Guardian Prize 29,655 by Philistine

59 comments on “Guardian Prize 29,655 by Philistine”

1. At 1pm in Spain, it is usual to be having a SIESTA. That was my parsing for 11a, anyway. My memory is that this was quite a pleasant solve. Thanks, Philistine and bridgesong.

2. For once, I was able to spot Philistine’s classic trick and separate ‘Range’ from ‘S’ to get SIERRA. However, I created problems for myself entering EVEREST instead of EASIEST (EVE being the core of ‘seven’, a team in sevens rugby, REST being the siesta and ‘not a piece of cake’ being a definition no more outrageous than some of the others here). But that clashed with what had to be LACKADAISY. SIESTA went in unparsed with a shrug and BEACHHEAD with a bit of a raised eyebrow. Still, it was easier than an Enigmatist.

   Thanks Philistine and Bridgesong

3. Thanks for the blog , good set of neat clues , had to wait a long time for the trademark fission clue , SIERRA nearly last . Not keen on NEUTERED with NEED in clue and answer but the rest was enjoyable .

4. Alas, alack and lackaday, but lackadaisy … ?? Whoopsadaisy perhaps 🙂

5. Apologies for the late publication of this blog. I had scheduled it to appear at 00.02 – but on April 6th! Thanks to Ken for sorting it out once Roz had flagged up the issue.

6. Good challenge, quite enjoyable.

   I couldn’t parse 13ac and wondered about 20d.

   Thanks, both.

7. This was the first time I’ve managed to solve anything other than a regular weekday puzzle or a quiptic! (With the help of a friend pointing out that my final guess of GNAT fitted the wordplay that I’d somehow missed).
   Would never have spotted the phonetic alphabet connection for SIERRA.
   Thanks, Philistine and bridgesong

8. Enjoyable stuff.

   Thank you, Bridgesong, for the explanation of SIERRA, which I couldn’t parse but now understand and admire!

   I gave up on BEACHHEAD and left this clue unsolved.

9. 11a. I noted three possible interpretations here.
   1. literally, if you are in Spain this is a usual practice.
   2. if the time is 1 (in the afternoon) in Spain this is usual.
   3. “if one is” translated into Spanish is “si esta”.

   10a. is an interjection used to express sorrow or regret.

   20d. I would have liked to see an indication that the word “ranges” requires modification. Not sure it’s fair to expect solvers to know that Philistine has a history of such single letter separations (aka fission).

   Thanks to bridgesong and Philistine for a fun challenge.

10. Good fun, as ever from Philistine.

    Chuffed to see SIERRA early on. I also liked 17ac AMUSINGLY (but can’t see the need for ‘is’ and it spoils the surface), 6dn AGAMEMNON, 8dn SCANDALMONGER, 18dn SAMURAI, and 23dn YODEL.

    Thanks to Philistine and to bridgesong (sympathies on the scheduling issue: it’s easily done!).

11. Some nice clues – particularly AGEMEMNON, BEACHHEAD AND NEUTERED.

    It appears we have to learn Spanish now to do the crossword.

    Thanks Philistine and bridgesong

12. Like Erin@7 I found this to be a pretty gentle ride for a Prize puzzle, though I’m sure that getting the uppermost and lowermost across clues early on helped by giving lots of initial/terminal letters. My favourite was SCANDALMONGER but I needed all the checkers to get it, despite having twigged what we were being asked for early on. I also liked BEACHHEAD and don’t feel cheated by it; with some clues one just has to wait for the checkers. C-blank-H was what gave it away.

    I agree with the blogger about BANG UP TO DATE, although I think “up to date” / “in the mood for dating” is somehow part of it – but that means the “up” isn’t available for “bang up”.

    SI ESTÁ doesn’t work for me; “if one is” would be translated as “si uno/una está/es” while “si está” means “if it/he/she/you is” but would not be appropriate to translate the personal pronoun “one”.

    I can’t see the equivalence between Tories and “on the right” in BEDTIME STORIES but by that far down the answer is obvious.

    SIERRA was my LOI and a guess and shrug really, so technically a DNF for me. I didn’t know that Philistine was renowned for divide-and-conquers; this one was devious! Congrats to all who got it.

    Thanks both!

13. I’m still not sure I understand 1, 4. My thinking (rather like AP @12) was that BANG UP = “put in prison” and “ready for going out” = UP TO DATE — if you’re up to (a) date you’re ready for going out. But that leaves UP doing double duty which seems unsatisfactory.

    BEACHHEAD was my last one in and I thought it was very good. Yes there are many other words beginning with B, but not many of them mean a landing zone!

    Many thanks Philistine and bridgesong.

