Comments on: Guardian 24,843 – Chifonie

By: ray

ray — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:14:54 +0000

I took 29a to be a reference to one who drew up plans in pre-CAD days.

By: cholecyst

cholecyst — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:20:42 +0000

29 ac: (Draught) Guinness For Men

By: liz

liz — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:03:26 +0000

Thanks, manehi. I got into this one quite easily, then soon saw why Chifonie is rated as ‘hard’. The righthand side of the puzzle took me quite a time and a fair few hits of the check button. But, as others have pointed out, this was very enjoyable, with no obscure words and lots of clever, devious surfaces.

14ac reminded me of the ‘Thames Tradesmen’, a rowing eight who used to compete at the Henley Regatta and who we used to support rather noisily!

19ac was my favourite too and 8dn made me laugh when I eventually got it.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:38:50 +0000

You’re right of course, Derek. Reality takes no note of dictionary definitions.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:15:29 +0000

And you haven’t come across shopkeepers who are skill free zones? Lucky man! It’s just an amusing little point. The phrase skilful worker should have implied a greater likelyhood of the worker actually being skillful. I just thought it amusing.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:50:43 +0000

Derek, to be fair, Chambers gives “trade” as “an occupation, especially skilled but not learned”, and “tradesman” as “a shopkeeper; a skilled worker; a mechanic”.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:50:39 +0000

Many thanks, manehi.

A wonderful crossword which was enjoyably challenging without any obscure or foreign words.

Although I entered EPICURE at 8d, I couldn’t figure out how it worked until I saw your explanation. This and 5a LAMPREY were the last two that I entered.

More of the same, please, Chifonie. You are for real and certainly no fonie.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:44:20 +0000

I enjoyed this too.

29a: I agree with the above. Chambers gives “man” as “a piece used in playing chess, draughts, etc”, and “draught” as “a thick disc used in the game of draughts”.

And I was also thrown by “point” in 26a, initially convinced that the word had to start with N, S, E or W.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:43:34 +0000

Just one small detail a skilled worker is a craftsman or an artisan or some such. There is no implication of skill with the word tradesman, although it obviously helps to have some! One example should suffice, Trotters Independent Traders. LOL!

By: Qaos

Qaos — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:10:15 +0000

I thought this was an excellent puzzle, with a very good selection of misleading words in the clues (chagen, spider, cool, banker, relish). One of those crosswords that looks much harder on first reading, but the lovely logical cluing allows the solutions to flow out nicely.

For 29a, I also thought “man” could be read as “draughts piece”, a bit like “man” for be a chess piece.

Nice to see “point” not being N,E,W or S for once .