Guardian Cryptic 28,638 by Philistine

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28638.

I am too tired to appreciate this properly, and I am not sure that I have got to the bottom of 20A. I suspect that some solvers expecting an easier time on a Monday will have been disappointed. We have PH, but no F for a pangram.

ACROSS
9 LOOK A MESS
Powder room makes sleepyhead somehow appear dishevelled (4,1,4)
A charade of LOO (‘powder room’) plus KAMESS, an anagram (‘somehow’) of ‘makes’ plus S (‘Sleepyhead’).
10 INNER
Essential sign in heart oddly ignored (5)
Even letters (‘oddly ignored’) of ‘sIgN iN hEaRt’.
11 THROB
Pound discovered in a bath robe (5)
A hidden answer ‘discovered’ in ‘baTH ROBe’.
12 ELEUTHERO
Helen and Ruth unclothed by champion of alternative medicine (9)
A charade of ‘[H]ele[n]’ plus ‘[R]ut[h]’, both minus their outer letters (‘unclothed’) plus HERO (‘champion’), for a plant, Siberian ginseng, used as an ‘alternative medicine’.
13 RIOTOUS
Turbulent river in Europe, as far as the Guardian is concerned (7)
A charade of RIO (‘river in Europe’ – Portuguese specifically, or Spanish without the accent) plus TO US (‘as far as the Guardian is concerned’).
14 BLAZERS
Clothes on fire? (7)
Punning definition.
17 DWELL
Live or die, that’s come out nicely (5)
A charade of ‘d[ie]’ minus I.E. (‘that’s come out’- ‘that’s’ being that is) plus WELL (‘nicely’).
19 ANY
A city in Tanganyika, doesn’t matter which (3)
Two wordplays and a definition: ‘a’ plus NY (‘city’); and a hidden answer ‘in’ ‘TangANYika’.
20 OSTIA
Portsmouth & Co (5)
The port of Rome;and the plural (‘& Co’) of OSTIUM a ‘mouth’. The S could be “is”.
21 RIPOSTE
East German in mature comeback (7)
An envelope (‘in’) of OST (‘east’ in ‘German’) in RIPE (‘mature’).
22 ANTIQUE
Terribly quaint and ultimately obsolete (7)
An anagram (”terribly’) of ‘quaint’ plus E (‘ultimately obsoletE‘), wuth an &lit definition.
24 LAST LAUGH
Is it best to have laid out a stall that’s disgusting? (4,5)
A charade of LASTLA, an anagram (‘to have laid out’) of ‘a stall’; plus UGH (‘that’s disgusting’).
26 ORATE
The hapless are to speak (5)
An anagram (‘the hapless’) of ‘are to’.
28 NERVE
One’s art without frames, extremely versatile and daring (5)
A charade of NER, (‘[o]NE‘[s] [a]R[t] without frames’) plus VE (‘extremely VersatilE‘).
29 TOM SHARPE
Writer‘s book contains clever mixed metaphors (3,6)
Definition and two wordplays: an envelope (‘contains’) of SHARP (‘clever’) in TOME (‘book’); and an anagram (‘mixed’) of ‘metaphors’.
DOWN
1 BLOT
Boodle’s mark (4)
A charade of ‘b’- plus LOT (-‘oodle’).
2 JOURNO
Nice day, on reflection, for correspondent (6)
A charade of JOUR (‘Nice day’ – French) plus NO, a reversal (‘reflection’) of ‘on’.
3 BAMBOOZLES
Brambles not right as an environment for raising wildlife and fools (10)
An envelope (‘as an environment for’) of OOZ, a reversal (‘raising’ in a down light) of ZOO (‘wildlife’) in ‘b[r]ambles’ minus the R (‘not right’).
4 JEWELS
Religious people gathering shells, essentially as ornaments (6)
An envelope (‘gathering’) of EL (‘shELls essentially’) in JEWS (‘religious people’).
5 ASSEMBLY
Group competently curbs rising disorder (8)
An envelope (‘curbs’) of SSEM, a reversal (‘rising’ in a down light) in ABLY (‘completely competently‘).
6 WILT
Being old, will droop (4)
An archaic form (‘being old’) of ‘will’, second person singular.
7 INDECENT
Dine out on little money? That’s vulgar (8)
A charade of INDE, an anagram (‘out’) of ‘dine’; plus CENT (‘little money’).
8 TRIO
Working majority of 13 across or 3 (4)
An anagram (‘working’) of a ‘majority’ (just) of RIOT[ous] (’13 across’).
13 RADAR
Up or down detector (5)
A palindrome (‘up or down’).
15 APOSTROPHE
Perhaps too bad a mark (10)
An anagram (‘bad’) of ‘perhaps too’.
16
See 24
18 EXPOSURE
Showing Europe’s upset about vote (8)
An envelope (‘about’) of X (‘vote’) in EPOSURE, an anagram (‘upset’) of ‘Europes’.
19 ADEQUATE
Enough said, every now and then, on match (8)
A charade of AD, alternate letters (‘every now and then’) of ‘sAiD‘; plus EQUATE (‘match’).
22 AT HOME
In the Mao revolution (2,4)
An anagram (‘revolution’) of ‘the Mao’.
23 QUARRY
Source of stone that is sought by hunters (6)
Double definition.
24, 16 LANDSCAPE
No portrait of elaborate lap dances (9)
An anagram (‘elaborate’) of ‘lap dances’
25 LIEN
They say thin is right (4)
Sounds like (‘they say’) LEAN (‘thin’).
27 EWER
Brew beer, only half jug (4)
‘[Br]EW [be]ER‘ retaining ‘onlyt half’ of each word

