Guardian 26,773 / Chifonie

67 comments on “Guardian 26,773 / Chifonie”

1. Thanks Chifonie & Eileen.

   Enjoyed this on the whole, but I put in PACER for 12: “recap” (i.e. “second thoughts”) backwards = “one taking strides”. Made the NW a bit of an uncharacteristic struggle and 3 was my LOI, correcting the mistake.

2. Thank you Eileen and Chifonie. I also pay for the paper and found the three down clues impossible, in the days before the Internet this would have been very annoying.

   Only problem we had was with 2dn. My wife thought it was STRIKE and I thought it was STRUCK. Needed the crosser to confirm.

3. 25a- BEN = man around A + POLE

4. Thanks Eileen and Chifonie

   re 25 I read bean as a person – as in “old bean”. I agree about the apostrophe in 11

5. Sorry – meant to say thanks for the blog Eileen. Found this pretty straightforward, although slowed by the missing square in the paper

6. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

   A nice gentle puzzle, welcome calm after the recent storm 🙂

   BEANPOLE is BE(A)N, ie BEN catching A, with POLE possibly as in telegraph pole, that birds perch on?

   B = BOY as in BF/GF (boyfriend/girlfriend), I think

   GLEN’S SMELL = VALE (has) SCENT?

7. What a boring crossword! Just a couple of slightly obtuse definitions, no impenetrable charades, no esoteric theme getting in the way of sound clueing, no smut to chortle over. Just the job!

8. …and if I’d waited I would haves seen Shirl deftly knock me off my perch :0)

9. Thanks, Shirl @3 – I knew it was going to be simple. I still don’t like the definition, though and, Simon S @6, I still think it’s pole = perch as in the unit of measurement.

   Charles @2 I like your wife’s STRIKE – that never occurred to me but, because I boringly tackle the clues in order, I already had PACES.

   I like Mitz’s RECAP, too.

   Glad to know that others had some misgivings. I’m going out to lunch soon, so good humour is restored.

10. Mitz @ 1 and Eileen @ 9: me too! (RECAP, and hence never solved RECESSIVE as I couldn’t shoehorn in the SS). Apart from that a very gentle runaround, in contrast to some of the recent puzzles! Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

11. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

    A crossword I could solve without problems. The only niggle I have with this, and other crosswords, is the use of T for Tuesday and S for Sunday, what about Thursday and Saturday? The abbreviation “b” I have seen used for “boy” on primary school class lists, along with “g” for “girl”.

12. Thank you Eileen, glad you’re over your grumps.

    Mitz et al, I managed to compound the PACER error and cross it with RECURSIVE unparsed, which is (kind of) going back on itself.

    Does 1d really need both “‘olding” and “‘oop”? I suppose it helps the surface a bit.

    Really enjoyed looking up FARCE to find that it related to playwrights literally ‘stuffing’ in a bit of burlesque nonsense into a play. Amazing that it should survive as a construction to become a whole genre.

    Not wildly keen on some of the defs, here, but they are all getable so fair enough.

    Nice week, all.

13. William @ 12 – me too (RECURSIVE unparsed). Such is life.

14. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen,

    I agree, ‘straightforward’ is the word.

    (Mick – I took the apostrophe “s” in 11d as ‘has’)

15. Thanks Chifonie & Eileen.

    Straightforward largely; William @12, I parsed FARCE as a form of forcemeat, which is stuffing, according to Collins.

    Not always reliable but my Chambers and Oxford Thesauruses both have complain=criticize. ‘He’s always complaining/criticising.’ It took me a long time to realise that ‘fed up’ was…… literally fed up. I was trying to start with ‘eta.’ I also looked at recursive but realised it didn’t parse.

16. P.S. In 11, isn’t Glen’s just Glen has in the wordplay?

17. Robi @15 Yes, me too. I only looked it up because I knew ‘farci’ from the French ‘stuffed’ but wasn’t sure of the root. Found it fascinating, but once I start looking things up in the dictionary, half a day is gone!

18. Oh dear. After my sarcastic remark yesterday, I’ve had to go to the internet because some of today’s clues aren’t fully printed.

19. Great blog Eileen- for the prologue and the comment on 17d.(Thought this was more challenging than usual from Chifonie.And as always, very neat)

20. [Julia, I think many people who live/work abroad, and also some natives of other countries, subscribe to the Guardian Weekly, as probably quite a few do in the UK who have not the time to read a daily paper.]

