A themed puzzle from Philistine for this week’s puzzle in the prize slot.
I had the pleasure of blogging Philistine’s puzzles four times last year, but this is the first time this year that one of his puzzles has coincided with my slot in the blogging rota. We were told that several solutions were “of a kind” and were undefined. This always adds a little additional challenge, but Timon and I soon guessed the theme from 11,14 (NIGHT JASMINE) even though the particular plant variety was not known to us. Unusually, Philistine chose to include two abstract representations of the theme (FRAGRANCE and SCENTS) as well as examples of the plants themselves. We thought the clue for FRAGRANCE was particularly brilliant. I have highlighted the undefined entries in the grid. Many thanks, Philistine, for a delightful puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | PATCHOULI | Even slices of apple pie have a filling that’s a touch strange (9) |
| *(A TOUCH) inside PLI (even letters from aPpLe pIe). Our first themed undefined answer. You could quibble and say that the even letters of aPpLe PiE are PLPE, but I don’t suppose anyone was seriously misled. | ||
| 10 | PHOTO | Top house design no use in picture (5) |
| *(TOP HO (USE)). | ||
| 11, 14 | NIGHT JASMINE | After dark, I’m heading west wearing tattered jeans (5,7) |
| NIGHT (after dark) IM (rev) in *JEANS. This compound isn’t in either Chambers or the Oxford Dictionary of English, but can easily be found on the internet. Another scented plant (the trachelospermum jasminoides in my garden is particularly fragrant this year and has provided a nesting space for a family of blackbirds!). | ||
| 12 | IN THE HAND | Cryptic hint, what with bird being worth double here? (2,3,4) |
| *(IN TH) EH (what) AND (with). | ||
| 13 | GRANNIE | Member of the family may be earning (7) |
| *EARNING. Delightfully simple and yet it fooled us for quite a while. | ||
| 14 | See 11 | |
| 17, 20 | YLANG-YLANG | Would have been a great pianist, if it weren’t for the Yankees (5-5) |
| LANG LANG (famous concert pianist) with a couple of Ys. The hyphen is also an addition. | ||
| 19 | LOB | Throw light on bald heads (3) |
| Initial letters (heads) of Light On Bald. | ||
| 20 | See 17 | |
| 21 | MOLOTOV | Bravo to Lombardy serving a retro cocktail (7) |
| Hidden and reversed in “bravo to lombardy”. | ||
| 22 | SPONSOR | Promote spoons bent by Geller at the end (7) |
| *(SPOONS + (Gelle)R). | ||
| 24 | FRAGRANCE | Le Figaro? (9) |
| RAG in FRANCE. A quite brilliant themed clue. | ||
| 26 | HENNA | Anne Hathaway’s head, back and hair treatment (5) |
| Another hidden (“back”) reversal. | ||
| 28 | ROCKS | Geology subject is awesome! (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 29 | EXTENUATE | Unwrapped sexy item, one out later to lessen the impact (9) |
| Central (“unwrapped”) letters of sEXy iTEm oNe oUt lATEr. I think that this is a device that Philistine has used before, but it still fooled us for a while. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1, 24 | OPEN FIRE | One’s warmed by this shoot (4,4) |
| Another double definition. | ||
| 2 | STIGMA | First to introduce gospel, missionary aims to follow St Mark (6) |
| ST, followed by initial letters of Introduce Gospel Missionary Aims. | ||
| 3 | WHITE NIGHT | Man on board reported no time for sleep? (5,5) |
| Sounds like “White Knight” (chess piece). Strangely enough, I was only familiar with this phrase in French (une nuit blanche) but apparently it is commonly used in places like Orkney and Shetland where the nights at this time of year are not dark for long, if at all. | ||
| 4 | LUPINE | Like a wolf that bears flowers with the end to seduce (6) |
| LUPIN (a plant that bears flowers) (seduc)E. | ||
| 5 | DIRTY JOB | One patient needing a bath? Someone’s gotta do it! (5,3) |
| The patient one is the Biblical figure of Job. | ||
| 6 | APSE | Copy covering the start of summer recess (4) |
| S(ummer) in APE (copy). | ||