picture of the completed grid

78 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,638 by Philistine”

  1. Not quite a pangram, but definitely thematic. Several of TOM SHARPE’s novels feature. I count four.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO.

  2. I liked this. IN 26a I had “0 rate” as another meaning of hapless. Didn’t see all the meaning in TOM SHARPE though.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO

  3. Quite a work out for a Monday — BLOT, LOOK A MESS, and OSTIA were beyond my orbit as was the general theme of TOM SHARPE whose name I only learned from the anagram of metaphors. Despite this ignorance I really liked this crossword with many favourites including THROB, RIPOSTE, JOURNO, ASSEMBLY, APOSTROPHE (one of the best clues ever for this oft used answer), AT HOME (great to see this turnabout of “in”), and LANDSCAPE. Thanks to both.

  4. No idea about Tom Sharpe, his novels, or mixed metaphors but I did like the double wordplays in Philistine’s crossie today.
    Grateful for something a bit more chewy than usual for a Monday. Needed my fix while husband plays building space age model brought by Santa.
    I had the same reading as tim the toffee@2 for hapless.
    And like Tony Santucci @ 3 had ticks for APOSTROPHE, BLOT, and AT HOME.
    BAMBOOZLES had me bamboozled. Don’t think ZOO for ‘wildlife’ works alone. More of a kind of extended wordplay/double duty happening with ‘environment’ and ‘raised wildlife’, but I did like it.
    HNY to all , and thank you Peter O and Everyman/Woman

  5. Nice to have something a little chewier on a Monday,

    20A I think refers to the mouth of the river Port which I think is somewhere in Australia? I’m sure some of our antipodean posters will know if that’s correct or not.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO

  6. Blah @5, I didn’t get OSTIA, and as an Antipodean, I don’t know of a river Port down here. I did guess that was a ‘lift-and-separate clue’, but didn’t know the Latin for ‘mouths’. I think PeterO is on the money.