21. I’m another solver on paper, indeed today I’m solving in the car as Mrs Trailman takes me shopping. Thankfully it’s Chifonie and the three clues get entered correctly despite only partial visibility. That said, I don’t think it was the easiest Chifonie ever. Just finished as we rolled into the car park. Now, unaccountably, Mrs T wants me to stop posting and start shopping!

    Better go. Liked 7d.

22. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. Working online I did not encounter the problems reported above. I paused before seeing the PS in PACES and my reflex was to put an extra word (ENOUGH) in LET WELL [ ] ALONE, but I did parse the BE(A)N in BEANPOLE. A quick and enjoyable solve.

23. Thanks as ever to Eileen and Chifonie.

    I was another who had PACER (as my first in!) but fixed the error soon enough.

    In today’s “two nations divided by a common language” corner, the phrase here is “leave well enough alone,” though I got it easily enough. And the usual term for dedicating funds to a single purpose is “earmark”; the term “ring-fence” is unknown. I’m also unfamiliar with “farce” = “stuffing.” Huh? (As you can see, the SE corner was my last part in, with those two entered on the strength of the wordplay alone.)

    STRESSED DESSERTS and T+HEIST = THEIST are both really old chestnuts, aren’t they? As a law graduate and a pedant, I do object that a heist is generally a robbery, not a burglary. Totally different crimes.

24. Found this a little more engaging than Chifonie can sometimes be, and couldn’t parse my last in BEANPOLE, so no complaints (apart from being another who had a deficient paper copy)

    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen

25. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen
    Pleasant enough; favourite RING FENCE. If I’m quibbling, I would say that a PS is an afterthought rather than “second thoughts”, and shepherds lay hold with rather than of crooks.

26. Thanks Eileen and Chifonie
    Enjoyable except for the omissions. However I could not get into the Guardian website and had to solve it from crossers and assumed definitions. Not that I would like to do that again!

27. mrpenney @23, you can thank Collins for “burgle”. It has “heist – noun: a robbery; verb: (transitive) to steal or burgle”. Chambers, ODO, and Merriam-Webster have done better by sticking to “steal” and/or “rob”.

28. I am new to all this critic stuff but picking it up slowly however is it not sometimes easier to see the obvious ? e.g. 23 a cold stuffing = farce

29. I was another with RECAP and got locked into it so this became my LOI preceded by RECESSIVE. I also had the duff paper but fortunately I also had my trusty Kindle so I wasn’t held up for too long.
    I rather agree with Eileen about some of the definitions but mostly this was enjoyable. Liked PROVERBS.
    Thanks Chifonie.

30. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen and Happy New Year to all.

    I was “strike” too, though it became obvious that 12 across wouldn’t work. And I couldn’t work out why the gap in the clues happened: almost as if someone had let a small square of paper block some of the photocopy.

31. Just so, Marienkaefer. it seems there are more people who buy the paper than I thought. 😉

32. Just to say that I’m a paper-solver too. Managed to second-guess the three obscured down clues from other crossers (except for having to wait to see whether 11d might end in ING or ENT). Wouldn’t have been possible for a more difficult compilation. Had STRIKE at 2d, so missed 12a.
    Thanks Eileen and Chifonie

33. Annoyed at missing clues, but enjoyed the puzzle. I also had a soft spot for RING FENCE, it’s because of the definition. Rightly or wrongly, I use chambers for accepted abbreviations and it doesn’t have b for boy, nor BF for boyfriend ( although it does have GF for girlfriend and BF for bloody fool)

    Many thanks Chifonie and Eileen

34. Thanks all
    Like Eileen I buy the print version (and help to keep things going!) but I managed to complete this one.13 d was a guess since I had no chance of parsing it.
    Otherwise an enjoyable and smooth puzzle.

35. I subscribe and so have the physical paper every day, but I usually solve on a printout so that the rest of the family can read the paper.

    Ironically I only got to this this afternoon, so might have written on the paper, if I hadn’t been forewarned by Eileen’s preamble that some clues were only partially present!

36. I had the same little niggles about this as you did, Eileen.

    It was straightforward mostly, but two clues caused me to have a rethink before I could fill them in.

    1D (DROOPY)
    This would have been my first in but it was my last because I couldn’t believe it. I really expected ‘oop to indicate a synonym with a missing aspirate. And why ‘olding? This, though, was the only clue that I would call weak in this puzzle.

    25D (BEANPOLE)
    I got ‘pole’, as did others who learned Eileen’s ‘rod=pole=perch’ from school, and then the full word, but I had to be sure how the clue structure worked, and it nearly does. I don’t see the definition very clearly. A beanpole is something tall and thin, not ‘tall and thin’ or ‘is tall and thin’. This is a classic dilemma that setters sometimes encounter (I know) – make the structure 100% or have a silky smooth surface.

