Guardian 26,401 / Chifonie

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It’s only been five days since Chifonie last appeared so I certainly didn’t expect to see him again today.

In keeping with the usual aim on a Monday, this was a simple and straightforward solve with the majority of entries going in during my first pass through the clues. With hindsight, after this the half dozen or so that remained to be solved shouldn’t have done.

Across
1 Produce epic novel, when lost in thought (11)
PREOCCUPIED – an anagram (novel) of PRODUCE EPIC

9 Deserve to apprehend the nature of pottery (7)
EARTHEN – EARN (deserve) around (to apprehend) THE

10 Break down when crossing ocean to south, producing complaint (7)
DISEASE – DIE (break down) around (when crossing) SEA (ocean) S (south)

11 Unrest developed when keeping toilet free (4,5)
TURN LOOSE – an anagram (developed) of UNREST around (when keeping) LOO (toilet)

12 Fury of a German queen (5)
ANGER – AN (a) G (German) ER (queen)

13 Weakling is dead — needs epitaph (4)
DRIP – D (dead) RIP (epitaph)

14 Lawyer‘s writing edited by operational research (10)
PROSECUTOR – PROSE (writing) CUT (edited) OR (operational research)

16 Engineer is perverse and autocratic (10)
REPRESSIVE – an anagram (engineer) of IS PERVERSE

19 Kiss relatives in festival (4)
XMAS – X (kiss) MAS (relatives)

21 Complaint gets Tory down (5)
CHILL – C (Tory) HILL (down)

22 Too much pride in exotic orange car (9)
ARROGANCE – an anagram (exotic) of ORANGE CAR

24 Playwright initially longed for cast (7)
PITCHED – P[laywright] (playwright initially) ITCHED (longed for)

25 Good actor follows spirit of material (7)
GINGHAM – GIN (spirit) G (good) HAM (actor)

26 Finds out about journey from road warning (6,5)
RUMBLE STRIP – RUMBLES (finds out about) TRIP (journey)

Down
1 Attribute torment taken to heart by stout artist (8,7)
PORTRAIT PAINTER – TRAIT (attribute) PAIN (torment) in (taken to heart by) PORTER (stout)

2 Elated leaders consume your old sort of alcohol (5)
ETHYL – EL[ated] (elated leaders) around (consume) THY (your old)

3 Honesty and love withheld by villain (7)
CANDOUR – AND O (love) in (withheld by) CUR (villain)

4 Washerwoman loses the French strip (7)
UNDRESS – [la]UNDRESS (washerwoman loses the French)

5 Batting position, for example (8)
INSTANCE – IN (batting) STANCE (position)

6 One who would be king’s trendy artistic ability (15)
DRAUGHTSMANSHIP – DRAUGHTS MAN’S (one who would be king’s) HIP (trendy)

7 Angry supervisor rings Lawrence (6)
HEATED – HEAD (supervisor) around (rings) TE (Lawrence)

8 Fear the introduction of tragic mistake (6)
TERROR – T[ragic] (the introduction of tragic) ERROR (mistake)

15 Rehabilitate a shy male dog (8)
SEALYHAM – an anagram (rehabilitate) of A SHY MALE

16 Directions of soldier’s heroic rise (6)
RECIPE – RE (soldier) EPIC (heroic) reversed (rise)

17 Outrage as police officer gets on with gangster (7)
SCANDAL – SC (police officer {special constable}) AND (with) AL (gangster {Al Capone})

18 House members take in American shrews (7)
VIRAGOS – VIRGOS (house members) around (take in) A (American)

20 Lustful squad in the Seychelles (6)
STEAMY – TEAM (squad) in SY (Seychelles {IVR})

23 Individual in Greece about to die (5)
GONER – ONE (individual) in GR (Greece {IVR})

36 comments on “Guardian 26,401 / Chifonie”

  1. An improvement on the average Monday, I’d say, with 1a and 21a the standouts for me. Never knew what those ripples on the road were called, and ‘special constable’ sounds like something Gareth Keenan would be – when not working as assistant to manager David Brett, of course. Not the first type of police officer to come to mind, for sure.

