Guardian 26,999 / Chifonie

46 comments on “Guardian 26,999 / Chifonie”

1. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

   You are correct about EL, Eileen – the pronouns in Italian are IL (m.) and LE (f.) I didn’t like FINERY either – it’s not the same as “decorations”, and “fiery” isn’t “gleaming”.

   On the other hand there were some nice clues. My favourites were DEMURE (I tried to get something going backwards to mean “take exception to”), UPPER CRUST and LAPTOP.

   I had forgotten “ice”, so failed on BODICE.

2. I did the same with 17ac, muffin – I meant to comment on the neat misdirection. [I think you mean ‘la’ for the Italian pronoun.]

3. Yes LA – LE is the plural, of course; masculine plural I.

4. Thank you Chifonie, thank you Eileen.

   Muffin @1 I think the feminine in Italian is la rather than le.

5. Sorry both, we crossed.

6. Thanks Eileen.

   I’m confused. Are we talking about pronouns or the definite article? (I speak neither Italian nor Spanish.)

7. jvh @6
   You’re correct, of course – I thought at the time that I was using the wrong word!

8. And I simply followed you, muffin, without thinking – sorry for the confusion, jvh. 😉

9. For me Monday is the best place to put Chifonie, and his absence was a long one as Eileen has said. All very straightforward except that it took me ages to see BODICE, and it was the BOD that held me up – the ICE was familiar from previous crosswords…

   Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen

10. Muffin @ 1 and Eileen @ 2. are they not definite articles? Help!! There is a pronoun Lei (you, she) but that is not the same thing and doesn’t help!!

    This took me longer than previous Chifonies and was enjoyable?? I took far too long to see DEMURE; as you say good misdirection. I also enjoyed SWINE FEVER and HALO among others!!

    Thank you Chifonie and Eileen!!

11. Sorry much crossing!!

12. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

    Like S Panza@10, I enjoyed 11a SWINE FEVER. Other favourites were 26a ETERNITY and 13d TENDONITIS (a pleasing anagram). 21a LAPTOP was also neat.

    As others have said, 25a BODICE was tricky; it was my LOI.

13. There are actually seven Italian words for ‘the’ – il, lo, l’, i, gli, la and le – and Chifonie invented an eighth!

14. Apologies for the confusion caused!

    [Pronouns in Italian are confusing though. When I was learning it, I think I counted 16 different ways of translating “you” – formal/informal, singular/plural. subject/direct objest/indiraect object = mostly different!]

15. Some nice cluing, though I didn’t know Gloria meaning halo. The 20a howler is similar to the recent Everyman fiasco with SAO PAULO. Looks like the editor is asleep at the wheel.

16. Murphy’s Law of Corrections: when pointing out an error, you will make another error. I should have said “the recent Prize fiasco”. Talk about asleep at the wheel …

17. I also failed on BODICE, but it was a good clue. I liked LAPTOP in particular, also UPPER CRUST (having been stuck for a bit on ‘court’ and ‘count’ for aristocracy). A pleasant change from Rufus, but he was definitely on form last week. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

18. Thank you, Eileen, me too on ICE.

    Shame about the errant article at EL DORADO, perhaps Chifonie will drop in to explain.

    Could you explain the Gloria = HALO reference? I’ve not come across it before.

    Nice week, all.

19. William @18
    Gloria = halo is given here:
    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gloria

    I’m more familiar with a “glory” – a sort of coloured halo that can sometimes be seen around “brockenspectres” – caused when shadows fall on clouds under certain light conditions in mountains (Richard Strauss depicts one in his “Alpine Symphony”).

20. Hi William @18 – Collins: ‘Gloria: a halo or nimbus, esp as represented in art’.

21. muffin @19 & Eileen.

    Many thanks, both, most interesting.

22. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

    I was another temporarily fooled by the retiring in DEMURE, especially as I had the Egyptian leader at the end. LOI was BODICE, where there are so many different possibilities.

    I think Spanish girls also have parties… I thought the space traveller in COME TRUE was ET at the beginning.

    Nice complaint at 13 (although also found in other countries!)

23. Thanks both. Unlike today’s Quiptic, pretty easy. I (like drofle @17) struggled with 5d, being fixated with “speed” for stimulant and “count” for aristocracy. Doh!

24. Thank you Chifonie and Eileen.

    An enjoyable crossword, but I wonder if the editor is leaving a glaring error in every crossword on purpose so as not to offend the Supreme Being, nothing must be perfect – so many lately, even in the Prize ones…

    The clues for DEMURE, ATROCITY, REGENT, HALO, BODICE and LAPTOP, among others, were great.

25. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. I knew “ice” from fiction and movies but took a while seeing “bod” so BODICE was last in. I also tried to squeeze in UPPER CLASS or CASTE before getting C(RUST). Lots of fun.

26. “Measures” would never suggest “optics” to me. Am I missing something?

27. Dan @ 26
    The “measures” on spirit bottles in bars are called “optics”.

28. Oh thank goodness. Staring at *E*U*E and *O*I*E for ages, getting loads of words none of which that made any sense, I feared I might be having a Chifonie-sized failure, most embarrassing. It took a bit of industrial-strength word-testing to sort things out, but of course it’s all perfectly clear, now; I’m just pleased to see I’m by no means alone. Bravo Chifonie for slipping those two in, the misdirection in DEMURE especially. Come on, I wasn’t the only one to check whether (E + RULER) reversed = RELURE was some archaism for ‘take exception to’.

29. No,Trailman, you weren’t the only one! I had problems with BODICE too- and FINERY- neither of which I liked very much. Otherwise this was fine. I liked DEMURE.
    Thanks Chifonie.

30. I thought the copper in 26d was ‘ds’ and so failed to parse it – I should have thought longer.
    Was there a factual error in the Prize on Saturday? I see no correction in the online puzzle.

    Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

31. Gonzo @30: A couple weeks ago, the prize puzzle misspelled SAO PAULO as SAO PAOLO. Not something you can correct, since it was necessary for a crossing letter.

    In this case, I did raise an eyebrow at the EL, but just figured it was an oversight.

    Only American mafiosi “ice” people, and that maybe only in movies. Even so, BODICE went in easily enough. On the other hand “Gloria” for HALO was new to me (though given the crossing letters, it could hardly have been anything else).

32. Gonzo @30
    We shouldn’t really discuss prize puzzles until the following weekend, but yes, “murder victim” should have been “murderer”. I notice that this hasn’t been changed, as you say.

33. Gonzo @30 and muffin @32, yes, a mistake of biblical proportions!!

34. I have to echo mrpenney @31. I feel confident in speaking for the entire country by saying that people get iced only in campy old gangster movies. I wasn’t able to get BODICE myself.

35. For the first time in months I went online to solve this, and at the top of the puzzle there was a note to say that the clue for 20a had been corrected. It says ‘Spanish’ now (at 6 pm) instead of ‘Italian’.

    This was quite a breeze compared with some recent puzzles and good for a Monday slot. I had the same experience as muffin with regard to both definitions in 15a FINERY (‘gleaming’ and ‘decorations’) and the failure to get 25a BODICE (I guessed the parsing correctly but, not knowing ‘ice’ with that meaning, I didn’t try any further with all the myriad possibilities for ‘top’ and ‘man’.)

    Enjoyable otherwise.

    Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

36. Molte bene Muffin ! Ciao.

37. Molto bene, ezzie?

38. muffin @32

    I note that the Saturday Prize has now been corrected online in the way you indicated.

39. poc @15

    Of course our “illustrious ed” isn’t asleep at the wheel! That would actually need him to be at the wheel. 😉

40. I was totally fooled by 13d, convinced that “It isn’t done” was the definition. It didn’t help that I was trying to force TOFFEE in as 25a. A man to kill in the US is an “offee”, geddit?

    Other than that I did well today.

41. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

    I thoroughly enjoyed this one, even though I couldn’t parse 16d (I took ‘A copper’ to be ‘a DS’). ‘Bodice’ was my LOI, and it took me an embarrassingly long time.

    21d was my favourite – it’s one of those perfect clues that are so satisfying in their simple elegance.

42. Enjoyable, and very suitable for a Monday. EL DORADO was obvious enough that “Italian” had to be a mistake, so I had no problem entering it. DEMURE took longer as I was another who was misled by retiring”/i>. Like Gonzo @33, I struggled with the “copper” in ROADSTER. I did spot ROSTER, but the penny (sorry, but pun intentional) still didn’t drop until I read the blog.

    Thanks, Chifonie and Eileen

43. poc@16 Case in point – it’s Muphry’s law.

44. Alan B @35

    Thank you for that – I’ve amended the blog.

45. I failed to solve 17a and 25a, and I agree about 20a being Spanish not Italian

    Thanks Eileen and Chifonie

46. Surely one of the jobs of the editor, apart from tasking setters to write and selecting which crossword to use, is carefully to check and proof-read the offerings?

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