| 7 | SONATINA | Work from 16 as nation developed (8) |
| *(AS NATION). Here’s a link to the piece in question. | ||
| 8 | See 23 | |
| 13 | GOYIM | I go my way, being of a different persuasion (5) |
| *(I GO MY). It’s the term used by Jews to refer to non-Jews. Although it produces a brilliant surface, I wasn’t entirely happy with the use of the unqualified noun “way” as an anagram indicator. | ||
| 15 | SAY NOTHING | Silence ego? (3,7) |
| A classic “lift-and-separate” clue which had me fooled for days (the correct parsing only came to me on Thursday night): SILENCE (definition) EG (say) O (nothing). | ||
| 16 | ELGAR | Last night of the Proms feature in hotel garden (5) |
| Hidden in “hotel garden”. Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 (which is the tune for Land of Hope and Glory) is traditionally played on the last night of the Proms. | ||
| 18 | ALLIANCE | Marriage of pin-up in fancy lace (8) |
| NAIL (rev) in *LACE. | ||
| 19 | LAVENDER | John Terminator (8) |
| A simple charade of LAV ENDER. | ||
| 22 | SCENTS | Little money in Swiss banks (6) |
| CENT (little money) inside SwisS. | ||
| 23, 8 | SANDALWOOD | Public disgrace to ignore second court order, essentially (10) |
| S(c)ANDAL (ignoring the second letter), WOO (court), orDer. | ||
| 24 | See 1 | |
| 25 | ROSE | Stood up to recite lines (4) |
| Sounds like “rows”. In another sense, it could have been included in the thematic clues (although not all roses are scented). | ||
| 27 | AVER | State slavery not clever (4) |
| SLAVERY minus SLY. | ||
Thanks bridgesong. An enjoyable session. The theme emerged quite early on thanks to SCENTS and JASMINE and was a help even if I had to battle with YLANG YLANG, but oddly enough my LOI was FRAGRANCE which I also thought was quite brilliant. Wasn’t sure about the use of the same word (NIGHT) conjointly in 3d and 11a.
Instructions like this one has (and Araucaria did this kind of thing a lot) always make me slightly apprehensive since the more theme clues there are (and we don’t know the number this time), the fewer remaining ones there are to provide the crossers to help get started with the theme. However, I found this puzzle to open up quite readily, maybe because the theme words were longish and quite spottable. Like bridgesong, I thought FRAGRANCE one of the best, although admittedly only gettable backwards.
A happy July 4th to my fellow Statesiders.
I thought this was easier than a couple of the weekday puzzles that preceded it, but highly enjoyable, so no complaints. I generally like special instructions that require some ferreting out, and this was no exception. The surfaces for NIGHT JASMINE and YLANG-YLANG benefitted from not having to fit a definition into the clue. IN THE HAND and DIRTY JOB were obvious but clever.
I couldn’t parse FRAGRANCE or SAY NOTHING (also brilliant now that I see it), so thanks to Bridgesong for the explanations, and of course thanks to Philistine.
An original and enjoyable theme and excellent clues throughout. I liked DIRTY JOB, YLANG-YLANG and FRAGRANCE especially.
Thanks to Philistine and Bridgesong.
Comes up smelling of roses.
My LOI was actually the non-thematic and quite obvious AVER. Which I couldn’t find without a resort to a thesaurus bash. So no prize for me. Also didn’t parse FRAGRANCE, which agreed is a superb clue.
Many thanks Philistine and to Bridgesong for kindly explaining it all.
Loved the SILENCE, likewise my last to parse.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong.
Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong. I got FRAGRANCE and SCENTS early on but then took the rest of the week before getting HENNA and especially SANDALWOOD..
Had to come here to appreciate FRAGRANCE in all its glory. Chapeau!
But isn’t GOYIM plural?
Thanks to you both. I really enjoyed this one and I absolutely loved 24ac (despite it only works in this context) and 15 and 19dn, the latter of which made me laugh out loud. Very Paulesque, I thought.