  2. Thanks Chifonie and Gaufrid
    Lots of easy anagrams to fill in quite a bit of the grid, so all went quite quickly. I liked TURN LOOSE and UNDRESS (though I think I have seen similar clues to this one previously). Wasn’t too happy about “break down” = “die”.

  3. I don’t see a problem with ‘break down’ = ‘die’ – they’re synonymous in the context of car engines I think.

    Ulaca: I assume that your reference to ‘David Brett’ is a deliberate echo of last week’s clue howler!

  4. Thank you Gaufrid.

    Not totally to my taste I’m afraid. I find this setter a little ‘clunky’. Hard to say exactly what it is but an example is the SCANDAL clue SC + AND + AL is fair enough but what is ‘gets on’ doing? It’s as though the setter has an idea and then has to shoehorn it all in regardless.

    Someone cleverer than me will have to explain how down = hill. I can’t find the noun in chambers although I accept that there is a root (including ‘dune’ etc).

    There are some neat clues too; I liked RUMBLE STRIP, and enjoyed having to look up VIRAGO (again). I think perhaps we’ve been spoilt by the elegance of the likes of Pasquale, Tramp & Puck in recent times.

    Thank you Chifonie, nice week all.

  5. Thanks Chifonie and Gaufrid

    William @ 4

    The South Downs is a range of hills in Southern England.

    hth

  6. Hi William @4
    “Someone cleverer than me will have to explain how down = hill.”

    Chambers does give “a treeless upland” and “(in pl) an undulating upland tract of pasture-land, esp in SE England (the Downs)”

    Collins is more specific with “a hill, esp a sand dune”.

  8. Rog @3 – Brett is better than Brent really, given the assocations it has for me with the 70s programme in which Patrick Allen played a very scary business type of that name.

  9. My favourite was 6d.

    Think I must be almost brain dead after the weekend in York! Took me a while to get going on this one. But no complaints. Liked the shy male dogs getting steamy with American shrews!

  10. Simon S @5 Thanks, Simon, I’ve ground up them on a bike in my youth, but does ‘a down’ = ‘a hill’? I see ‘The Downs’ as an area of upland etc but could one construct a sentence where ‘down’ and ‘hill’ are interchangeable?

    Only a small gripe, plenty else to like in this Crossword.

  11. Gaufrid @6 many thanks. If Collins gives it then fair enough. (I don’t use it myself). But as I mentioned to Simon, could one construct a sentence where ‘down’ and ‘hill’ are interchangeable?

  12. William
    Collins does identify this meaning of the word as archaic so it is unlikely to be seen or heard these days. As for a sentence, how about “Jack and Jill went up the down …” 😉

  15. Thanks, Gaufrid.

    Chifonie’s preference for anagrams and charades over cryptic and double definitions makes his puzzles a simpler task for me than the customary Monday Rufuses, and this was typical.

    William: DOWN is a name often given to individual chalk hills in Southern England – Twyford Down and Watership Down are particularly well known.

    VIRGO is an astrological sign, not a house, which is a different subdivision of the heavens, related to the ascendant – the position on the ecliptic which is rising at a particular moment. Sloppy astrology here!

  16. Thanks Chifonie and Gaufrid.

    Found this harder going than this week’s Everyman (but may have made two errors, have to wait until Sunday).

    My school backed onto the South Downs at Eastbourne. The door in the garden wall opened directly onto them. If someone lost something while outside the door they would be asked “Did you leave it on the down?” If a ball went over the wall, “Did it go on the down?”

  18. Thanks Chifonie and Gaufrid

    Just what I needed today … a bit of a break from a couple of hard older ones that I’m still struggling with from the weekend.

    This setter might not be difficult, but he’s always enjoyable – I reckon that Monday is the appropriate spot for him.

    Did like 4d and 26a – SEALYHAM was a clever anagram.

  19. Further to ‘down’: the apparent illogicality of this word used as a noun meaning ‘something which goes up’ is explained by its etymology. ‘Down’ as an adverb is from Old English ‘adune’, which meant ‘from the hill’.

