Guardian 26,056 / Philistine

48 comments on “Guardian 26,056 / Philistine”

1. And to think taht when learning Latin as a schoolboy more than half a century ago I fondly hoped 1 down might mean O Times O Daily Mirror.

   I see the man has come with my coat so I’ll go.

2. Couldn’t agree more, Eileen, and thank you for the excellent blog.

   This has everything, as you say, but my favourite has to be the outrage of clueing The Winter’s Tale as ‘Coldplay’ and contriving ‘latest hit’ into the mechanism. Love it!

   Bravo! Philistine, more please.

3. Morning, Conrad

   You’re in good company – I nearly gave this link in the blog!;http://www.nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas/anotherhat_horo.html

4. Thanks Eileen and Philistine

   Looked less tractable at first than it turmed out to be. Many excellent clues with a very enjoyable light touch and some very smooth surfaces as Eileen says.

   I particularly liked 1a, 11a, 13a, 1d, 7d, and 8d!

5. Thanks all
   Although there were some nice touches it was overall a little too straightforward for me to go along wwith Eileen’s eulogy.
   The very unusual use of the compiler’s name in 3d and 1ac and 17d were all impressive.
   I think maybe the frequent broken enumerations gave rather too much help.

6. Thanks Eileen. The Cold Play was nice, made easier by having Macbeth yesterday. Nothing too hard here, but lots to like. Especially GOLIATH, with the misdirection towards the setter. Got but couldn’t fathom PEARL.

7. Hi molonglo

   ‘Conference’ is a type of pear.

8. Hi tupu

   See my link in the blog to a picture of it. 😉

9. Dydwi ddim yn deall un i lawr. Beth ydy “O TEMPORA O MORES” yn Saesneg?

10. As usual, I agree with Eileen. I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle and didn’t find it disappointingly easy. I made it initially more difficult by entering ‘square cut’ at 12a, but discovered the error of my ways when I fell into the excellently clued ‘The Winter’s Tale’.

11. Hi don @9

    ‘O times, O customs’

    [Or, if you prefer, ‘Pa amseroedd, pa arferion’ [I hope – that took a little time!]

12. Diolch, Eileen.

    Like you I thought this a brilliant crossword and, standing out over some marvelous clues, ‘Oasis’ was beautifully crafted in every sense, but why throw in a blutty foreign language which has been dead for almost as long as Cicero, who ever he was? Jag kan tala Svensk en liten, but … !

13. Sorry, don, I’ve no time for any more googling – I’m cooking for a friend coming this evening – and, anyway, as I’m sure you know, you’re sailing rather close to the wind, as far as I’m concerned. 😉 Again as I’m sure you know, the phrase is still fairly widely quoted today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_tempora_o_mores!

14. I agree, two very good puzzles in as many days.

15. Thanks to Eileen and Philistine for their excellent work.

    A gem of a puzzle for me, with an abundance of humour and craft.

    A week of quality and entertaining offerings so far. Long may it continue!

16. The pear ‘Conference’ is capitalised. I was under the impression that adding capitals was ok but removing them was a no-no.

17. I think you’re right, sidey, hence my comment in the blog. [But I’m still not quibbling.]

18. Great crossword, although my knowledge of Cicero is incomplete. Nice to see a ‘mutant genotype’ though. 🙂

    Thanks Eileen; mistressly blog as ever. 😉 I agree that some of the surfaces were superb.

    My favourites were GOLIATH, ENJOYED, ORGANISED CRIME and THE WINTER’S TALE [great use of Coldplay as has been mentioned.]

19. Cold London Pete at the moment. Really enjoyed the crossword and the blog. Thanks.

20. Sidey
    52 mins ago
    The pear ‘Conference’ is capitalised. I was under the impression that adding capitals was ok but removing them was a no-no.

    “Conference, perhaps with fifty in attendance is a gem.”

    Would solve the capitalisation problem.

21. Thanks Philistine and Eileen
    Quick solve, but great fun all the way through.

22. Yes, a delight to solve. Needed Eileen’s help to parse GOLIATH but there was hardly a clue I didn’t like. Relieved that the wonderful 8d required a knowledge of the Bard rather than the band.

23. Well it was similar to yesrday’s!! Again I doid not mind it, but for intsance COLDPLAY is a band, TEH winter’s TALE is a play, and this is a great liberty. You have to ‘agree’ with the complier, it is not an incontrovertinble definition. Iwould have liked more ‘Coldplay?’ just like that. Then it asks you poliety.

    I look forward to being bullied some more by the site bully who is alloedw to roam

24. Thanks, Philistine for a super puzzle and Eileen for the excellent blog (appreciated the link to the comedians).

    ORGANISED CRIME was a super clue as was the excellent THE WINTERS TALE as others have said.
    MUNTJAC was good, too. We see them regularly in this part of England.

    More please, Philistine.

    Giovanna xx

25. My first fifteensquared foray for an absolute 11ac of a puzzle. Loved 1ac Coldplay and Status Quo, and also 24ac (Eileen is that on the menu tonight or something 14ac?)

