Guardian 28,046 / Chifonie

63 comments on “Guardian 28,046 / Chifonie”

1. 17d – Missouri, surely?

2. It may be typical Monday fare Eileen – and I found it typically harder to solve than the clues were difficult having got them. I thought there was plenty of opportunity to misdirect oneself if the required synonym didn’t immediately come to mind. ISOLDE for example has me looking to lose an E, I tried to get an anagram from A PIE IS right until the end when I eventually saw PIE as the anagrind. I had to look up who the Rechabites were to get ATTENDED – although the clue is clear enough. AFTERTASTE was an excellent clue – and then there was PATERNOSTER. Happy memories of frightening freshers at Salford University by going round the top and coming down upside down on your hands! Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

3. Splendid start to the week but had to reveal biceps. Never seen mutism before, rarer even than anosmia,the inability to smell. Smut seems to be in vogue at the moment. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen.

4. I, too, had never heard of Rechabites and so didn’t know they are teetotal, so ATTENDED was a guess-first-parse-later answer – as was PATERNOSTER. I’ve often wondered why they’re named after a prayer, but maybe it’s just because they’re such a dangerous means of transport – although WhiteKing’s anecdote makes them sound almost fun…
   I liked ISOLDE, but mostly this was straightforward and undemanding – which I don’t mind on a grey Monday morning. Thanks to Chifonie for an enjoyable coffee-break’s entertainment and to Eileen for the blog.

5. Whiteking @2 – From my google research, it seems that paternosters were a particular feature of universities – De Montfort, as well as Leicester University had one. Wellbeck @4 – as the video in my link tells us, they’re so called because of their resemblance to a rosary.

6. I liked this puzzle from Chifonie. However, it was a dnf for me. I have never heard of the kind of lift clued for 8d PATERNOSTER. I only know “Our Father”/ “The Lord’s Prayer”! Do you have to say your prayers when you take this lift? I should have solved it from the wordplay I guess. The envelope reminded me of poor old BILL POSTERS: I always felt sorry for Bill as there were so many notices that he was going to be prosecuted.
   My ticks went to ISOLDE (9a), BICEPS (2d), SLEEPY (7d) and EXACTS (19d) – although I must say that in the latter clue, “old book” felt a bit vague for ACTS of the Apostles. We’ve had this discussion several times over, but the direction to put SAM =”man” in the middle of SESAME (5d) annoyed me a bit.
   Thanks to Chifonie. And also to Eileen for your third blog in a row!

7. Hello Eileen – I’m in an area with iffy reception at the mo, so I’ll try your link later, but I should imagine that clutching a rosary could be a comfort to those who use such things, when in a paternoster….

8. [Crossed with Wellbeck@4 and Eileen@5]

9. Hi JinA @6 – to explain: our blogging rota advances by one day each week. The Friday blogger always blogs the following Monday’s puzzle. Every few weeks, this coincides with my monthly Saturday blog. You’ll get someone different tomorrow. 😉

10. This brought back memories of the paternoster lift in the Clare Market building at LSE. I too used to think it was named after the prayer that came to mind when using it. It seems they have fallen into disfavour because – as I always thought, in spite of assurances to the contrary – they were dangerous.

    Anyway, a couple of loose definitions/synonyms, but thanks Chifonie for a satisfying Monday workout and Eileen for the usual erudite blog.

11. Another wheeze that was somewhat antisocial was when there was a big queue on the ground floor was to nonchalantly walk past the queue and get in the downward side, go round the bottom and suffer the scowls and justified opprobrium as you appeared already ensconced. Whilst they might appear dangerous I never knew of any mishaps.

12. JinA, bill posters in blighty are more commonly called bill stickers but prosecuted just the same. I vividly remember some graffiti declaring ‘Bill Stickers is innocent’.

13. Thanks to both for the slightly tougher-tha-usual Monday offering.

    Not sure how to equate epitome with INCARNATION.  Always though an epitome was a perfect example of something or other, whereas INCARNATION is simply an embodiment, isn’t it?

    DB @1:  Not sure what point you’re making.  Topeka is certainly the state capital of Kansas, been to that fine city, whereas Jefferson City is Missouri’s capital.  If you were making a joke and I’ve been too thick to spot it, apologies.

    Nice week, all.

14. William @13 – I had the same thought but both Collins and Chambers give ‘personification’ as the second meaning of ‘epitome’ and ‘personified’ to define ‘incarnate’.

15. White King @11 – the risk of death and/or loss of limbs seems to be correlated with age and infirmity, hence their popularity in academic institutions. Young, healthy undergraduates can cope well enough, and who cares about aging professors or heads of deparment? And their defenders also point out the numerous safety features, including, it seems, walls for “banging on”.

    William @13: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/03/politics/trump-kansas-city-chiefs-super-bowl-missouri/index.html

    DB@1 – I thought it was funny….