  7. Ah, Blah @5. Been there, but I know it as the Port Adelaide River. Got nothing to do with the clue though, eh? 🙂

  8. Nice to have something a bit tougher than the usual Monday, and this was more than a bit tougher. Didn’t know ELEUTHERO or the ‘mouth’ meaning of OSTIA, and I needed Google for all the TOM SHARPE novels (only knew WILT and BLOT on the LANDSCAPE).

  9. Very amusing. I could have looked at the clue for OSTIA until England take a first innings lead and not got it so thank you, dear PeterO.
    It’s actually BLOTT (on the landscape) but never mind

  10. Guessed OsTiA as it’s a port but thanks PeterO for explaining the word play in that clue and the rest of your excellent blog. After BLoT I was on the alert for ‘lift and separates’ so that helped with OsTIA. I was another 0 -rate for the hapless. After finishing I googled Tom Sharpe and as I suspected that was a theme but he’s not a writer I’m really familiar with. But I had heard of the various novels.

    I liked the three-way clues like 29a and 19a. I hesitated over INNER for essential until I finally realised I was looking for the even letters of more that just ‘heart’. After no time for crosswords all weekend I thought this would be quite easy but it was challenging! Thanks Philistine.

  11. Thanks Philistine and PeterO

    As an additional wrinkle to 20A, OSTIA is also an anatomical/medical term for the mouth and surrounding area.

  12. Tough puzzle – I was not on the setter’s wavelength today. The lower half was easier for me. Solved NW corner last.

    Liked RIPOSTE.

    New: TOM SHARPE, ELEUTHERO.

    I did not parse 20ac, 6d, 1d (blot = mark, but boodle? Oh I see now – too clever for me!)

    Thanks, both.

    * I did not see the theme, do not know of this author.

  13. Most enjoyable start to one of the boring days between Christmas and the New Year. Knowledge of the theme was not needed, but, as a Tom Sharpe fan, it made the puzzle even better for me.

  14. baerchen@9. [Have been enjoying a relatively wurzel-frei zone down here. 🙂 ]
    Thanks for the clarification of BLOT/T, not that I know anything about Tom Sharpe’s novels. But you’re absolutely right, spoiled an otherwise clever clue, I thought (now that I know..

  15. Is there a singular form of OODLES? I just assumed we had to, in Guardian style, ignore the punctuation to get to LOT
    I thought ANY was a brilliantly executed clue for just 3 letters
    Like others I was bamboozled by OSTIA only knowing the port
    And naturally, I completely missed the theme

  16. Wow – quite a struggle for me today, with ORATE, BLOT and APOSTROPHE unparsed. Also took me forever to see THROB. But loved LAST LAUGH, JOURNO and TOM SHARPE in particular – brilliant. Many thanks to Philistine and to PeterO.

  17. The theme helped me, even though I have read only one of his books (the totally gratuitous smut put me off bothering with any more after WILT). I had to look up ELEUTHERO and ——– to confirm the definitions, and I failed to parse OSTIA, but thought this was a very entertaining puzzle. Spoiler redacted.

  18. Not quite a pangram; actually not quite a double pangram. I noticed a couple of each of the less usual letters – Z’s, Q’s, J’s etc. Not easy to get onto Philistine’s wavelength today though everything worked out in the end. I’m with bodycheetah @15, in highlighting the shortest solution on the page – ANY – as one of the cleverest. I also admired another short one in AT HOME, APOSTROPHE as highlighted by Tony S and ADEQUATE for the simple device of equating EQUATE with match. Very enjoyable workout.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO

  19. Enjoyable puzzle, whose theme I only twigged after BLOT(t) – my LOI (pity there wasn’t room for his best: Porterhouse Blue).

    Lots of good clues here. I particularly liked ANY, because it doesn’t matter which of the two wordplays you use to reach the solution. Clever!

    I failed to parse OSTIA as ‘mouths’, although the ancient port is at the mouth of the Tiber, just down the road (Via Ostia) from Rome, where I happen to be spending the festive season.