26. 1d. ‘O Tempora, O Mores’ was rendered a long time ago as ‘Oh Times, oh Daily Mirror’ by the late, great Flanders and Swann. This line from At the Drop of Another Hat is worth quoting in context for those of us who can remember as far back as 1963:

    “I mean we know perfectly well that if there’s no newspapers, I mean if there’s a strike or a public holiday or something, nothing happens! It’s marvellous! Oh tempora, oh mores – Oh Times, oh Daily Mirror. As Lord Denning said in his report, he said ‘none of this going around saying no smoke without fire – nil combustibus pro fumo’.”

27. Thanks, Ron @26

    See my link @comment 3 and Giovanna’s comment 24. 😉

    Hi Marienkaefer @25

    Welcome to 15²! I hope we hear more of you.

    TAPIOCA is something that would never appear on any menu here – it’s a total abomination of mine! Nothing tinned, tonight, either. [I’ve just had to rush out and but more figs for the starter: those I bought on Monday had gone bad!]

28. ‘buy’, not ‘but’.

29. Today’s puzzle has some questionable tropes, boy I love that word, but bagsa fun! 7 down nearly made me jump out the grammarian’s window, and some people on the Guardian threads say ‘tidy this up right now’, but would it make things THAT much better? I’d say quite a few of the newer Indy faces are along the Puckish, Philistinal (???) lines anyway, the FT too, but…. Go Compare!

    I want to thank Eileen and the setter, and… stop arguing, you other guys! Peace is the new war.

30. Eileen – thanks. It is usually Arachne you can rely on for food-related clues. I have followed 15 squared (no superscript on blackberry) for some time but it took sitting on a Eurostar for me to take the plunge.

    Flanders and Swann were part of my childhood thanks for the link.

31. Delightful puzzle, fine blog. What’s not to like? Loved ORGANISED CRIME and THE WINTER’S TALE today.

32. An elegant Philistine!
    Fabulous surfaces throughout; 8d brilliant.
    Status Quo, Oasis and Coldplay – rock of ages (but, not what Toplady had in mind)

    many thanks Eileen

33. At first I thought this was going to be a beast because I started slowly, with INCAPABLE my FOI. Once I had solved A WINTER’S TALE and A BIT OF A SQUEEZE I had enough checkers to make plenty of inroads.

    However, I took way too long to see ORGANISED CRIME, and O TEMPORA O MORES came to me after I remembered a Private Eye joke about Piers Morgan that made a play on it. PEARL was my LOI, although to be honest I didn’t notice the capitalisation issue.

    Eileen – from your comment above I take it you have never 23ac 24ac then?

34. …….. or even THE WINTER’S TALE …… full of cold at the moment but no real excuse.

35. Bert and Joyce cannot understand what you don’t like about TAPIOCA, Eileen. Frogspawn with jam swirled into it was a delight at school. Bert will tell you in person what it was called at his school!

    We digress…….. lovely puzzle and blog. We found the puzzle hard to get started and then things fell neatly into place apart from SQUARE CUT!

    Thanks Philistine and Eileen.

36. couldn’t agree more. a fine offering!

37. Dear Bert and Joyce

    “Frogspawn with jam swirled into it [was a delight] at school” – *that* was exactly the abomination!

    [Nice one, Andy B @33 – exactly! 😉 … and @34, were you perhaps thinking of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y28fyO0JreA ?

38. Eileen@37 – thanks for the link, although I have to confess I only made it through about a minute and a half before I decided I’d heard enough. Apologies if you are a big fan ……………

39. I thought you might say something like that, Andy!

40. Almosr completed, didn’t get 1 down, great crossword today, the Coldplay clue was good, indeed

41. Lovely blog Eileen, any chance of supper some time? Starters involving figs sounds good to me! I can bring my Tom Lehrer to supplement your Flanders and Swann

42. Thanks to Philistine and Eileen. Great puzzle! Love TAPIOCA and the clue wasn’t bad either.
    Would love to hear some Tom Lehrer.

    Cheers…

43. Thanks Philistine and Eileen. I particularly liked 17a, 22a, 16d, 24a, 1a, 13a, 7d and my favourites were 25a A BIT OF A SQUEEZE & 8d THE WINTER’S TALE (last in).

    New words for me were “Conference pear”, O TEMPORA O MORES, MUNTJAC.

    I couldn’t parse 2d, 9a.

    There’s a small typo for 24a regarding the Order (not the letters) TAke, PIes Or CAke.

44. Hi anio @41

    Sounds good – I like Tom Lehrer.

    [Late enough to go further off-topic, I think: the figs were very good – here’s the recipe http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roasted_figs_wrapped_in_44423 ]

45. I thought that this was an absolutely brilliant puzzle! I really enjoyed doing it. My favourites were 24 across and 19 down.

46. Another one in the “this was fabulous” gang.

    Defeated just by 1 down, which I didn’t know, but that’s my fault not the setter’s.

    GOLIATH and THE WINTER’S TALE were my favourites in an otherwise readily soluble but, I thought, very elegant and deft set of clues. Bravo, Philistine, and many thanks to Eileen for the blog.

47. Belated thanks, michelle – amended now.

48. Status Quo, Coldplay, Oasis, Squeeze, Pearl (Janis), lots of fun here. Thanks for the blog, Eileen, and the inimitably original entertainment, Goliath.

    I checked 1a, 12, 22 (twice!), and 17d.

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