    These are minor gripes, and I enjoyed this very much.

    Nice one, Eileen and Chifonie

37. I had no problems with this one, but I had the advantage of doing it online. I’ve no real quibbles with any of the clues. Like mrpenney @23, I tend to think of the phrase as “leave well enough alone” even though I’m British born and bred, but I knew the other version too. “Criticises” is fine – as Robi pointed out @15, although it is transitive in the clue, it can be intransitive too. If I was going to quibble, it would probably be about “Glen’s”. Yes, the apostrophe S can stand for “has” but it cannot in the clue’s surface reading. Does that matter? I’m not sure.

    If I had to pick a favourite, it would proably be PROVERBS for the misleading use of “lead”.

    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

38. Re 18, I think that LEAVE WELL (ENOUGH) ALONE is the most common version, but I believe that LET … ALONE is a Midlands variant, as I heard my grandfather, from the Leicester area, use it a lot. Another of the wonderful idiosyncracies of UK English, let alone two nations divided by a single language (see what I mean!).

39. Interesting, Simon. I was brought up in Devon and have lived in Lancashire for 30+ years, and have only heard “let well alone” – though “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is commoner in both locations!

40. Thank you Chifonie and Eileen. Another paper solver but nonetheless shared in the site’s EMOLLIENT tone today. How long will it last? I always thought that Isiah Berlin’s essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, explained the unavoidable nature of the problem. The Hedgehog knows one big thing (Ximenes is right); but the Fox knows many things (The Guardian is free-thinking).

41. muffin @39 et al
    I said I am British, but it seems now that I needed to be more specific. I’m London-born, my mother was from Lincolnshire, and since leaving home I’ve lived in Sussex, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire (briefly) and Berkshire. Also, of course, I’ve come across the phrase on TV and radio and in books, so it is hard to pin down where I have occasionally come across the “let” variant.

42. I went back to doing crosswords about six months ago after a long inexplicable break. And I’m so pleased fifteen squared is here for help with the more difficult parsing. Keep up the good work! Many thanks.

43. Well, blow me! I was born and brought up [early years] in Leicestershire and, by coincidence, via Norfolk, Bristol and Northern Ireland, I’m back here again. The version I’m most familiar with is ‘Leave well alone’ – no ‘enough’ – so where do we go from here? [Rhetorical question.]

    Seriously, though, the answer to this clue must, surely, be applied to the issue raised in comment 40.
    I have steadfastly, with almost superhuman effort, at times, believe me, refrained from responding to said comments, even on my own blog, but now is surely the time to call time. The issue still appears to be live on the Brummie and Rufus threads, so can we just, please, leave it there and move on? [Another rhetorical question – please, just leave it! 😉 ]

44. PS: Welcome, Dave, if you’re new – please keep commenting!

45. Eileen @44
    Second thoughts or afterthought?

46. got most of this which implies towards the easier end of the spectrum. had cot not crib for 1a which didn’t help and 23a beyond me. 4d got the answer before the clue so didn’t worry about boy – is that typical to work backwards?
    thanks to setter, blogger and my agent

47. Bit of both, muffin! But you’re quite right @25, of course: post script[um] = written after.

48. Eileen @43
    I agree. Those who wish to continue with that discussion can do so in one of those two threads until Gaufrid calls time, but please let’s not revive it in every thread (though Lancastrian’s reference @40 is an interesting angle on it).

49. jennyk @48

    EXACTLY – so no more comments here, PLEASE!!

50. Thanks. Have been on here a while but only just plucked up courage to comment. For what it was worth!

51. Welcome, Dave @50!

    I still remember my first scary ‘click on submit’! It gets easier – come back soon!

52. muffin and Eileen at 45 & 47

    A PS is an afterthought, not second thoughts. But the clue is ok because the setter is defining the part word PS cryptically. Your first thoughts are in the body of the letter and your ‘second thoughts’ (!) are in the postscript.

    This is a bit of a trick, but valid in my opinion. It did, though, give me second thoughts (!) about the answer before I finally decided that must be it.

53. Can I please call on the educational resources of this site, which have never yet failed me?

    Dropped H’s in clues continue to puzzle me and I’m never sure what’s going on. Idn was totally beyond me. I understand the ‘oop as the filling for “dry” which then gives “droopy”. Is the ‘olding put in just to make the ‘oop look more acceptable?