    Thanks and season’s greetings to S&B

  20. OSTIA
    is it something to do with the fact that Portsmouth is known as Pompey. Wasn’t there an Ostia near Pompeii? Sorry I’m a bit vague, trying to remember from years ago ….

  21. I found the NW the toughest – particularly 1d, which I eventually guessed to open up that corner, but still don’t like at all (Boodle’s???). Got OSTIA from ‘Port’, but never did see the rest of it, and again don’t like it even with your explanation, PeterO. I wanted to put ELEUTHERA at 12a – we lived there for a while many years ago – but it didn’t fit the definition, so I had to try modifying it, when the HERO appeared and a search revealed the “medicine”. (What do you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.)
    I am a Tom Sharpe fan (though I read them all long ago), but didn’t notice the titles until I read Jolt @1’s comment, when they leapt out at me. But the two crossies were in their right places today. Thanks, Philistine and PeterO.

  22. I was too busy doing letter counts(2 Qs 2Js 2Zs but only one X) to notice that this was an F short of the first pangram
    Let alone the Tom Sharpe books i enjoyed a while ago-should have helped me get BLOT(T)
    Great stuff-thanks Phil and Peter O

  23. I really liked this one. There was lots of cleverness throughout: the double wordplays in ANY and TOM SHARPE, the very fair clueing of the arcane ELEUTHERO, the innovative ‘hapless’ as an anagrind, the mix of letter-manipulation clues (NERVE) with punning defs (BLAZERS) and some excellent surfaces (‘being old, will droop’) were standout features for me.
    Excellent.
    Thank you, PeterO, for untangling OSTIA — what a clever clue! — and the BLOT parse.

  24. Thanks for the blog and all the others this year, quite a treat for a Monday but I totally missed the theme.
    ELEUTHERO was new to me but very well clued, OSTIA is a clever idea but does not quite work.
    Hard to pick favourites from a very impressive set of clues. WILT was very neat and TOM SHARPE.
    Porterhouse Blue would have been nice for the theme but we can’t have everything.

  25. bodycheetah@15: Thanks for that — I agree that the plural ‘oodles’ works better than the singular, and we just have to ignore the surface-serving apostrophe.

  26. A fun puzzle to come back to. I think Philistine is having a joke with his ‘Blot on the Landscape’… Thanks to blogger and setter

  27. Enjoyed some clues like 3d BAMBOOZLES and the afore-mentioned 19d APOSTROPHE, though in the end Philistine had the 24a LAST LAUGH as I totally missed the theme. I was unfamiliar with 12a ELEUTHERO as were others above but found it gettable from the wordplay and it was my TILT. Thanks for the fun, Philistine, and for the blog which I needed to elucidate some parsings, PeterO.

  28. Like Baerchen @9, I noticed that it was the wrong spelling of BLOT(T) but so what, I was a massive fan of TOM SHARPE when he was popular. (David Jason and Ian Richardson were marvellous in the TV adaptation of Porterhouse Blue in 1987). It helped me solve RIOTOUS ASSEMBLY. Guessed OSTIA from the crossers but couldn’t parse. I surmised that ‘not right’ was doing double duty for the anagrind and the missing ‘r’ in BAMBOOZLES but stand to be corrected. Great antidote to a wet, miserable Monday morning.

    Ta Philistine & PeterO

  29. Monkey@17: Well, it seems that your aversion to totally gratuitous smut hasn’t put you off Grauniad crosswords.

  30. bodycheetah @15
    As you say, the S for oodles is there if you ignore the apostrophe; I went with the alternative, that if oodles is lots, then, fancifully, an oodle should be a lot. Take your choice.

  31. A very satisfying puzzle. There were a few I couldn’t get without coming here — 12a (never heard of it), 20a and 2d (which I had a chuckle at).

