Guardian 27,313 / Chifonie

27 comments on “Guardian 27,313 / Chifonie”

1. I enjoyed this puzzle, although I found it less of a challenge (and thus a little less fun) than yesterday’s. I had several favorites, including TOILETRIES, TEA SERVICE, EYESIGHT, and BRIOCHE — my LOI. I enjoyed the surface for 16d. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

2. I found today’s Chifonie much more to my taste than his usual offerings with 19D an absolutely mouth-wateringly superb clue!

3. I remember first seeing ‘ought’ for ‘nought’ in a crossword and checking it was ok. Strange since it normally means ‘anything’ – almost the opposite, as in ‘you can’t get ought for nought’. I thought ‘ought’ could just mean ‘should’ which would make the surface to 19d work, but can’t find a dictionary that has this without ‘to’ following. Easy and pleasant solve with TOILETRIES and SECTOR proving the only tricky ones for me.

4. Not only unfortunate that two navies followed so closely, but also, I thought, that two ODDs did as well.

   I did wonder about the missing “to” in 19, then realised it could be as used by Mr Micawber – “Annual income twenty pounds ought and six…”

   A nice mix of easy clues to keep one going, and some that needed more thought. FOI was 1a, and is still one of my favourites despite falling so quickly.

   Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen

5. Hi Trismegistus @4 – but in your Mr Micawber example, ought = no[thing] [£20 0s 6d]: as a verb, as used in the surface, it does need ‘to’.

6. Was there a theme I didn’t notice? It’s a bit mean to have all edges unchecked (and some lights underchecked) unless it’s to accommodate one.

   Saying that it wasn’t too hard, though I’ve never heard of IN MESH for ‘in gear’. According to Collins it’s American.

7. Eileen @5, hi. I was thinking “ought children” = “zero children”, giving the “O” in the answer.

   Now someone will probably tell me that “ought” isn’t a cardinal number, but on the other hand I haven’t come across “O” as an abbreviation for the auxiliary verb before…

8. Hi again, Trismegistus

   I do see what you mean and I agree re the O in the wordplay = ought = zero. But I do think Chifonie is intending the auxiliary verb use in the surface, which should therefore read, ‘Ought children TO tuck into cheese and bread?’, rather than meaning ‘No children tuck into cheese and bread’, which wouldn’t be a question and would be quite a big step too far for me!

9. Thank you Chifonie and Eileen.

   An enjoyable puzzle, but I got a bit tied up with the Bishop’s combinations and had to think about SECTOR for a while before entering it. TEA SERVICE is the answer to a down clue, so I think the wording is all right? I agree about LEER in 5d, Thesaurus.com gives ‘gloat’ as a synonym for LEER, but does not give LEER as a synonym for ‘gloat’.

10. Regulation stuff quickly dispatched and a welcome mid-week morale booster for newer solvers – a useful, if unspoken, quality.

11. Hi Cookie @8

    What a stupid careless mistake! Of course TEA SERVICE is a down clue. I was writing the comments early this morning in bed, from a list of answers, rather than from the grid – but that’s no excuse: I should have checked more carefully. I’ll remove the foolish remark now.

12. I agree with Trismegistus; I read ought to mean zero and hence the letter o. That makes the clue read better. I took my reference (in a more low-brow way than Trismegistus) from the Tom Waits song (16 shells from a 30-ought six).

13. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. I took a long time before getting SECTOR but the rest went smoothly – and very enjoyable.

14. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

    I enjoyed this, with favourites TOILETRIES, CHIANTI and COORDINATE (I do like an unexpected anagram!) I didn’t know BASALT as a type of pottery, and just assumed that there was a word missing from the clue for BRIOCHE (though the “ought” still should give the O).

15. A pleasant and satisfying solve. As others have said, this crossword was very different from yesterday’s, but for me it was no less challenging.

    I was surprised to see ought = O in 19d BRIOCHE and navy = N in 10a SNAG, but they had to be right. With dictionaries (or one dictionary) to back them up, I have no complaints.

    I particularly liked 8a DRUMBEAT, 11a TOILETRIES, 1d BRANDISH and 21d FLAMBÉ.

    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

16. I found this every bit as difficult as yesterday, and it seems I find these “easier” puzzles more of a challenge as they require a different way of thinking. EYESIGHT fooled me for a long time, and I liked TOILETRIES and BRANDISH. SECTOR seems to have held a few of us up – it was my LOI.
    Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

17. Most enjoyable. Favourite was FLAMBÉ.

    Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

18. I found both yesterday’s and today’s puzzle impossible to finish. Not impossible to solve the clues, but I’ve been totally unable to enter anything into the bottom two or three lines of the grid, following a slightly amended presentation, presumably intended to be an improvement, on my phone. I can’t be the only one – any solutions, dear reader?

19. WhiteKing @16
    I think we had a similar experience of this crossword. SECTOR was also my last in. I wondered which of the 50 or so words that fit that space would be the one that Chifonie chose, and I was lucky to hit upon the idea early on that TO would be repeated in the answer.

20. Unlike most of you, I can’t say I liked this very much. I’d never heard of IN MESH and hesitated over CAMELEER. I did question LEER= GLOAT but it seems to be OK. I can’t say I’d ever use LEER in that sense. EYESIGHT took me a long time to get but I can’t blame the setter for that. The whole thing was a bit unsatisfying. Still, you can’t like them all!
    Thanks Chifonie.

21. As luck would have it, a beedie-chomping cameleer just stopped by our office this afternoon to deliver a bordereau from the Elysée Palace.

22. I’m a life-long fan of Rufus and don’t really have any axe to grind with Chifonie. That said, for these two setters to appear within the space of three days does suggest a lapse of concentration on the part of the cleaners who pick up the papers off the floor of the so-called “Guardian crossword editor”.

    Then again, there have been worse scenarios than this – such as when we got Boatman and Tramp within the same time span.

23. Excellent crossword for beginners or post-beginners. Thank you to Chifonie and to Eileen.

24. Thanks both,
    I enjoyed this but ‘sector’ is not a field in my idiolect.
    On the other hand, ‘ought’ without ‘to’ is fine in a question in the same version of English: 19a gave me no pause at all.

25. ‘Treason’ as a synonym for ‘mutiny’ is a little odd. Wouldn’t it be better to give 6 down as (2-8) rather than (10)? Sorry, Eileen, but ‘Romeo’ for ‘r’ is not part of a phonetic alphabet but of that which has various names, one being International Call Sign Alphabet; it’s an alphabet used to indicate how words are spelled, not how they sound.

26. A day late completing this so I don’t know if anyone will bother with this… Steel wool can be purchased in different grades, one of which is 0000 – Americans refer to this as 4 ought steel wool.

27. I’m  a good deal later completing this, but I’m filling in here and there after a long trip away.

    I’m with Tyngewick @24.  I think you don’t need “to” with “ought” in an interrogative sentence.  In fact, “Ought I eat this?”  sounds better to me than “Ought I to eat this?”, though they’re both a little odd.

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