This was a lot more straightforward than last week’s, especially when I eventually twigged that I had put my FOI as IN THE BUSH – so transparently right! – and then wondered why I couldn’t get either 7d or the 23d/8d pair. I was sure the former ought to be an anagram of ‘as nation’ – but what was the U doing there? And I had all sorts of trouble finding a suitable _O_H word, though I thought I had the S[C]ANDAL part already. Apart from that idiocy of mine, I enjoyed it. I was nervous about the special instruction, but soon saw that SCENTS would both fit 22d and give me the secret hint. My favourites were FRAGRANCE (before 22d I was thinking ‘newspaper’), ROCKS (having a Geology degree) and GOYIM (the suspected anagram grist looked so unpromising!). Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.
Yep, ditto fellow posters re lowish on the tuffometer. And yes, rag in France and eg 0 were very cute, the latter being a trick that must’ve been used before, but I can’t remember it. Surprised not to have heard of the pianist to put the ys in front of, but the fragrance I did know..think someone once gave Mrs ginf some. And yes goyim is plural (or
collective) essexboy, but the clue’s referent is unspecified, so it’s ok by me.
Fun puzzle, thanks P and B.
..unless you think the solution must agree with the ‘I’ in the grist…
Glad we had YLANG-YLANG twice in 2019: it was the first of the sweet-smellers to go in. The Figaro clue was lovely. Thanks B & S.
this was so enjoyable, I learnt a lot by the parsings.
Thanks Bridgesong for parsing — your blog amplified my enjoyment of this crossword — the brilliance of FRAGRANCE, and especially of SAY NOTHING, escaped me until now. Other favorites included MOLOTOV, EXTENUATE, and DIRTY JOB. Thanks Philistine for the fun.
Like bridgesong, I only knew WHITE NIGHT in its French incarnation and didn’t realise it was also a legitimate phrase in English. Thanks for parsing SAY NOTHING and DIRTY JOB, both of which were easy enough to get from their definitions but not so easy to parse.
A very useful number of the non-themed answers dropped out fairly easily, but I found I had to work harder to get some of the themed ones. I found the not-strictly-even ‘Apple pie’ letters confusing, but mostly because even though I knew the word that must be meant it’s one I have a lot of trouble spelling! Loved the disdainful ‘French rag’ clue, like everyone else, but needed to come here to see where the Wood in SANDAL WOOD came from – obvious now, of course. And the slyly hidden AVER was my LOI too. Thanks bridgesong, thanks Philistine.
Thanks bridgesong. One point, your link in SONATINA connects to Lang Lang, not to this (fairly obscure) piece by ELGAR.
I enjoyed this, but initially thought the theme was types of tea (JASMINE) rather than FRAGRANCE, which I pleasingly managed to parse, along with SAY NOTHING. But I am not familiar with WHITE NIGHT in either language – can somebody clarify, does it refer to a disturbed night, kept awake unhappily, or a night of passion, kept awake enjoyably?
I sometimes don’t get along with Philistine, so this was a pleasant surprise. At the risk of being repetetive, my favourites also were FRAGRANCE and SAY NOTHING, along with SANDALWOOD.
Lang Lang is certainly a technical virtuoso, but I’m not sure that alone makes him “great” – we went to one of his concerts at the Albert Hall, and I had to awaken my wife (who is much the more musical of us), as her snoring was disturbing the people around us! But YLANG-YLANG was my foi, and showed what the theme was.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong
I’m also wary when there are “Special Instructions”, but this was great fun. FRAGRANCE the standout clue.
I’ve recently read an Ann Cleeves Shetland novel entitled “White nights”, so that was no problem.
Hugely enjoyable. Thank you to the setter and blogger.
I got bogged down in a lupine/vulpine/ursine discombobulation for the final clue (4 down).
Does anyone else resort to reciting the alphabet mentally at times like this?
I had all the crossers (_ u _ i _ e) so it was a case of aubi…auci…audi…aufi…
Eventually got to lupi…and the penny dropped.