14. I felt like I was on Philistine’s wavelength from the get-go which was a pleasant feeling to have when tackling the Prize puzzle. Like others before me, I couldn’t parse 20d SIERRA but now I know, I think it is very clever. An enjoyable solve. Thanks to Philistine, bridgesong and Timon.

15. Very enjoyable solve, especially after last week’s Prize. I particularly liked SCANDALMONGER AND LEATHER. Missed out on BEACHHEAD and GNAT. Completed the rest without getting the parsing of SIERRA. Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong

16. Like Bridgesong, I’m not at all convinced by beachhead. Other than that, I quite enjoyed this, as usual with Philistine. AP@12 the conservatives are the most right wing of the three traditional parties in the UK (Labour left, Lib Dem’s in the middle.) This has gone a bit haywire with Labour moving to the right of the Libs, but I don’t think anyone would describe Kemi Badenoch’s politics as anything other than right wing. Being to the left of Reform doesn’t mean you’re unaligned or left wing.

17. TassieTim @1 and Jay @9: I must admit that it never occurred to me to read “one” in the clue as referring to the time, although I now think that you are right to suggest that. But isn’t 1.00 p.m. a little early for a siesta? I always thought it started at about 2.00 p.m.

18. I always feel chuffed when I manage to complete a Prize – though, like AP @12, getting the top and bottom two-parters straightaway certainly helped matters.
    PM @2: I also tried Everest at first, with exactly the same (flawless!) parsing as you, till LACKADAISY put me straight.
    The quasi-Spoonerisms generally have a slightly desperate feel to them, and this one was no worse than many.
    On the plus-side: LEATHER, BEACHHEAD YODEL and SERIAL KILLER were pleasing, I liked the trick with SIERRA – and SCANDALMONGER made me grin.
    Thank you Philistine, bridgesong and Timon.

19. Dave F@16, indeed – I was talking purely grammatically :-). The only thing I can come up with is “the Tories’ opinions” = “the opinons on the right”, but I’m not that such word order switching is fair game…

20. I really quite enjoyed this one, SCANDALMONGER conjured up an amusing image, and was fairly easy to work out, with an added giggle. RANGES was fair, it has recently become a common trick, but I did try and find an anagram for a while to no avail. The only clue I didn’t like was BEACHHEAD, still not convinced, and DAHL wasn’t great either. Thanks B&P

21. “Si está” is perfectly grammatical. Spanish habitually omits to express the subject. sp a literal translation “si uno está” would be more unusual

22. “Si está” is perfectly grammatical. Spanish habitually omits to express the subject. sp a literal translation “si uno está” would be more unusual.

    (This is not a duplicate comment, since the first time I tried to post it wasn’t accepted. mea culpa)

23. I disagree with the disparagement of the clue for BEACHHEAD. I think I just had the second H before I solved it, which made HEAD a likely candidate. B words for a ‘landing zone’ include bridge (too long) and BEACH. Yes, I had to wait for a crossing letter before this train of thought kicked in. So, a crossword clue requiring crossers! As 8d has it, ‘Shock! Horror!’

24. Good puzzle

    Favourites: LACKADAISY, UNLEASH, YODEL, SERIAL KILLER, SCANDALMONGER, AGAMEMNON

    Thanks Philistine and bridgesong

25. Stella Heath@22n “si está” is indeed perfectly grammatical; but it simply doesn’t translate to “if one is”. At least, I can’t think of a single example sentence in which it does.

26. Much enjoyed. Many thanks Philistine and bridgesong.

    I nearly always enjoy compilers who favour brevity. There can be head-scratching but I reckon I save time because there are fewer ways to misread a clue.

    Only hold-up was to have OPENER initially for 5D. “Here’s your opener for ten”. This door is an opener so it’s not impenetrable.

    DOMINION was my favourite.

27. My partner was bang up to date while I was relating bedtime stories and the rest was history, (apart from a couple not parsed until later). We did not see a theme but ‘It’s not unusual’!
    Thanks to P for an entertaining puzzle and b for the usual clear explication.

28. BEACHHEAD was my loi, and I’m still not convinced by the clue. With all the crossers it was clear what the answer had to be, but is the clue really saying “a word meaning landing zone that starts with B”?

    I also didn’t get the parsing of SIERRA, and was wondering about the plural/singular discrepancy between the clue and solution – very clever now that it’s been pointed out.

    My favourite was LEATHER – liked the misdirection of “hide” and the construction of “edges can’t be seen”.

    Thanks Philistine and bridgesong.