  36. [ AlanC DVDs are modern technology for me, the sprogs have just got me Our Friends in the North and the Singing Detective ]

  38. Lots to enjoy and a bit to grumble about, rather like spending the festive season with family. 1d was poor, 20ac was awful, sorry – completely ungettable without at least one of two bits of fairly uncommon knowledge, and unparseable without both (and presumably the two definitions share a root?).

    On a happier note pretty much all the other clues were lovely, and while I didn’t get the theme and have never read him, 29a was a standout.

    Thanks PeterO and Philistine

  41. That was a bit of a struggle. I parsed OSTIA as Os = mouth + TIA taken into account = &Co. As a former further education teacher, I was a big fan of WILT, smut and all, but still missed the theme.

  42. Jim @38: You’re right about OSTIA. Ostium (the singular), meaning ‘estuary’ or ‘mouth of a river’ is a word derived from ‘os’, the basic Latin word for ‘mouth’ (in other grammatical cases the root of ‘os’ becomes ‘or-‘, hence English ‘oral’).

  43. [Roz @40 & AlanC @37: I think owning and playing vinyl is definitely on trend these days. And I think you could probably get away with wearing flares, too 😀 ]

  45. No, not for me. Not a fan of Tom Sharpe, nor of themes in general, so didn’t enjoy the solve. Filled in all the spaces correctly though didn’t understand the parsing of OSTIA or BLOT. Quite like BLOT now it’s been explained, and vaguely remember seeing ostia/um in a puzzle before. ELEUTHERO was new to me, but obviously clued.

    Word of the day BAMBOOZLE, perhaps appropriately.

    Thanks to Philistine, and PeterO for elucidations.

  48. Not the usual Monday fare, but that was fine. I am not a fan though of the lift and separate style of clue and there were several today. So not as enjoyable as it could have been. Didn’t spot the TOM SHARPE theme in time to be helpful (thanks to Jolt@). Nevertheless thanks to Philistine for the work out and to Peter0 for some helpful parsing, especially OSTIA.

  49. For those not sure about OSTIA, did you wonder why the clue said “& Co” rather than the possibly more natural (and Latin) “et al.”?

  51. Dr.W @49 I am happy with OSTIA= Port and mouth and co = OSTIA , see Simon S @ 11.
    It is the stray S that bothers me. Playtex clues are fine but they need to be a clean separation. Here we need to ignore the S or make it ‘S or IS , none of these really work for me.

  54. Well done David , that must be it. Two medical definitions of OSTIA, the OSTIA being an actual Roman port is just a red herring. Objection withdrawn.

  55. Maybe I haven’t recovered from Christmas, but this required too much help to be enjoyable.

    Didn’t see the theme, but when it was ponted out (by Jolt@1) I could see BLOTt on the LANDSCAPE. Perhaps because Porterhouse Blue was missing, and that’s the only Tom Sharpe novel I remember?

    Thanks to blogger and setter – more to PeterO for the explanations and finding a way through Philistine’s obscurity….

  57. Monkey @56 (and Cliveinfrance @44)
    It’s not pretty, but as requested the spoilers have been redacted – although at this stage it doubtful whether it matters.

  58. LOOK A MESS and BLOT were my last two in, after taking a while to put the bits and pieces steadily together today This felt a bit like today was domestically, chez Ronald, feeding on scraps and leftovers. Solved in small interlocking pockets. Not quite the usual joy with Philistine’s puzzles, but a decent enough challenge with the fun and games (hope there were some) of the festive season steadily subsiding…
    A few years ago I used to have an occasional drink in my local Cambridge hostelry, The Little Rose, Trumpington St, with the head porter of Pembroke College on whom Tom Sharpe apparently based his main character in Porterhouse Blue…

  59. [Ronald @58
    I think that the Little Rose was the first place I ever saw a microwave oven in operation! Used for heating burgers, as I remember…]

  60. Bunged OSTIA as a port which matched the crossers, but I humbly suggest that expecting a commoner like me to know unfamiliar Latin is a bit harsh.

    Otherwise, a fun challenge. Ta, both.