FF @21
To celebrate all our differences…..LUPINE was my FOI!
I only tackled this last night as, like others, I was put off by the instructions. In fact SCENTS was my foi so I found most answers came reasonably quickly. I stared at 15d for a while as, even with all the crossers, I was trying to turn it into a scent. When I finally got there it elicited a groan; very clever. I also liked LAVENDER and FRAGRANCE took a while to see. For once I managed to parse everything. A very enjoyable solve. Thanks Philistine and Bridgesong.
sjhart@18: thanks for pointing out the error, the link should now work as intended.
When I saw AVER included a reference to the removal of sly from slavery I instantly thought of Sly and the Family Stone, and their fifth album in particular. Not sure whether to be shocked at the reference or delighted at the inference, so would appreciate guidance from the Fifteensquared outrage police.
A joy from start to finish. Like some others here, I am not always enamoured of the Special Instructions but this time the theme became clear early and the special answers were not too difficult. Very clever, I thought, to get YLANG YLANG in and I join the FRAGRANCE fan club. LAVENDER made me smile too. I also felt we had a bumper crop of excellent non-themed solutions: even the double definitions and simple homonyms – OPEN FIRE and ROSE, for example, were really nicely clued. And my old friend APSE popped in.
TassieTim @10: you are not the only one to confidently bung in IN THE BUSH. It was an early entry for me and I, too, desperately searched for a SANDAL WOOD solution incorporating an H.
gladys @16 sjshart @18 & muffin@ 20: White nights in Shetland are often coincident with that most beautiful of phrases ‘the simmer dim’ when it never gets truly dark. I have always understood the phrase to mean a night of sleeplessness rather than a night that is too light to sleep – though one clearly begets the other. Not sure I’d equate it to a night of passion though; that might require the knight with a ‘k’.
Thanks Philistine and bridgesong for ‘saying nothing’ so helpfully. I never did parse that one.
[muffin @20: Strictly speaking, off topic but prompted by your Ann Cleves reference. If you enjoy her work, you’ll probably enjoy Peter May’s Scottish novels too. His Lewis Trilogy in particular.]
[ Mark – I love the Lewis trilogy. Better written than Ann Cleeves, I think – and I’ve been to Lewis and Harris, but not Shetland (yet!)]
I’m another whose heart sinks at the presence of special instructions but this was fine and worth it for FIGARO alone. For GOYIM you could, if in a generous frame of mind, look at “way” as meaning “to travel” – it’s in the dictionary as an intransiitive verb (Spenserian)
And isn’t LUPINE a fragrance for the bathroom?
bodycheetah @29
🙂
I thought it was a rather unusual choice for a theme by our surgeon setter, but found it most enjoyable nonetheless. Like DaveinNCarolina@3, (and I see several others ff. had the same experience), I couldn’t understand the parsing of 24a FRAGRANCE and 15d SAY NOTHING – though I got them from the crossers and FRAGRANCE from the theme – so I have been eagerly anticipating this blog (no PDMs for me during the week unfortunately). Both are brilliant! Some lovely lovely clues, a couple of which have already been lauded – 12a IN THE HAND, 1,24d OPEN FIRE, 2d STIGMA, 19d LAVENDER and 22d SCENTS. But I could have ticked them all really. 7d SONATINA was unfamiliar but gettable and a new word to relish. I also liked learning that new meaning of 3d WHITE NIGHT (thanks to this blog) which reminded me of the late Robin Williams in a most unusual role in the film “Insomnia”.
Many thanks for the Prize fun to clever Philistine, and to bridgesong and Timon for the explanations.
[Yes Happy Fourth of July to our colleagues in the US – I hope you got to see the clue for you in Crucible’s puzzle during the week.
And I am a fan both of the series “Shetland” based on Ann Cleeves’ novels, and the Peter May books – so glad they both rated a mention today.]
I was lucky first off, working out PATCHOULI, which went in when the crossers lined up nicely. Quite a steady solve, with just the two quite brilliant FRAGRANCE and SAY NOTHING unparsed. No shame in that.
