Guardian 27,727 – Chifonie

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Chifonie seems to have given up his regular Monday appearances, but even so it’s a surprise to see him on a Friday. Lots of very straightforward clues here, as usual, but there were a few that gave me some thought. Thanks to Chifonie.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
5. SCARAB Beetle to traumatise backward scholar (6)
SCAR (traumatise) + reverse of B.A.
6. ERRAND Make a mistake with commission (6)
ERR + AND (with)
9. CRAMPS Charlie inclines to abdominal pain (6)
C + RAMPS
10. RESIDENT Team cuts lease for occupier (8)
SIDE (team) in RENT (lease)
11. DEER Does one river meet another? (4)
DEE (river) + R[iver]; does as in female deer
12. CONSIDERED Thought to be against partiality of the left (10)
CON (against) + SIDE (partiality) + RED (of the left)
13. CLOSE SEASON Wind down temper when the game is safe (5,6)
CLOSE (to wind down) + SEASON (to temper). Game animals are safe from hunters in the close season
18. BLUEBOTTLE Winger is an Oxford player with courage (10)
BLUE (one playing a sport for (e.g.) Oxford University) + BOTTLE (courage)
21. GEAR Illicit drugs found in storage area (4)
Hidden (appropriately enough) in storaGE ARea
22. TROLLOPE Writer is to wallow in drink (8)
ROLL in TOPE (to drink)
23. PINDAR Mean to entertain Indian poet (6)
IND[ian] in PAR (average, mean). Pindar was a ancient Greek poet
24. DANGER Insecurity makes director fret (6)
D[irector] + ANGER (Chambers has “to vex or irritate”)
25. PRAISE Wrongly aspire to approbation (6)
ASPIRE*
Down
1. BALMORAL Something soothing uttered in royal retreat (8)
BALM (something soothing)+ ORAL (spoken, uttered)
2. BARSAC Prevents Bill making wine (6)
BARS (prevents) + AC (account, bill)
3. CRESSIDA Unfaithful lover is scared off (8)
(IS SCARED)* – Cressida is an archetypal unfaithful lover, perhaps best known from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida
4. WADDLE Women confuse totter (6)
W + ADDLE
5. SCREED Mortar used for levelling a long passage (6)
Double definition: “A layer of mortar finishing off the surface of a floor” and, perhaps more familiarly, “A long passage, spoken or written”
7. DONKEY Silly fool is to slip on island (6)
DON (to put on or slip on an item of clothing ) + KEY (island)
8. TRENDSETTER Nurse keeps Rex and me, an avant-gardist (11)
R[ex] in TEND + SETTER (“me”)
14. STOPOVER Being upset, Kitty’s done with the night’s billet (8)
Reverse of POT’S (kitty’s) + OVER (done)
15. ORGANDIE Ignored a change of material (8)
(IGNORED A)*
16. FLORID Ruddy girl’s relieved (6)
FLO (girl’s name) +RID (relieved [of])
17. CANAPE Head eats a new type of savoury (6)
A N in CAPE (head[land])
19. EALING Genial criminal in west London (6)
GENIAL*
20. EMPIRE Great power of representative in republic (6)
MP (Member of Parliament, representative) in EIRE (Republic of Ireland)

32 comments on “Guardian 27,727 – Chifonie”

  1. I wondered if the modest Nina was deliberate: DADDY, in row 7. It doesn’t seem to link up with anythng else.

  3. Thank you, Andrew.

    Took for ever over the last 2 – ERRAND & DONKEY.  Now that I see them I feel like the latter.

    quenbarrow @1:  Well spotted.  Father’s birthday, perhaps?

    Nice weekend, all.

  4. Yes easier than yesterday [in which the Aga saga, too local, and epode, too erudite, did for me]. A few ‘slow’ annotations today though, viz c ramps, screeds, the slip on misdirect, flo rid, mp in Eire, all pretty standard fare. And only vaguely remembered Pindar. Overall, fun to squeeze in between the Oz Open [old hands still dominant], test cricket and visiting rels.

    Thanks Chif and Andrew.

  5. Donkey was my LOI but I like it now I get it. No idea whether the IND is fair in PINDAR. just happy to get PAR for MEAN.

    Unfair I thought about BARSAC. Never heard of it.  Figured that BILL was AC, and the 4 preceding letters could have been BARS, BANS. DAMS. Who knows?

  6. Thanks Chifonie and Andrew

    A rapid start, but a very slow finish, particularly in the SW, where I thought that the clue for FLORID was doubly poor. I saw what was happening in 18a right away, but spent ages trying to find a bird to fit! I also toyed with CHILLS for 9a.

    BALMORAL was favourite.

  8. muffin @6:  Your post reminded me that I put a double !! next to the FLORID clue.  The girl is bad enough (although it was Andy Capp’s wife) but RID = relieve?  C’mon.