29. I enjoyed this puzzle. I liked BANG UP TO DATE with the double use of UP. BEACHHEAD was clever, and SIERRA even cleverer, now that bridgesong has explained it it. Other satisfied ticks for LACKADAISY (in SOED), EASIEST, SCANDALMONGER and SAMURAI. I was uneasy about SIESTA and loi DAHL for reasons already discussed by bridgesong and others.

30. Sheffieldhstter@23 please refrain from unkind sarcasm, I am not the best solver and I don’t understand why the clue works. It’s not normal to give the definition and then the first letter of the answer. I get that beachhead contains the word head, and b is the ‘head’ of the word but, like the blogger, I do t really see how the clue works.

31. SI ESTÁ only works with the diacritical. Without that, the stress is on the first syllable and it means ‘if this’.

32. I’ve only skimmed the blog and comments this morning, having other fish to fry today, so forgive me if this comment is redundant or mistaken. There seems to be a misunderstanding running from blog through the comments about BEACHHEAD. The point is surely not that B is the first letter of BEACHHEAD, but that it is the first letter of BEACH. So B is clued as the head of BEACH in an answer which is one of those reverse parsing clues we sometimes see. The answer thus defines BEACHHEAD non-cryptically as ‘landing zone’ and cryptically B as the head of BEACH. Does that make sense, or should I have stuck to frying fish this morning?

33. Like sheffield hatter I disagree with the negative comments about BEACHHEAD. Dave F @30: “Landing zone” is the definition, and “B” is the wordplay because it’s the HEAD (first letter) of BEACH, and therefore the BEACH HEAD.

34. (We crossed, Balfour @32.)

35. Balfour @32, and Lord Jim @33, I agree and should have spelled that out in the blog.

36. A lovely puzzle, fun to complete.
    I wasn’t sure about the parsing of BEACHHEAD or the meaning of LACKADAISY; thank you for the explanations.
    IDEM is also a medical abbreviation for types of spinal tumours, but I’m not sure if this was intended.
    I liked BEDTIME STORIES, SCANDALMONGERS, SERIAL KILLER, SAMURAI and the clever SIERRA.
    Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.

37. Thanks Philistine for a most enjoyable prize. My top picks were NEUTERED, BEACHHEAD, GNAT, MAYDAY, SCANDALMONGER, and SIERRA. SIERRA & SIESTA are so common in the US that I no longer think of them as ‘Spanish’ words. Thanks bridgesong for the blog.

38. WI still don’t get RANGE + S. That adds up to RANGE + Sierra. So what is the range doing?

    FWIW, “sierra” in Spanish also means “saw.”

    Thanks, Philistine and bridgesong.

39. I very much enjoyed this – Philistine is such a great setter. I was really pleased to parse SIERRA without assistance and I agree with Jay @9 on SIESTA, but my Spanish is conversational rather than grammatic. Same favourites as others but SCANDALMONGER really made me smile.

    Many thanks to bridgesong for the blog and to Philistine for a delightful Prize.

40. 1a I can’t see how TO DATE = “going out” though “dating” might. I’m with Lord Jim, AP and JohnJB in thinking that UP had to be doing double duty.
    8a Under “lackadaisical” Chambers says “[See alack-a-day]” which it defines as “alas” which = “regrettably” and it was this connection that I subconsciously used in parsing the clue. When I checked on “lackadais-ical/y” I was surprised that Chambers didn’t have any suggestion of a “alas”. The best explanation that I can think of is that a person who mooches around saying “alas, alack-a-day” could be described as “lackadaisical”.
    [This brought to mind Gertrudes Stein’s line, ” Pigeons on the grass alas” and Thurber’s comment that one thing that pigeons never are is “alas”]
    13a I solved this from the B and the numeration as BEACHHEAD is almost the only synonym of “landing zone” that I know, certainly the only one wth 9 letters beginning with B. It helped with the down crossers when I came to them.
    I though there were fewer of Philistine’s clever tricks than usual here but 20d was certainly one that brought a smile.
    Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.

41. Thank you Balfour @32 and Lord Jim @33 for the parsing of BEACHHEAD – that explanation has completely changed my thoughts on the clue, it’s very clever.

42. Philistine, so “one might say shock” must be something along the lines of resuscitator or defibrillator. OK, it isn`t. Try again. SCANDALMONGER ends up (for me) as a lovely clue.
    Pleased to see the alignment of UNLEASH and SIERRA -as in a budget version of Life on Mars.

43. Valentine@38
    Range=SIERRA and s = SIERRA so, as bridgesong said, it’s a double definition. Similarly @ 22a “We’re in serious trouble”= MAYDAY (the international call for help, derived from the French “M’aidez”)and “this (is a) bank holiday (in the UK)”= MAYDAY or May 1st.