Quick google of WHITE NIGHT gave me both definitions which I hadn’t heard before, but led me nicely down a rabbit hole trawl as so often happens on that engine!
Thanks to Bridgesong for finishing off the parsing for me,and the great blog. And of course to Philistine for the entertainment. Lovely
Very nice indeed. I had to look up LANG LANG but once I had YLANG YLANG was obvious. Not the most difficult puzzle but none the worse for that.
Thanks Philistine.
[JinA @31: I’m not surprised to hear you enjoy Ann Cleeves and Peter May. You mention the series based on the former’s books so I assume they’ve appeared on Australian TV. I’ve wished for some time that somebody would do the same with The Lewis Trilogy which seems well suited to adaptation, if based on a rather dark subject. The BBC optioned it several years ago but, unless I’ve missed something, it’s never come to anything which is a shame. I can envisage the timbre being quite similar to Shetland: the landscapes, culture, weather, lifestyles have so much in common and set so much of the tone.]
As someone who spent 30 years of his professional life distilling essential oils all over the world, I really enjoyed this offering by my favourite current setter. I think Le Figaro will be in contention for the best clue of the year were we to have a vote, and I think we should have. Favourites obviously FRAGRANCE, PATCHOULI a lovely aroma and very hard to distill, and LOB for its beautiful simplicity. Many thanks to Philistine for a marvellous puzzle and to bridgesong for the comprehensive blog. I agree that ROSE should not be included in the list, as the fragrance is obtained by solvent extraction and not by distillation.
[Mark @34
I thought White Nights was much better than the first one I read – I can’t remember its title, but it started with a landslide that buried a house. It really lacked any sense of place.
The former explains how Perez got his improbable surname – he was descended from a shjpwrecked Armada sailor!
She’s started a North Devon series. The detective lives in a house I know very well, as I used to do a bird count around there.]
SPanza @35: your posts often intrigue me with their occasional references to the life you’ve lived! As do many others. It’s one of the pleasures I get from Fifteensquared. If someone had the time and ingenuity to collate, review and analyse by source the posts on this site, they’d end up with passable mini-biographies of some of us!
[btw I worked out from her biog. that I must have been at school with Ann Cleeves. She’s a bit younger, so I don’t remember her at all.
I was also at school with David Spiegelhalter too, who has been prominent on statistics recently. We were friends.]
Mark @ 37: thank you for your comment! I too am intrigued by the lives of many who contribute regularly here. One of the joys of this site is that one gets posts from all around the world. Also the references to books enjoyed and music which inspires is very educational.
It’s a shame about GOYIM, which is flawed both due to the singular-plural mixup. I can’t see grantinfreo @11’s argument: the definition can be taken to be a singular noun or an adjective, but not a plural noun as required.
I’m also unhappy with the anagrind. bodycheetah @29’s justification of the anagrind is ingenious but strikes me as strained.
But otherwise a very enjoyable puzzle. In particular, I concur with bridgesong and others about the brilliantly compact clue for FRAGRANCE.
I don’t see the problem with GOYIM if you see ‘being’ as the verb form, not the noun form.
I failed to parse ‘fragrance’ as with a few others (so thanks birdsong :-)) – closest I got was that according to wikipedia, in 1922, Le Figaro was purchased by perfume millionaire François Coty … .
To Mark@37. I’ve spent a career in AI, so I know this is possible: the folks at Google, if they were so inclined, could develpp software to analyse the words that people here seem very free to announce they don’t know, to build a model of their educational background and interests, in order to direct personalized advertising at them. I think it is only the very small number of contributors here that is stopping that from happening.
On the other hand, if I get some spare time ….
While I hesitate to disagree with SPanza (@35), I cannot let “I think Le Figaro will be in contention for the best clue of the year were we to have a vote” pass without comment. Yes, it’s a brilliantly concise clue, but it owes its brevity partly to the fact that it has no definition. Taken on its own, out of context, it means nothing (as it surely does not qualify as a cryptic definition). It would have to be “Le Figaro smells”, or something similar, in order to justify the answer FRAGRANCE in the absence of a special instruction.
