Guardian 27,380 / Chifonie

53 comments on “Guardian 27,380 / Chifonie”

1. Not a lot of smiles today, and I was also unhappy with PREACH for address. Otherwise straightforward, so thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

2. Clean and smooth, but we’re left with no excuses for extra cups of tea today. The top half went straight in; the SW took a bit longer and PEPPERS and PREACH were last in.
   I didn’t notice the duplication and 17a and 20d were favourites along with 22a. I’m sure S(T)URGEON is an old one but it took a while for the alternative theatre worker to come to mind.
   Thanks Eileen and Chifonie.

3. I thought PREACH was fine! A bit harder than usual for Chifonie, I thought. Favourites were SPIDER, INCARNATE and IMPORTUNE. Many thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

4. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

   19ac PEPPERS. I was going to agree with your comment, Eileen, until I suddenly remembered the (very) old BBC Home Service programme “Twenty Questions”, where the panel had to identify the mystery object which had to fall into one of three categories – animal, vegetable or mineral. So, in those far-off days peppers and tomatoes would have been veg!

5. Hi cholecyst @4 – I remember it well!

6. Many thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. I hadn’t parsed 1a at all, so this was aan ahah moment!

   Peppers are spices too, of course. “Indiscriminately sprays spices” would have worked fine as a clue. And (speaking as one who does), to preach is to address (one hopes, at least).

7. PS On preach/address again: I do see that this is a noun in the clue though, so recognise the objection, though had somhow read it as some kind of a verbal noun, if such a thing exists.

8. Last time I looked for bell peppers in a supermarket, I found them in the vegetable section. So I think this one’s all right.

9. Thank you Chifonie and Eileen.

   The SPIDER confused me at first, then I remembered it had come up before, as a rest for a billiard cue? PEPPERS were no problem, they are sold in the vegetable section, green beans are also fruits for that matter.

10. charmmeth @6 – yes, but you preach [a sermon – direct object] *to* a congregation [indirect object] – or you address the congregation [direct object], so they are not direct equivalents.

11. This was entertaining. 12a and 15a were both clever.

    A couple of quibbles. I’m a bit dubious about “wilfully” as an anagram indicator (9a). And in 23d “she” is a rather broad definition for NIECE!

12. Thank you, Eileen, did not know a pepper was a fruit…hmm?

    Feeling somewhat bruised after the hail of falling rocks in yesterday’s Boatman, so was not a little pleased to have an easier ride today.

    Not a huge fan of this setter but enjoyed the surface at EXCLUSIVE and the neat misdirect of ‘in’ in IMPORTUNE.

    The rest could have done with a few more 19a for my taste.

    Nice week, all.

13. Thanks Chifonie, Eileen
    Found the SE unusually thought-provoking, which was good.
    I don’t care if peppers are actually fruit.
    Often with quasi-scientific quibbles, the dictionary fudges it by equating the (erroneous, if you like) common usage with the technical one, as in say poisonous/venomous. Interestingly, the definition of vegetable specifically excludes things considered as fruits. But I don’t consider them fruit, so that’s ok.
    Chambers has preach: …. n (inf) a sermon
    For 24a I put in PRIME which seemed ok for a double definition (condition as a verb), but snarled things up before getting drips.

14. Sorry, Eileen, see you’ve already covered the preach point. Should read thoroughly first.

15. cholecyst @4: Was there not a 4th category – Abstract? I used to listen to it when Kenneth Horne was in the chair and I recall the ‘mystery voice’ announcing The hole in my pocket…the hole in my pocket.

16. James @13 – “Chambers has preach: …. n (inf) a sermon”: as I said in the blog 😉 – which makes the discussion @6,7 and 10 irrelevant, really, since Chifonie is off the hook. But I don’t like it!

17. We crossed, James – sorry!

18. Hi Eileen:

    On the preach front, there is also the possibility of a direct object following:

    See http://www.dictionary.com/browse/preach?s=t

    Don’t know if this makes any difference to your indirect point, though.

    Many thanks to Chifonie and you.

