Guardian 29,451 / Philistine

77 comments on “Guardian 29,451 / Philistine”

1. Fabulous. Top marks for ballistic, diligent, and romcom. Liked some of the Rufus style clues

   Cheers P&E

2. Nice to see an entry from the Uxbridge English Dictionary at 17ac. Minor quibble that dribbles would give trickles at 1dn

3. Ignore that. Just re-read the clue.

4. Enjoyed that. Sometimes I really think I’m getting the hang of this game (never lasts!). THICK AS THIEVES made me smile

5. I concur with Eileen’s judgement on the puzzle. I found it trickier than usual for Philistine, whose wavelength I generally settle on fairly quickly. CURRENT ACCOUNT held out for a while and UTRICLE was unfamiliar. I saw the wordplay in TRAPDOOR (helped by the crossers) before I remembered the spider. Liked the use of the full word rather than the usual abbreviation to get BRASSERIE, and, as Eileen did, I thought of balletic before BALL and TIC to get BALLESTIC. Good puzzle for a Friday. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen.

6. What a lovely end to the week! Thanks Philistine and Eileen for such wit and humour.

7. Wonderful. ROMCOM loi through failure to spot né instead of b for born.

   Most enjoyable crozzie for some time, thanks, both.

8. Very enjoyable indeed. I like your reference to the bike shed Eileen as OVERHANG, REDBREAST, BUXOM and BRASSERIE in the middle seemed deliberate . I also noticed that OPEN could be linked to CURRENT ACCOUNT, TRAP, DOOR, EARLY and DEMONSTRATION, although some charming wag on the G site said I was overthinking it. Well, there you go. Great finish to the week.

   Ta Philistine & Eileen.

9. Good puzzle. The pedant in me bridled slightly at CANTER (it’s the horse, not the rider that does that) and BALLISTIC (which actually describes the flight of an unpowered projectile) – but both are of course commonly used matching the definitions here, so no problem. The schoolboy in me made BUTTONHOLE the favourite. Also liked UTRICLE, SCULPT, OPEN HOUSE and several others.
   Thanks Eileen for good blog as usual, and Philistine.

10. Lovely breezy Philistine puzzle to close the week. Having smashed my head against the wall early this am with Phi this from Phi Listine was a real pleasure.

    The long double space answers across top and bottom gave welcome access to the whole puzzle.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen

11. I wasn’t sure whether there was something more devious in the clue for MIDGE. My holiday there wasn’t spoilt by them, but it was a long time ago.

    I always thing of “nee” as born, but now recall that it can also be “né”. I wonder which way the knights in The Life of Brian spelt it.

    This is another puzzle this week where I’ve had no “Huh?” list nor NHO list, and no need to refer to the internet for help. Very enjoyable, thanks Philistine & Eileen.

12. Did know AZIMUTH, but didn’t know UTRICLE (though for a while with the C and E crossers in place I thought that the required word might be Ossicle). Not quite sure if the clue for MIDGE is tight enough. Loi EARLY did make me smile when I finally sussed it. For whatever reason I always feel in a comfortable place when tackling a Philistine puzzle…

13. I knew AZIMUTH only because it was the name of a British jazz trio consisting of Norma Winstone, John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler. When I bought one of their records (1980’s Depart, with guitarist Ralph Towner), I looked up the word in the dictionary out of curiosity, and its navigational meaning had stuck in my head.

14. That was just great. Pleased to get 18d AZIMUTH, dredged up from a navigation course for sailors that I did at least forty years ago. There were a few things that needed clarification in my mind, so as always I was grateful for the blog, but despite a few question marks (e.g. about the Scots reference in the clue for 25d MIDGE), I have to say that I derived huge pleasure as I gradually chipped away at this gem of a puzzle.
    Several favourites of mine have already been mentioned – and I must say that I often find what appeals to Eileen as a blogger appeals to me as a solver. But at the risk of being repetitive, I had lots of ticks for my favourites, 26a BUTTONHOLE and 28,29a THICK AS THIEVES, with 4d NIGHTIE also raising a smile, as did 17d EARLY, 19a BRASSERIE and 21d ISOTOPE, all for different reasons. I winced at 22d HERNIA, but again for an entirely different reason.
    Thanks in abundance to clever Philistine and insightful Eileen. Glad I checked in to this Friday solve as I’ve not had a lot of time for puzzles this week.

15. Geoff Down Under @11
    It’s ‘ni’.

16. [Ronald@12, for some reason your comment about feeling “in a comfortable place” with Philistine really resonated with me. I feel like he really wants me to solve his puzzles but still give my head a good work-out at the same time!]