On the other hand, the clue for SAY NOTHING – “Silence ego” – is not under the umbrella of this puzzle’s special instruction, but is both just as concise and just as certain of leading to the answer. So if there’s to be a candidate for clue of the year from this crossword, that would be my nomination.
Hello, all — I for one (am I alone?) perk up when I see “not defined … of a kind.” I usually get one or two of those early on, even without crossers, because after all it’s a full serving of wordplay even without a definition, and then I have an idea of the theme. I think they’re fun.
Dr. WhatsOn @43: I see the site has some bots blocked in robots.txt, but I don’t see Google.
Sheffield Hatter @44, …. apart from the fact that “I say nothing (3)” is one of the most famous clues ever written.
I totally agree with you about 24ac, it’s a nice idea but only half a clue.
Fun puzzle though!
Sil @47. Thanks for that. I wasn’t aware of that one – or had forgotten it when I posted before.
…and I’ve thought of a counter-example to my assertion that “Le Figaro” doesn’t work without the rubric to justify its incompleteness. I can remember many years ago – could it have been Araucaria? – “Nommag?” (10). (It’s mentioned here in 2012 but I reckon it’s 30 years ago at least that I first saw it.)
I enjoyed this as I always do with Philistine but a few minor quibbles. I thought I must have got 11a or 3d wrong because I didn’t think we would have 2 NIGHTs in the same puzzle and I could only find “night-scsnted jasmine” on a quick check on wiki.
I thought that the anagram at 22a – spoons for sponso was a bit obvious and I preferred bridgesong’s description of Lang Lang as a “famous” concert pianist to Philistine’s “great”. Having looked at Paul’s and Imogen’s clues for this tree in February and June last year my advice to a setter would be to try to find something else to fit the space. Paul “Tree – positive thing round 50×2” and Imogen – “Tree repeatedly named in baby language”.
Thanks to Philistine and bridgesong.
Hello, I’m posting here for the first time, having returned to the Guardian cryptic crosswords, after many years in the wilderness. A lock-down silver lining. I missed the instructions on this crossword, but nevertheless finished it, except for 27d. I’m enjoying the explanations and comments on this site- thanks to all.
Welcome, pierrotlunaire, and do post again: the more the merrier! I’m surprised you missed the instructions, as they were included in the online version, I thought.
Julie@31 you have to remember that he only does heart surgery in his spare time-his real gig is doing pleasantly scented puzzles.
And as for essexboy- damn that should be my calling card- Sarfend born and bread!
ginf (very belatedly!) – my problem with GOYIM was pretty much along the same lines as Ted’s @40.
However, we seem to be in the minority, so maybe we’re just being klutzes.
(Or should that be klutzim??)
copmus @52: I think kursaalflyer is still available 😉
sheffield hatter @ 44 and 48 I agree with both of your posts and to add support to 48 what about; HIJKLMNO (5) a famous clue my father mentioned to me but we never knew who wrote it, or perhaps Ofofofofofofofofofof (10) (again perhaps Araucaria).
I enjoyed solving this and was very relieved when I remembered Le Figaro is a newspaper, not an opera.
I agree with the criticisms of the clue for GOYIM: weak anag indicator and mismatched part of speech. @essexboy, it wouldn’t be klutzim as -im is a Hebrew plural ending and klutz is Yiddish. Surprised in a way that Philistine, being a genuine Philistine (in the biblical sense) is not more aware of Hebrew grammar, but I don’t know where he grew up.-im is cognate with Arabic -?n (or -een if the special character doesn’t come out).
@SPanza, “Ofofofofofofofofofof” was Araucaria’s, but there were only 5 letters in the answer, as I’m sure you were aware, really. Wonder what made you think of ten, eh?
The answer is OFTENTIMES Tony Collman!
Awesome puzzle. I was about a fourth of the way through and getting increasingly frustrated before seeing the special notice! FRAGRANCE is absolutely brilliant as were LAVENDER and HENNA. Thanks Philistine and brdidgesong.