    I also shared Cookie’s misgiving about ‘T’ @ 11. Any special reason why it should stand for Tuesday rather than Thursday?

54. Thanks Eileen, hope you’re less grumpy now!
    We thought this was another OK puzzle by Chifonie, although the clueing was slightly less sound than usual.
    It is all a bit one-dimensional, isn’t it?

    I was actually quite surprised to B = boy being questioned.
    But as others said, it’s in none of the major dictionaries.
    In the past I did put question marks to the use of G = girl on one or two occasions.
    Could it be that is an abbreviation generated by another?
    I mean OB = old boy (legitimate), O = old (also legitimate) and therefore B = boy?

    Talking about abbreviations, S and T for Sunday and Tuesday are also not in the dictionaries.
    But it’s clear where this comes from – calendars.

    I did not have real complaints about the apostrophe s in 11d.
    In the cryptic reading it is indeed ‘has’.
    In the surface it is, of course, not.
    But cryptic language and the surface are things that should be separated.
    First, the construction should be right – a good surface is just a (real) bonus.
    That said, I am not a great fan of this use of apostrophe s and would prefer to avoid it.

    Didn’t notice that 2d could lead to two answers (see post 2).
    Luckily STRAIN doesn’t mean ‘hit’, otherwise we had three ….

    Many thanks to Chifonie.

55. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. I filled in LET WELL ALONE without really considering that LEAVE is what I would use myself. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” was originally American and I attributed it to Calvin Coolidge but Googling it shows that it was first recorded in print some 50 to 60 years after his time. In my defence he was famous for not taking any unnecessary steps which I mention only as excuse for reminding readers of Dorothy Parker’s comment on being told that he had died – “How did they know?”.
    Android/Samsung keeps correcting Coolidge to Cowlinge. Who he?

56. Jovis @53

    You ask “Is the ‘olding put in just to make the ‘oop look more acceptable?”

    You’re not the first to ask this. I think that is absolutely the reason why holding was made into ‘olding, and this is the main thing that led me to describe this clue as ‘weak’ @36.

    As for T = Tuesday: this was brought up @11 and commented on further @54. My conclusion is that although it is not in dictionaries it is in actual use. But so is T = Thursday of course. I think I have seen the sequence ‘M T W T F S S’ in calendars, possibly where space was short. If it’s in actual use, that’s good enough for a crossord puzzle.

    Hope this helps.

57. So sorry for the extremely late post but one of those days. I totally agree with you Eileen as I also buy the paper as I can’t get my head round on line solving. I need to have pen in hand and paper in hand too. However this was not straightforward as the usual Cnifonie so I agree with Eileen. Thank you both.

58. Apologies should have said how can you have a chance of solving a puzzle when 4 clues in paper version are incomplete. How frustrating is that. Get a grip Guardian please.

59. It’s the following morning and no one will read this, but someone remarked on a Leicestershire expression, familiar because I grew up there, and I’d have liked to quote another local word – mardy – which was what this puzzle made poor Eileen!!

60. Well, I saw it Harhop – bloggers get an email of comments on their blog – and yes, it did! Lovely word, isn’t it?

    [I’m OK this morning, though, despite the rain. 😉 ]

61. Harhop @ 59

    Mardy is also in widespread use in northwest England.

62. Certainly the Preston version of “mardy” is “mard”. I can’t speak for the rest of the North West. (only its hub 😉 )

    Obviosulsly those Midlanders copied it but got it wrong. (SOED does have “mard” from the verb mar whereas “mardy” is from “mard”.)

63. Since I was born there, for once, Brendan, I am in wholehearted agreement with you 😉

64. Alan Browne @ 56

    Just acknowledging your helpful comment – thanks

65. We thought the answer to 1A was Chilcott – it fitted perfectly, as it turns out there is a River Chilt, if you google hard enough, around COT. But we were wrong!

66. Thanks Eileen and Chifonie.

    Pleasant enough but not too taxing.

    Applause to JKaye for the alternative answer to 1ac.

    I stupidly held my self up for a while by putting STRAIN (as in hit melody) at 2dn before the inevitable moment of revelation.

    FARCE as a stuffing was new for me.

67. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

    A rare thing – a relatively easy one in the backlog pile !!! No real holdups apart from being one of a few who originally went with STRIKE at 2d and also went with a new CUTUS flower variety at 22d – both quickly patched up though.

    Finished in the SW corner with LOTUS, COMPLAINS and STAMPEDE (which was cleverly clued I thought) as the last few in.

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