17. Nice one! Some answers leapt out, others gradually emerged. Everything makes sense. My first thought for 13 was HERNIA which didn’t work but was still in my RAM memory for 22. A good week 😊

18. Alec @ 15, darn, I got it wrong again. 🙁

    (Actually, I did know. I was using artistic licence.)

19. I only knew AZIMUTH from cassette deck, and turntable adjustment but angles and navigation seemed vaguely connected so in it went 🙂

20. Especially liked 26a BUTTONHOLE, but isn’t the “in” doing double duty – as an insertion indicator, and as part of the US indicator “in America”?

21. Ah! I had the underwear as BRAS and then couldn’t account for the rest. I also wasted time trying to shoehorn BALLET into BALLISTIC. Failed to solve the ROMCOM/ISOTOPE pair and wasn’t enough of an American schoolboy to get BUTTONHOLE. Had to look up UTRICLE after trying AURICLE and OSSICLE in vain. Favourites DEMONSTRATION, NIGH TIE and the McMIDGE.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

22. in your solve of 21 you may wish to add the additional meaning of SOT as ‘drunkard’
    I SOT – I drink a lot

23. Very smooth and enjoyable as always. A joy to solve. I enjoyed MIDGE and it’s not often one can say that. [Not one single blighter in my brief trip to Skye last week]. Also DEMONSTRATION, CURRENT ACCOUNT, OPEN HOUSE, BRASSERIE and AZIMUTH.

    A question to other commenters. TRAPDOOR is defined by ‘Spider’ but is a ‘trapdoor’ a spider? A ‘trapdoor spider’ is a spider for sure but can ‘trapdoor’ alone do the job? ‘Be careful, there’s a trapdoor in the kitchen’ would be an ambiguous phrase at best. (I recently tried to define ‘pie’ by ‘cottage’ and the idea was rejected by test solvers; ‘cottage pie’ is a pie, ‘cottage’ is not’. They seem similar situations. Hence my particular interest)

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen

24. [AlanC @8: I didn’t mean to cause offence. I will take ‘Charming wag’ as the closest I’m going to get to a compliment today!]

25. Relatively gentle for a Friday Philistine but with a lot of good things and interesting words (UTRICLE, AZIMUTH, both of which I knew, fortunately). More ribald than this setter usually serves, but none the worse for that.

    It’s not the first outing for those constructions for NO CAN DO and ISOTOPE, but wotthehell.

    My votes go for REDBREAST, DILIGENT, NIGHTIE and DEMONSTRATION.

    Thanks to S&B

26. [No offence taken TGA. I did say it was just a WEE thought 😉 ]

27. This was very enjoyable. My favourite was the clever REDBREAST. (That was the bird’s original name – people in the Middle Ages gave pet names to birds, so that what were originally the redbreast, the daw and the pie became Robin Redbreast, Jack Daw and Mag Pie.)

    FrankieG @20: I think you’ve spotted a slight flaw with BUTTONHOLE, which I didn’t notice at the time. Also, “working” for ON is an indicator that we see all the time, but I’m afraid I always think that they’re not quite the same. It seems to me that “the oven is working” means that it’s capable of operating, but “the oven is on” means that it’s actually in operation at the moment. Very pedantic I know.

    Many thanks Philistine and Eileen.

28. Gervase @25 – I tried this morning to search for a previous clue (Philistine, I think) for NO CAN DO, which overcame the bottles issue but that combination of letters threw up scores of entries – for this year alone!

29. PostMark @23, sometimes you have to ignore test solvers and go with your gut instinct. Trapdoor is in CCD as a type of spider along with redback, tarantula and huntsman. I wouldn’t have a problem with hammerhead or great white being equal to shark without a shark on the end. Cottage for pie is a bit different I think, and I would want a DBE indicator.

30. PostMark@23: in Australia, particularly in the places they are found, it would be thought bizarre to say ‘trapdoor spider’ rather than just ‘trapdoor’. A bit like saying koala bear, or duck-billed platypus.

31. Postmark @23. Down this way TRAPDOOR is a spider, standalone, doesn’t need anything else.. TRAPDOORs are not found in the kitchen but outside in the ground, where they build their trapdoor.. Great clue, the reversal of rood and part.

    Edit. And as TimC said@29.

32. Eileen @28, using quotes around a phrase like that in search is helpful and yields only one clue in 2024 in the FT by Moo (17,620) “A party without tinnies? Impossible”. Most recent Guardian cryptic seems to be Anto (28,806) in July 2022 with “Impossible for a knight to occupy dilapidated condo”.

33. PostMark @23: did you mean to say that you tried to define COTTAGE by “pie”, which would seem more akin to the spider = TRAPDOOR situation?