  10. Simon S @9

    I think that if Henry had said “Will no-one relieve me of this turbulent priest?” the outcome for Becket might not have been as fatal 🙂

  11. Oh no, I forgot the old DOES trick for far too long. ‘Rid the house of pests’ might give relieve, which is in the Chambers Thesaurus.

    Thanks Chifonie and Andrew.

     

  12. Thanks to Chifonie and Andrew. My experience sounds similar to others, a quick start but the last few seemed to take forever. Last ones were Pindar, donkey, screed and deer (although the does has been used before). That said still an enjoyable challenge and I liked Trollope, close season and stopover. Thanks again to Chifonie and Andrew.

  13. Thank you Chifonie and Andrew.

    An enjoyable crossword.  5d held me up for a while, then SCREED for ” a long passage” came to my mind, but I had to check the dictionary for the other meaning.

    muffin @6, I thought BLUE BOTTLE would immediately come to your mind after your recent struggle with Paul…

  14. Got stuck on three – TROLLOPE, STOPOVER and TRENDSETTER. I knew if I got one I’d get them all and so it proved – but not before I’d succumbed to the temptation of the damned “Reveal” button for one of them. Life’s too short, and all that…

    Funny that none of those three have been mentioned by any commenters (commentators?) so far. Just not my day, I guess.

    Thanks, Chifonie and Andrew

  16. To Chris in France: well I found those 3 interesting, maybe for different reasons than you. TRENDSETTER I thought was great because the solver is lulled into reading the clue as a parallel construction; STOPOVER was tricky if you couldn’t get cats out of you head. TROLLOPE was instructive if you (like me) weren’t aware of the motion aspect of wallowing.

    Which brings us to MEAN. Yesterday I suggested that it and MIDDLE were not mutually substitutable, despite being semantically in the same ballpark, today the same appears to be so with PAR, although nobody else seems to care. Go figure.

  17. As others have said, this was a bit slow.  FLORID was the last one in, and that corner was the slowest.  Having once taken the tube in from Heathrow, I did know EALING, but that’s the only reason. I didn’t know the non-literary meaning of SCREED, and I don’t speak whatever slang it is in which GEAR is illegal drugs, though that last one could not possibly have been anything else.  My main complaint about this puzzle is that it was too replete with charade-type clues.  Not that I mind those specifically, but if any clue type dominates too much, it starts to be a bit of a drag.

    FLORID is one of my favorite words; it shares with several others, such as DERIDE, the feature that it is composed entirely of two-letter abbreviations for US states. I once spent an afternoon making a lengthy list of such words, but I can’t recall any others off the top of my head.

  19. Lovely puzzle, I thought.

    Came to it late in the day.  (Dentist again!).

    I had absolutely no queries against any clue – so it must have been good.

    LOI was DEER.

    Oh, and memories of struggling with PINDAR (well, his poetry anyway) at university.

    THanks to Chifonie and to Andrew

  20. Quite easy except for the ones that weren’t! The NW was the slowest SCREED and CRAMPS. I realised that I knew both meanings of the latter but only after I looked it up. It took me some time to see CONSIDERED and I’m not sure why now. I liked TROLLOPE and BLUEBOTTLE and I was pleased not to be fooled by the clue for DEER!
    Thanks Chifonie.

  21. Two scribbled letters (one in the Times and one in the Guardian) held me up today. In the Guardian, I had written Cressida with the R resembling an I. Getting old I guess.

  22. Dr. Whatson @16 As a mathematician and golfer I’m with you all the way. I only wish par and mean were the same.

  23. Thanks to Andrew and Chifonie

    In common with paddymelon @5 I toyed with the same possibilities as I had not heard of Barsac but then of course I have now!

    I can’t quite see SIDE = PARTIALITY and considered whether the intended reading might be SIDE RED = PARTIALITY OF THE LEFT as phrases rather than separate elements but I still can’t quite make it work.

    No problem with RID = RELIEVE – “As they haven’t cooperated I feel RID/RELIEVED of any responsibility towards them”

    Unlike most commenters I am very familiar with the floor laying sense of SCREED, but the LONG PASSAGE was new to me.

    I learnt a couple of things and enjoyed the crossword – mustn’t grumble.

     

  24. Thanks to Chifonie and Andrew. I had the same problems as others, particularly with BARSAC, GEAR, and SCREED, but, like mrpenney, I knew EALING from trips on the Heathrow Express..

  25. Dansar @ 17

    SIDE Chambers def 17: Any party, team, interest, or opinion opposed to another

    If you’re partial to something (ie take the part of), you can be said to have a side.

  27. [Is it just me? I find it rather tiresome reading overfamiliar abbreviations for our setters (“Pickers” etc. – today we had “Chif” for Chifonie). It may be that these compilers are known personally to those using such monickers, in which case I stand corrected. Otherwise, I find this type of unwarranted familiarity does not reflect well on our site. Were I a setter, such apparent discourtesy may even dissuade me from adding to conversations here.]

  28. …and many thanks to Chifonie for typically elegant clueing. GEAR was particularly neat. And many thanks to Andrew for another exemplary blog.

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