CROSS DRESSER.

44. I found this satisfying as, despite 1a, it looked impossible at first but then the answers came thick and fast (though the clever clogs on here wouldn’t call it fast). Rather too many “bung and shrugs” as grantinfreo calls them. Sadly I bunged and shrugged ESTIMATE but otherwise all good.

45. I like lift and separate clues and am very pleased when I spot them – sadly this time I didn’t.

    Like others I found this was very mixed and like LoveableJim @ 35 I got a lot of answers which I then failed to parse. So thanks to PeterO for the explanations

    Thanks Philistine

46. I came to this late after Dr appointment (on phone, with trainee questions!) and help from an expert in getting my computer to work.
    But I managed to solve everything, parsed almost everything, and ORCA was my FOI! However, ROBUST was LOI (shame).
    Some lovely clues as others have posted, plus a couple of slightly dodgy ones.
    Thank you Philistine and Peter

47. Rather uncharacteristically uneven, as most have commented, but lots to like nevertheless. I managed to parse almost everything but failed the ACID TEST….

    I liked ORCA, HIBERNATE, ESTIVATE and PRECARIOUS, but my favourite was TUMBLEWEED. I don’t agree that the clue is tortuous (and it wouldn’t be a Philistine without something medical, or should that be iatrogenic?) – I got it from the crossers but spotted the parsing immediately. I’m not one of the build-it-up-from-the-wordplay-and-then-check-the-definition school. All clues, apart from single cryptic definitions, have two parts and I am happy to use either or both to solve them.

    Thanks to S&B

48. Excellent end to the week, we thought, although we didn’t parse ACID TEST. Fave was As-king!

49. I’m surprised no one (as far as I can see) has yet pointed out that the spelling “Alpha” is wrong for both the car make and the letter of the phonetic alphabet – it should “Alfa” in both cases.

50. Dr Whatson@40

    Interesting point about surgeon=vet. I (and I assume many others here) am familiar with the Royal College of Vetinary Surgeons (RCVS) in my case from the works of James Herriot, every vet in the UK should I believe be registered with the RCVS, and you’ll frequently find MRCVS after their name on letterheads. I certainly didn’t even blink at the equivalence.

51. Andrew @49: Good point – I hadn’t registered this. Also J is Juliett in the NATO phonetic alphabet; both spellings are intended to point non-English speakers to a common pronunciation.

52. I agree with gladys @43 and Gervase @47 about the oddly uneven nature to this puzzle. Straightforward mostly with some tricky parsing. But some barely cryptic clues esp 1a and 5d. BELOW THE BELT and GREENS uncharacteristically weak.

    But there were high points inc SALACITY, APRES SKI, TUMBLEWEED and ESTIVATE (US variation just about ok).

    Thanks PeterO for the blog which was much appreciated today.

    Thanks to Philistine too

53. A few naughty clues today I thought.

    I didn’t spot BIREME hidden but it should be familiar to players of Civilization 6 anyway. 3 men in a boat was neither a bireme nor a trireme it’s to do with how many rows of oars one above the other they have.

54. Thanks Philistine & PeterO. I think Dr W @1 sums up my own opinion nicely – ‘I liked this, except for the ones I didn’t!’ Like others, I couldn’t parse 17a, so thanks for the explanation. Eileen @22 – I know what you mean. The clue is a bit wordy and maybe that’s what made it unnecessarily tricky (you could delete ‘in order’ and it would still work, I reckon).

    I did eventually parse SAUDI after staring at it and scratching my head for a while… oh yeah, this is Philistine… should have remembered. I did remember this was Philistine for seeing the trick in ‘Quarex’, but that’s such an obscure reference that it was a bit of a klaxon to warn us there was funny business (or ‘Philistine nonsense’ if you prefer) afoot.

    Favourites were ESTIVATE and HIBERNATE – nice symmetry. TUMBLEWEED was a good clue, but ‘gastric haemorrhage’ is not a nice thing to think about while solving a crossword.

    Like gladys @43, I initially had DON’T ROCK THE BOAT for 5d, which I reckon is a better fit for the definition. Unfortunately not such a good fit for the crossing letters.