34. And Tassie Tim@30.

35. [Geoff Down Under@11 & Alec@15 – Holy Grail.]

36. Thanks, for the tip, Tim C @32. I’ve never done a Moo puzzle and I don’t remember the Anto clue – so it was neither of those.

    A random google yielded ‘Impossible bottle party’, which sounds more like it -but I obviously misremembered!

37. A super puzzle, as I always expect, and get, from this setter. I started with the long one (DEMONSTRATION) and branched out from there in four directions in turn.

    I am very much in tune with what ronald (@12) and Julie (@16) said about ‘feeling in a comfortable place’ with this setter, but always getting one’s money’s worth in brain exercise and enjoyment.

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

38. Lord Jim @27: I agree with you about the distinction between ‘working’ and ‘on’ if applied to ovens, but I think there is less differentiation if applied to a machine with moving parts. ‘Look – it’s working!’

39. New to me was UTRICLE, but I did remember that AZIMUTH as having something to do with celestial navigation, which I did rather a lot of some forty years ago when crossing the Atlantic with a friend in his sailboat.

    Tanks to Eileen for untangling some mighty tangled entries. And thanks to Philistine for the whole thing.

40. Many thanks to Philistine for a great puzzle, and to Eileen for the blog.
    Just a query about 4d – what’s the definition? ‘To which pyjamas may be close’ …? But if so, ‘close’ is doing double duty. What have I missed?!

41. Very pleasant start to week. When 1A went in almost instantly I though this was going to be a quick solve, but it turned out to be satisfactorily chewy. I failed to parse 9D, having found DEMOTION but unable to make sense of the rest so thank you for that Eileen.

    13A and 10A were favorites, once I dragged ROOD from the pit of memory.

42. judygs @40 – the only way I could explain 4dn was as an &lit (the whole clue as a definition). I’m always rather tentative in doing that but there has been no reaction so far. 😉

43. Thanks Philistine for another splendid crossword that was a perfect balance between ‘work’ and ‘play’. My top picks were OVERHANG, REDBREAST, OPEN HOUSE, BALLISTIC, AZIMUTH, and HERNIA. Thanks Eileen for filling in my parsing gaps; BTW, I’m surprised you’ve never done a puzzle by Moo in the FT — I think you would enjoy the experience.

44. Eileen @42 – OK, thank you!

45. 2d UTRICLE was a jorum. Derived from Latin utriculus, a diminutive of either uter “bag” or uterus “womb”.
    Apart from the ear, men have one in the prostatic portion of the urethra. There’s a botanical meaning, too. Cats have one as well.

46. Re: ON and WORKING
    Clearly they are not synonyms, but have become a well-worn pair in crossword land, and no longer quite need or deserve analysis.
    Somewhere in my mind lurks the unformed idea of a semantic Venn diagram: if the overlap is more than 25%, then let it go. This is not a precise science. It is not a science at all.

47. Enjoyable puzzle, tough in parts. I couldn’t parse 7d, 25d.

    New: UTRICLE, azimuth.

    Favourites: DEMONSTRATION (mainly because I managed to parse it!); THICK AS THIEVES.

    Thanks, both.

48. [Thanks to those who responded to my query. Appreciated.]

49. Eileen @28: On reflection, the clue I recall might have been reversed: No can do? (6,5) = BOTTLE PARTY, or something along those lines….

50. Frankie the Cat#2 🙂 You beat me to it. Perhaps the UED could replace Chambers.

51. Gervase @49 – please see me @36: I think that’s probably it.

52. Another cracking puzzle from Philistine. Tremendous fun to solve and as others have said a great deal to enjoy and applaud.

53. Geoff Down Under@11: It was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, not Life of Brian. And it may have been “Ni”.

54. Eileen@42 – not that it matters, but 4d doesn’t qualify as &lit as the whole clue has to contribute to the wordplay as well as the definition. I’m not sure how you categorise this one (which I think makes it more interesting).
    Many thanks for the blog, and thanks to Philistine for the typically enjoyable puzzle.

55. Eileen and Gervase @various. Although neither possesses the economy of simply ‘Bottle party’, there was Everyman on Feb 13 2022 – ‘Bring a bottle party? Afraid not’, and Matilda on Feb 23 2021 – ‘Impossible bottle party’. So the idea of cluing NO CAN DO in this way has been in setters’ repertoires.

56. Gervase @38: thanks for the example. And, I suppose, “The machines were working day and night”. As Alec says @46, there is some overlap. Quibble happily withdrawn.

57. [Pete HA3 @ 35 & Wolf @ 53, so it was!]