  20. Very easy, which is neither here nor there, with a fair bit of extraneous material, and some Guardianisms (like ‘about to die’ = goner), so not very satisfactory for me. This needs a few turns on the editorial spanner. Whilst Rufus’s puzzles are also quite dull, also ‘for me’, they usually have fewer style problems.

    I would point you to The Times for comparison, but today’s is really hard!

  21. Not the easiest we’ve seen from Chifonie recently, but still fairly straightforward. Last in was XMAS (a.k.a. the “C word” at the moment). I’m not entirely convinced that draughtsmanship implies artistic ability. SEALYHAM would have been unfamiliar but I remembered it from previous crosswords.

    Thanks to Gaufrid and Chifonie

  22. Wot no Rufus! This was pretty easy,though none the worse for that. I’d never heard of RUMBLE STRIP but the clue was very fair.I can’t say I have any problem with DOWN as HILL
    Thanks Chifonie.

  24. I enjoyed this for a Monday puzzle.

    hedgehoggy @20, maybe 23 could be seen as a semi-&lit, in which case ‘individual’ would also be part of the definition (?)

    I liked the shrews and the laundress.

  26. penguin @25
    In the board game ‘draughts’, when a ‘man’ (piece) reaches the opposite end of the board it becomes a ‘king’ and can then move in any direction rather than just forward.

  27. Thanks Gaufrid @26
    I was stuck on thinking of draughtsman as a man who draws, and couldn’t jump to the board game.

  28. Nice and easy-breezy.

    Sealyham is a breed of dog that I’ve only ever seen in crosswords. Like at least one other commenter, I’d forgotten it though, and first tried Aylesham, which looks British-ish enough to be plausible.

    Of course, here in America we spell it “draftsmanship,” and call the game “checkers.” But neither of those linguistic quirks sidetracked me at all. I agree with the above quibble that draftsmanship is not artistic ability–indeed, calling an artist a great draftsman is almost always intended as an insult.

    “Gangster” for “Al” is also a little loose, but it’s become standard Crosswordese at this point.

  29. MrP @ 28
    Great draughtsmanship isn’t mutually exclusive to great artistic talent though – consider Giotto!

  30. Muffin: True enough. The relationship between draftsmanship and artistry, I’d say, is that the former is usually necessary but seldom sufficient. Or, in the famous put-down by film critic Roger Ebert: “I was reminded of the child prodigy who was summoned to perform for a famous pianist. The child climbed onto the piano stool and played something by Chopin with great speed and accuracy. The great musician then patted the child on the head and said, ‘You can play the notes. Someday, you may be able to play the music.'” (It’s from his review of the remake of Psycho.)

  31. MrP @ 30
    Yes – L.S.Lowry, for instance, appears to have no draughtsmanship, but his early drawings belie this.

    I’m disappointed though – I paint, and have a good grasp of colour, but my drawing skills are pretty non-existent!

  32. mrpenney @28. A Sealyham was the first dog I ever had . I was critically ill with poliomylitis. Our neighbour sent over a catalogue of dogs and I was asked to choose one. I chose a Sealyham. His pedigree name was Pittencrieff Peer Gynt. He probably saved my life. I called him Snuffy.

    apropos of down/hill @16, we would say “I am going for a walk on the downs,” wouldn’t one say “I am going for a walk in the hills”? (I am out of touch with English usage.)

  33. Very disappointed no Rufus today. Contrary to all the previous comments I didn’t find this easy but got there in the end.Can’t get my head round how many of you thought it was a walk in the park.However going by your blogs you enjoyed this today. Sorry I didn’t. Thanks to Gauge in and Chifonir

  36. Thanks Chifonie. I’m one of those who’d prefer more of you and fewer Rufuses.

    No problem with ‘down’ as a hill. I live on top of one so go up and down the down every day.

    ‘Up’ and ‘down’ also refer to the direction of travel on railway lines. I am reminded of an old photo of a steam engine carrying a large headboard carrying the prominent message ‘Up Down’, leading to complete puzzlement among railway buffs. It turned out to be a picture of a special excursion in Ireland, carrying supporters of the County Down sports team to the Cup Final.

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