19. Thank you for blogging, Eileen.

    One for less experienced solvers to tussle with, I think, and none the worse for that. In ORDINANCE, I had ‘bob’ as a verb, to DANCE, but your nounal way works as well. I was bobbing around my kitchen this morning when I switched on the radio to learn that England have finally remembered how to bat.

    A banana is a herb, if you want to fruitlessly argue further.

    Thanks to the setter too.

20. William @15. Yes, of course!

21. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

    Although PEPPERS are technically fruits, Collins calls them vegetables, so I guess Chifonie is let off.

    Like KD @19, I just assumed bob was the verb, meaning dance. Anyway, quite a nice clue. I also liked the clue for IMPORTUNE.

22. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen. Straightforward except for the SE corner which took some headscratching.

    I don’t have a problem with 19A because regardless of what some dictionary might say, I consider fruit to be a botanical term and vegetable to be a culinary one. So peppers (and tomatoes) come off the plant as a fruit and may be prepared and served as a vegetable at table. No contradiction involved.

23. Thanks, Kathryn’s Dad and Robi – I did think first of the verb to dance, looked in Chambers for confirmation and found the noun. [Hope you’ll still be dancing tomorrow, K’s D. 😉 ]

24. I didnt mind PREACH/address but less happy about coppers=P.
    Otherwise not bad.

25. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen. I always look forward to this setter and this puzzle was no exception. I did not know the SPIDER-rest connection and guessed correctly that “bob” was linked to “dance” but everything else fell into place.

26. HKrunner @22, here, in France, sweet potatoes are sold as fruit…

27. Eileen, can I add a quibble about ORDINANCE ? A Bill is a draft law; an ordinance could be a regulation or a Statute or Act.

28. So, some careless compiling and editing here. But my main gripe about this one is that it’s a little tame for a Thursday. Many an argument will have been had here about whether or not there should be increasing toughness through the week, but I was bored by this good and proper.

29. Hi bridgesong @27 – I’m glad someone did! I decided I’d raised enough quibbles. 😉

30. For me, this was a mix of easy and hard. I failed to solve PREACH, EXCLUSIVE, POP OFF, LESSON and could not parse 2d.

    My favourites were IMPORTUNE + EXPEDITOR

    Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

31. Delayed by EXCLUSIVE, convinced that there was an anagram of ‘exposé’ somewhere. I enjoy Chifonie puzzles; a good mix of clues, and this was no exception.

32. Found this a little trickier than Chifonie normally is, and the repetitions were a little sloppy.

    Thanks to Eileen and Chifonie

33. Eileen: The one I heard was “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting custard on it”.
    #Never heard of an expeditor

34. If it has seeds in it it’s botanically a fruit, be it a tomato, a green bean, a pumpkin, a courgette or a cucumber. Or a banana, I should think — why is it an herb?

    Another way to make Eileen’s preach/address point is to say that you can’t write a sentence in which you can substitute one of them for the other. That was my objection to this clue and also to “wearing fewer clothes” for “lesson.”

    Wouldn’t someone who expedites be an expeditER, not an expeditOR?

35. I agree with the general sentiment that this was mostly a quick bit of fun, marred by a couple of repetitions and loose definitions.

    I’m surprised nobody’s grumbled about MUSE for ‘patron of the arts’ yet. Surely a muse provides the artist with inspiration while a patron provides them with financial support?

    Thanks to Eileen and Chifonie.

36. Valentine @ 34

    Chambers gives both EXPEDITOR and EXPEDITER.

37. Valentine @ 34: A banana (the thing we eat) is indeed a fruit, in the botanical sense as well as the culinary sense — in botanical terms, it is actually a berry, which is a type of fruit. The banana plant is a herb, in the botanical sense. The two are not mutually exclusive.

38. I agree with BH that this was a little harder than usual for this setter and a little sloppier as others have pointed out. As for the PEPPERS debate: I doubt anyone had any trouble getting the answer. I certainly didn’t so —-.
    Thanks Chifonie.

39. Quite so! Words are nothing but symbols we use to refer to something. ‘Being a vegetable’ means nothing different from ‘being called by the word “vegetable”‘, and peppers are often so called, so they are vegetables.