44. DsveF@30. I’m sorry if you felt I was being sarcastic at your expense. That was not my intention.

45. As Tony says @37, both SIERRA and SIESTA are so nativized that they don’t even merit a foreign-language indication in the dictionary. The Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Madre, the high sierra, etc. That one was an interesting experience–I went from thinking the clue was daft (before I worked out what was going on, thinking “that’s not even cryptic! that’s not even grammatical!”) to thinking it was quite clever (once I figured it out).

    Re Martyn’s comment at 11: si está is fairly basic Spanish; if you don’t know it it’s easily reverse-engineered from the answer (which as I said above can be found in your English dictionary); and anyway it makes a nice change from them assuming we all know French!

46. [Me @45: Sierra Nevada translates as “snowy mountains,” which they certainly are. Las Vegas Nevadas would be The Snowy Meadows; they have no meadows, and it rarely snows there.]

47. SIERRA my LOI, why does it always take me so long to remember to divide and conquer? Much enjoyed, thank you P & b

48. Various comments above re beachhead. I like Philistine, I liked this crossword. I still don’t like that clue.

49. Well, I thought I was clever. Looked up SIERRA. referring to the saw-tooth profile of the mountains,, from the Latin ”serra”. ‘meaning ‘‘saw”. I thought this might have been Philistine’s usual reference to his day job. Saw-bones, slang for surgeon.??

50. Mrpenny@45. I agree with you on SIESTA and SIERRA. I am not enthusiastic still about si esta, more so now that it appears to be wrong.

51. I think I found this quite straightforward but it often seems like that in retrospect. I didn’t parse sierra though, so thanks for clearing it up.

52. Re 11a SIESTA, people are having difficulty making the phrase “si esta” make idiomatic sense. But the clue doesn’t require this. Just separate si and esta; SI = if, and ESTA = this, and the clue makes sense.

    My favourite clues were 1,16 BEDTIME STORIES and 8 SCANDALMONGER. I saw them as related – the bedtime stories we hear these days from the right tend to provoke shock and horror. And I loved the image of the drug-addled Birkenstock man.

    In 1,4 BANG UP TO DATE, if UP is doing double duty it is an excellent use of that device, making for a superb clue. I l’ve never understood why some people see double duty as a bad thing – it often makes a clue more concise (a good thing) and makes for a better surface (another good thing).

    Thanks Philistine and bridgesong for the fun puzzle and excellent blog.

53. Thanks Cellomaniac for your praise for “double duty” in clues like BANG UP TO DATE. In fact here the UP is doubling in the answer, whereas usually we see double duty in the clue, with a word that is necessary in the word play also being necessary in the definition. This is not a complaint or a cavil, just an observation. 🙂

    Perhaps it would be more elegant with an indication of the two UPs overlapping, but I like it as it is.

54. Cellomaniac@52
    I’ve no rooted objection to double duty. It’s just that there is a convention that it is to be avoided and if it isn’t it makes me hesitate or wait for more crossers or, as others have done above, look for a different way of parsing before writing in the answer.

55. Pino@54. Is there a “convention”, or is it just an expectation that double duty is not the done thing? One of the things I like about Guardian crosswords is that conventions are sometimes ignored and expectations are sometimes frustrated. Which is refreshing, isn’t it?

56. I don’t think it’s just a convention that double duty is to be avoided — it’s a question of whether a clue works logically or not. It seems to me that the clue at 1,4 leads logically to BANG UP UP TO DATE, not BANG UP TO DATE. sheffield hatter @53, yes we more often see double duty in the clue rather than in the answer. In that sort of case it’s a bit like somebody trying to tell you to spell “button” by saying B, U, T, O, N, and expecting you to look at it as B, U, T and T, O, N, without telling you that the T needs to be counted twice! That’s my opinion anyway.

57. sheffieldhatter@55
    I don’t find it refreshing when conventions are ignored, just mildly irritating in that it makes me doubt whether I have the right answer or the right parsing. In this case there was no doubt about the answer.
    LordJim@56
    You are right of course.

58. Re: double duty. The weakness in the clue is that – as Lord Jim points out – there is nothing to indicate that BANG UP and UP TO DATE have to overlap somehow. The fact that the answer is reasonably obvious, as Pino mentions, means that the setter ignoring the convention doesn’t make the clue unfair. Just mildly irritating!

59. A very enjoyable Prize. Liked BEACHHEAD, SCANDALMONGER, and SIERRA, after the dictionary reminded me that it’s also S, and I then saw (RADIO) RANGE S. Thanks Philistine and Bridgesong. Puzzle and blog perfectly pitched!

Comments are closed.