    GIF @5 – about 48 minutes for me, according to the app, but that’s considerably quicker than I was expecting after only filling in two solutions on first pass… the old trick of putting it to one side then coming back to look at it again over lunch proved fruitful.

    Shoaled @16 – yes, it is. And that had me a bit confused for a while.

    Dr W @40 – I thought Americans preferred ‘Veterinarian’ – but I could just be basing that on childhood memories of the Muppets’ Veterinarians Hospital, which still makes me laugh out loud.

    Andrew @49 – good point. I wonder if Philistine had it right initially but it was ‘corrected’ by an overzealous sub-editor?

55. ACID TEST was silly; SWIM WITH THE TIDE doesn’t work at all; and ESTIVATE is an American spelling, which should have been indicated. These annoyances stopped me from enjoying what was, otherwise, a fun challenge.

56. Interesting. It didn’t even cross my mind that the spelling was controversial. Both Collins and Chambers specify ESTIVATE as US spelling, but OED doesn’t distinguish, and includes British citations with this spelling – not just recent ones either.

57. This from Guardian 27,052, Dec 2016: Scar an Arab (5)
    was my first encounter with that Philistine trick. I felt diddled that time, this time it was a write-in, but I suppose 5 years is long enough for a re-run. The blog of that puzzle is quite funny, with Sil getting cross about triangles.

58. I (mostly) enjoyed this, but failed on 13a and 16d, both of which I should have got with no trouble. Grrr. Favourites were SAUDI and LASTLY. Thanks, too, to Crossbar @23 for pointing us to Joanna Lumley’s delightful reading of John Masefield!
    Thanks you PeterO and Philistine.

59. Andrew @49 perhaps it’s a reference to the Greek letter?

60. Who’d-a thunk that there was a city with two cities’ names? You lot never cease to amaze me.

    Anybody else try to work Elvis Presley (“the King”), or half of him (hard in a seven-letter name) into APRES-SKI.

    Quarex brought me to a total stop, though I did google it to find the game character.

    Blah@8 You still need an O to make PRECARIOUS out of pr(e-car)ius.

    I never can remember that quinquireme line. The main one I remember from the poem is not the first phrase but the last — “cheap tin trays.” But surely the most people in ancient Nineveh or Renaissance Spain didn’t need ivory or apes any more than we do — they needed the equivalent of cheap tin trays, just not imported across the sea on expensive vessels like quinquiremes.

    Blah@50 Vet for surgeon is obvious to you because you live in the land of the RCVS. Those of us elsewhere don’t have that association handy. Widdersbel@54 is right — we say “veterinarian.”

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO. I had fun with both of you.

61. Thanks for the blog , mixed bag seems to be the phrase of the day.
    Brilliant compound anagram for ACID TEST rare in the Guardian and my favourite type of clue.
    ESTIVATE has lost its novelty value quickly but the V for M was neat.
    SWIM WITH THE TIDE is a Rufus clue.
    I really liked VENDETTA and TUMBLEWEED.

62. I had SAIL WITH THE TIDE, which I still think is equally valid. Very poor clue. However, SAUDI and CROSS-DRESSER were both very neat. ACID TEST had to be right, but the parsing was well beyond me.

63. I enjoyed this one, but I’m another who failed to parse ACID TEST I blame the rarity of this clue type and the somewhat tricky wording. I’m struggling to see how the phrase “in order to set up” indicates the anagram.
    ESTIVATE and HIBERNATE are a nice pair and left me wondering if there are equivalent terms for spending the spring or autumn?
    Thanks, Phil

64. … and Peter, of course!

65. Spending spring or autumn in a dormant state is probably UNDERGRADUATE.

66. James@57 Thanks for alerting us to the blog from 2016. By strange coincidence, there’s a THONG in that puzzle too. I love the isosceles discussion.

67. Re 17a those used to Azed will have been unsurprised by a “compound anagram” except at finding it here. I don’t usually have time for the daily Guardians but found this worthwhile and with touches of wit. Thanks to Philistine an PeterO.

68. Thanks to Philistine but to PeterO for filling in many parsings.

    I found this a bit of a slog with too few leavening moments (BELOW THE BELT, GREENS). We all have our taste in clue-types and I think I am in the minority in enjoying a good double definition (and even a speaningless moonerism) but I am chastened to see the (for me) advent of the compound anagram in these quarters. I can’t commit to text the words I would use to describe these constructions but none are complimentary; the general gist is that they don’t impress me at any level.