  61. Muffin@59…now of course The Little Rose has morphed into a Loch Fyne fish restaurant, and I don’t expect they simply heat up ready made fish pies in a microwave there these days. The Fitzwilliam Museum right opposite still functions as ever it did, however…

  62. Redaction worked for me. I posted last night my time on this blog and woke up to check the blog this morning to find redactions which (presumably) will protect my ignorance if i have a go at the recent prize.

  63. I wasn’t expecting anything this difficult on a Monday, but did finish it. I even noticed the theme, which is a rarity for me, and I also spotted the lift and separate of BOODLE. I must be improving with all the crossword-a-day work-outs. Never heard of ELEUTHERO, but luckily Wikipedia had. Thanks setter and blogger.

  67. Googling ELEUTH… gave me Siberian Ginseng, which then completed the word: hELEn + rUTh + HERO.

    The theme only helped to confirm (sort of) the LOI BLOT. Then I saw all the book titles. I hadn’t noticed even with WILT and LANDSCAPE.

  68. Surprised how few of the Guardienista seem to have read ‘Riotous Assembly’ and ‘Indecent Exposure’ seeing as how they severely lampoon white SA and its apartheid policy.

  69. Too busy to do this yesterday, so I guess not many will read this: if ‘Boodle’s’ implies B + ‘oodles’ (or, dropping the S, ‘oodle’), then either it’s a fanciful singular (an oodle), or dropping A from A LOT, either of which surely requires a question mark at the end of the clue, or it’s LOTS. I really can’t see how BLOT derives from the wordplay as it is.

    A friend introduced me to Tom Sharpe when we were in our 20s, but I couldn’t stand WILT and didn’t read any more, so the theme once again eluded me.

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

  70. Thanks for the blog, PeterO.

    I thought this was generally a good crossword although BLOT and JOURNO defeated me. Coming to it a day late so nobody will see this, let alone comment on my objection but I don’t see how JOUR equates to “Nice day” in English or in French. Bonjour means good day and Bonne journée is what is said to wish someone to have a nice day but Jour is just the french word for a day.

  75. @Phil M and @Gaufrid, many thanks and D’oh. Humble apologies, I have seen that device many times too of course but just completely forgot about it and got grumpy rather than thinking it through.

  76. Thanks PeterO for explaining oodles, and others for filling in some gaps and some nice discussion, but I am aligned with sheffieldhatter@69 re BLOT which I only got from the theme once I decided that the final T had been sacrificed to the gods of the grid. While TOM SHARPE was my favourite clue, I agree with crossbar@45 that BAMBOOZLE is a great word, plus it reminds me of the old teletext quiz that my best friend and I used to do during school holidays – ‘hosted’ by Bamber Boozler! Thanks Philistine.

  77. Still catching up on the post Christmas backlog, glad I found time to do this one – very enjoyable. Many thanks Philistine and PeterO (and other commenters for the OSTIA discussion).

    I enjoyed reading the Tom Sharpe oeuvre as a teenager in the 80s (and watched the TV series of Blott and Porterhouse, of course) but had largely forgotten them. From what I remember of them, I can’t imagine they’ll have aged well.

    Gazzh @76 – Bamber Boozler! Wow, that’s another proper blast from the past I’d completely forgotten about.

  78. I was puzzled by the objections to OSTIA and ELEUTHERO.

    Philistine always includes medical clues, in deference to his other occupation, so the 20a clue should make you look for a word meaning mouth or mouths. And OSTIA = port of Rome is not the most obscure of classical references we see in crosswords.

    12a, also medical, is a classic jorum, to use Eileen’s term. Follow the instructions on the packet, and you come up with a word that you don’t think is a word until you look it up. TILTs are one of the joys of crosswording, as long as there aren’t too many of them.

    Thanks Philistine for the elegant and challenging Monday exercise, and PeterO for the elegant and informative blog.

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