58. Balfour @55
    Please see me @36 and 51 re ‘Impossible bottle party’. Many thanks for identifying Matilda as the author. The “economy of simply ‘Bottle party’” doesn’t work, since there’s no definition. Bravissima Matilda!

59. Me @58 – please ignore!
    ‘Bottle party ‘ works perfectly, of course. 🙁

60. Thanks Philistine and Eileen

    Eileen @ 58: I think the economical “Bottle party” can work, if you take “Bottle” as meaning to lose your nerve to do something (eg Gordon Brown “bottling” calling a General Election whenever it was).

    That may mean that “Bottle” is doing double duty, but if it makes the clue as succinct as that I think it’s permissible.

61. Simon @ 60 – I think you missed my latest comment.
    A bottle party is, simply, a NO-CAN DO .

62. Frankie@20 & Jim@27. I don’t see a problem with ‘in’ doing double duty at 26a. Apart from there being no rules about this, with the exception of not to be unfair to the solver – which is pretty flexible – the setter has covered his back by putting an impossible to miss question mark at the end of the clue, to suggest that he has taken a liberty.

    I thought a similar liberty had been taken, or opportunity missed perhaps, with ‘I should slip in’ at 19a, which seems to indicate the insertion of the letter I in the word for an item of ‘underwear’. Instead it requires us to move that already extant letter along from 6th to 8th place. What about ‘slip along’ rather than ‘slip in’? (In a down clue, ‘slip down’ would clearly be better than ‘slip in’ also.)

    A very enjoyable crossword, as others have said. My favourite was AZIMUTH, because I knew the answer but it wouldn’t come to me, so I looked again at the wordplay and spotted (appropriately enough) ZIT, which helped me – in conjunction with the obvious H at the end – to write the answer in. Lovely!

    Thanks to Philistine and Eileen.

63. Thanks Philistine and Eileen
    I finished this early but got in late, so have only just read the blog. Can I add to the appreciation for the UED entry of EARLY, and the convolutions to make DEMONSTRATION?
    Eileen @61
    Isn’t there a second definition lacking from “Bottle party” for NO CAN DO, unless, as suggested earlier, it’s supplied by “bottle”?

64. Philistine never fails to delight, and this is no exception. Eileen nailed it in her intro. Thanks, P&E for the superior entertainment.

    Several complaints about possible double-duty cause me to again ask, so what’s wrong with that, if the clue is concise, witty and not too difficult to solve?

    GDU, Alec and Wolf @ 11, 15, 53 etc., our Scrabble house rules allow NI as a legitimate 2-letter word, thanks to Monty Python.

65. Fun stuff. Faves REDBREAST, DEMONSTRATION and ROMCOM.
    Lord Jim, Alec et al, Re Working/on as synonyms: usage not necessarily applying to machines, but also people, e.g. I’m on/working next Thursday.
    Thanks, Phil&Ei

66. Eileen @ 61

    Yes – my slow fingers hadn’t finished typing before your post @ 59

67. Eileen@36, Gervaise@49, et al@various. Was it Taupi?

    Haven’t been able to trace the actual crossword

68. Like many others, tick certainly for Redbreast but what a shame Philistine didn’t follow his ‘inner Paul’ one more time and use ‘best rear’ performance!

69. Hi Dave Ellison @67

    Yes, after reflection, I think it very probably was – and I’ve not been able to trace it, either. I really loved Taupi’s puzzles and still miss him.
    https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/aug/18/albie-fiore-obituary

70. Having just reread the above obituary, I see that the clue is confirmed as his, in the penultimate paragraph.

71. Eileen, I included the link in @67. I wonder if there is a way of making the links more prominent, such as emboldening them. A link

72. Hi Dave @71 – you’re asking the completely wrong (technophobic) person! – I just click B on the link. I’ve no idea why yours didn’t work – so sorry . Many thanks, anyway – glad to know Taupi is still remembered.: he was one of my favourites.

73. [Odd – I’ve no recollection of Taupi, though I do remember Bunthorne (and Custos, from the same period?). Until I retired I rarely attempted Guardian crosswords – the School Common Room was exclusively Times. I find the Guardian ones generally much more entertaining, and I can also bear to read the paper!]

74. MU = overseas character…this is beyond me. What does it mean?

    I solved CANTER, EARLY & THICK AS THIEVES.

    Everything else was too tough for me.

75. Steffen @74
    Mu is a letter in the Greek alphabet, so in that sense it’s an “overseas character”.

76. [A MIDGE tip – we recently spent a week in Orkney and didn’t see a single one. Corrieshalloch Gorge was our worst ever experience, but Inverewe Garden wasn’t much better.]

77. Thanks both. (And well done Steffen.)

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