    If any setters are rending their garments on reading this news I sympathise. But I’m not for moving.

    Have a good weekend all.

69. Interesting but unsurprising that regular Azeders liked acid test, and it seems most others didn’t. Like Roz@61 they are my favourite (I’ll admit to being a little over keen on them in the monthly competition clue in which (unlike Widdersbel) I’ve had exactly zero success to date).

    Valentine@60,

    I did say that both ‘e-car’ and ‘o’ were required @8, and @50 I meant to convey the UK nature of the equivalence, please accept my apologies if it wasn’t clearly stated.

    Andrew@49 & Gervase@51, having now checked the NATO alphabet, I am shocked that I never noticed or realised that I was using Alpha and Juliet incorrectly. Thanks for the pointers.

    James@57, thanks for the link, like Petert I enjoyed the isosceles controversy, I admire Sil and value his contributions even when we disagree over Philistine nonsense, I am ashamed to admit I particularly enjoy his outrage (sorry Sil!)

    Alphalpha (Alfalfa?) @68, boo for your views on compound anagrams but thumbs up for speaningless moonerisms!

70. Anyone else spent a few minutes fruitlessly googling SALBIONI for 5a?
    (from the B&H football team)

71. 25a Gazzh@20 pointed out that there didn’t seem to be an instruction to remove the M. Perhaps when I look here in the morning someone will have enlightened us or maybe a night’s sleep will help. I wondered if “dividing by M” might be a weak indication that M is to be removed but the M is needed to be divided by 200 or CC to provide the V.
    It has just occurred to me that “rough” is meant to indicate that ESTIMATE is to be spelt wrongly. If so, I think it’s unfair.

72. Challenging, satisfying and enjoyable. Many thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

73. Just wanted to defend the tumbleweed on its lonely journey across a desert looking for a damp spot to drop its seeds. They were a pain when they took root in our NM backyard but I don’t think they deserve to be considered a “sign of desolation”

74. Pino @71 –
    ESTI(1000/200)ATE = ESTI(5)ATE

75. I also liked the pairing of hibernate and estivate.
    Pino@71. I took ‘rough calculation’ as the defintion.

    I don’t have a problem with SWIM WITH THE TIDE, for ‘don’t make waves’. Apart from the sense of ‘going with the flow’ for both, you are less likely to be thrashing about in the water, making waves, if you swim with the tide rather than against it. It can save your life.

76. Pino@70 I have now made peace with that clue, I think I was just reading it too obviously/inflexibly. “A rough calculation” is ESTIMATE, clear enough and V = 5 is clearly M = 1000 divided by 200. I am now happy that the “dividing 1000 by 200 in” can be an instruction to take the M of Estimate, divide it by 500 and replace it with the resulting V. I had previously just interpreted the “in” in the sole sense of including the V among the existing letters. This is hard to explain but i think it’s just a slight shift in perception. Hope this helps anyway and thanks Widdersbel for a neat graphical interpretation.

77. +1 for not loving swim with the tide. I also had sail with the wind, bunged in estimand for 25a, then gave up and came here. Not a totally satisfying end, sadly.

78. Blah @8, forgive my ignorance but a playtex is so called because it can be read as “play Tex” ?

79. Originally put in FLOW WITH THE TIDE. But it was increasingly obvious it was wrong when nothing in the top across clues went with it. APRES-SKI finally confirmed it. ACID TEST was just a bung-in.

80. Lord @78 Playtex is lift and separate ( cross your heart bra ) so SCAR = S CAR.
    The opposite process is Gossard.

81. widdersbel@74
    Thank you. I had got as far as this.
    Gazzh@76
    Thank you. I understand now.

82. Roz @80 Thanks !

83. Pino @81 – sorry, I should have spelled it out more fully for the sake of clarity, but I think my equation answers your question. The M is not ‘removed’ as such, but ‘divided’ – and the V is what remains as a result of that division. I think it’s a fantastically clever trick, though I suspect some solvers might regard it as unfair.

    Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got it now, thanks to Gazzh’s explanation, so all is well.

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