    A technical paper might use ‘vegetable’ only in some specific, limited sense, and that is all well and good, but a crossword is the diametric opposite of such a paper: setters are free to use any of the meanings of a word.

    In this instance there isn’t really a technical sense the excludes peppers, anyway. In culinary usage, peppers are vegetables. In botanical usage there is no ‘fruit/vegetable’ dichotomy.

40. Not too taxing today, no unknown words (yes I did know OUTRÉ), no very awkward clues. But it still took me a while to nail the SE corner.

    The only very minor blemish, as far as I can see, is the use of E = Ecstasy = “drug” twice over. But these things happen. I’m not a great fan of that particular way of clueing the letter E – seeing as there are many alternatives!

    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

41. Been reading the above comments and I’ve just noticed the almighty ruckus over “PEPPERS”. As Victor would indubitably have remarked, “I don’t believe it!” All I can say to the pedants in our midst is, Don’t ever use one of the auto-tills at the supermarket! ‘Cos you’ll come unstuck before you can say ‘capsicum’! 🙂

42. Per the much lamented Spitting Image, Thatcher’s cabinet were also vegetables, despite displaying some characteristics, but not many of the emotions, of the human race.

43. Trickier than the normal Chifonie. Some of the clues grew on me, e.g. SPIDER, with the verb/noun switch in the surface and cryptic reading, a device I always like.
    Quite a few unexpected definitions, such as “one dispatches” where I confidently started to write in EXECUTOR before I realised it didn’t fit.
    It’s taken me half the day to see how “reach” and “get hold of” are synonymous (Ohhh, on the telephone!). I didn’t think to question the definition as a verb.

    Thanks, Chifonie and Eileen.

44. Appino@35

    I think you will find the muse referred to is the Muse, as in one of the nine goddesses of the liberal arts, rather than the sitter who inspires.

    I got stuck with RIDER because I didn’t believe the word from the other clue would be the answer. Eventually I did acccept it because I couldn’t come up with anything else.

    Thanks to both for the entertainment (puzzle) and amusement (blog).

45. …and, of course, chimpanzees are generally thought to be potatoes – until brought to the table when they become just another statistic. (Personally, I’d rather eat a peppered banana ….. hardly Ximenean?)

    Unthursdaylike I thought. With the dumbing down of Saturday’s prize puzzles, I’ve still clung to the (clearly vacuous) belief that Thursday’s Guardian can be a lovely challenge….
    Nothing wrong with this (reasonably) well crafted puzzle; but on a Thursday?!
    Many thanks to Chifonie and Eileen (I had no concerns with the two 19s – travelling at the wrong speed to notice the landscape’s idiosyncracies!)

46. Preach is fine informally as in “that vicar – he loves to have a preach!”

47. All straightforward thanks to C and E. I loved the theatrical deception in SURGEON. My knowledge of mythology is far from complete, but were the Muses not female, and would a patron of the arts be male? This was my excuse for wasting ages trying to incorporate angel instead.

48. Re FirmlyDirac @41 – who knew that the Pedants’ Revolt was led by Which Tyler?

49. Why on earth would a patron of the arts be necessarily male???

50. @49 Flavia – as you ask so emphatically, I realise my question looks horribly sexist and in fact my intent was the opposite. It bothers me that so much of the language is loaded with assumptions of male dominance (Chairman; one small step for man; etc), and I am in favour of more neutral language. Patron to me seems a male-orientated word as it derives from Latin pater, father.

    Of course those who support the arts could come from either gender, and the dictionary tells me for example that Princess Anne is patron to a number of organisations. I may be alone in this, but I think the dictionary – and everyone else – is wrong, though I accept that the idea of a matron of the arts sounds a bit rum!

    Ah well, the struggle continues.

51. Thanks all
    Coming late here I had just one quibble and was therefore surprised to find it unmentioned in the blog and the need to scroll to bridgesong @27 to find any objection to ordinance = Bill.
    This is surface controls all else at any cost!

52. [I did this at the time, but had no internet access. I would (gently) correct you, Eileen – cherry tomato and watermelon is the basis of an excellent salad!]

53. …fruit salad, that is!

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