     

16. The paternoster lift at Imperial College actually, for a while in the late sixties, contained two posters. The one you saw as you went up above the top floor said “DANGER: RADIATION”. After looping the loop the one on the way down read “YOU ARE NOW STERILE”.

17. Didn’t know about PATERNOSTER the lift. Though used to use a PATERNOSTER when fishing for crabs off the quayside as a boy, with the line wound round the wooden H-shaped frame you held in your hand…

18. Thanks for the explanatory link Trismegistus – and thanks for the initial post DB.

19. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1243/PIME_PROC_1980_194_016_02?journalCode=pmea

    Further to the paternoster chat.

20. Eileen @14:  So it does – should have checked, thanks.

    Trismegistus @15:  V funny, indeed!  Thanks for the link and explanation – a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

21. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

    I didn’t know what a Rechabite was either, so ATTENDED went in from definition only. I too thought that this was rather harder than Chifonie (or Monday ) usually is. Favourite was CINEMA.

22. There was a paternoster lift at ICRF (now Cancer Research UK). I once went over the top and it was frightening (loud clanking noises and pitch black.)

    Thanks Chifonie; an entertaining start to the week. Apart from the poor definition, I wondered why TOPEKA (LOI) was used instead of, say, bodega or Modena, which would have been better known, IMHO.

    Thanks Eileen for a good blog and Tri @15 for explaining the joke from DB @1.

23. @DB1

    chortle.

    A friend of ours here in Freiburg who is a physics prof was offered a chair at the Manhattan University campus. Which he thought sounded pretty cool until he discovered that it’s in Kansas.

24. Paternoster who art in Hendon……

25. [Eileen@9: I was just worried about the pressure on you. As you know, I enjoy each and every blog you post.]

26. Scow was a new word for me, I had to resort to pressing “reveal” once I’d completed the rest. Even then, once I’d looked it up, I couldn’t parse it because I didn’t know that sense of “lighter” either!

    An enjoyable set of clues, overall, with (to me) an added complexity added by the unusual grid.

27. Julie @6 and any others still confused – a paternoster is a type of lift consisting of a continuous loop of open compartments so at each level you see a sequence of compartments going up next to another going down. I always thought that the name came from it being so terrifying you might say a prayer before using it, but no doubt Eileen is correct that it is due to it’s resemblance to a rosary.

28. Thanks both. I have experienced a PATERNOSTER visiting Essex university – didn’t know it was called that. Just thought it was a weird lift

29. I think there may be another level to DB’s joke at 1, which is that “Kansas’s liquor laws are so restrictive and expansive that they have their own Wikipedia page” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Kansas, so the Kansas leaders may well have crossed the state border to get a drink, at least in the past.

    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen

30. DB @1 There are two Kansas Cities, facing each other across the Missouri River, one in Missouri and one in Kansas.  Neither is the capital of its state.  The one in Missouri is much bigger and is the one people usually mean when they say Kansas City.

    The paternoster lift was new to me as were OB for outside broadcast and AF for Anglo-French.

    Whitking@11 — how on earth could you go round the bottom of the paternoster lift?  How do the cars not turn upside down as they go over the top?

31. I did this while watching the Australian Open Men’s Final (in between points). It started off looking straightforward, but toughened up, and then eased up, a little bit like the match.

    There were a couple of synonyms I’m not 100% convinced of here. Does firm imply compact, or vice versa? Not necessarily. Is smut repulsive? Hardly in a sentence like “I really like smutty jokes”.

32. Thanks Chifonie and Eileen

    Valentine @ 30. They do. So do you.

    DrWhatsOn @ 31: it’s a verb – if you compact something it will make it firm(er).

33. Valentine@30 and SimonS@31 – the cars move across – it’s a neat engineering solution. The the various links above show how. Like Robi@23 says it clanky and dark but you don’t get inverted!

34. Simon S @32 and Dr WhatsOn @31 – as a noun, a compact is an agreement, so a corporate entity could be described as a compact. In fact, there used to be a 1960s British soap called “Compact”, about life in the corporate world.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_(TV_series)

    Valentine @30 – Simon S is having you on. Of course, when you go upside down, you bang on the walls.

     

35. @29/30

    I’m pretty sure DB @1 was referring to POTUS’ hastily-deleted Tweet mistakenly congratulating the “great state of Kansas” on the Chiefs’ Superbowl win

36. Another on my list of nearly but not quite … I guessed attended (fair play to anyone who’d actually heard of the rechabites) and whilst I stuck cinema in from the crossers, “pie” fits into both my ‘show me someone who uses the word in that sense’ / is everything an anagram indicator?! categories.

    In practice I was one short due to 21A where I had both never heard of the answer word nor that use of ‘lighter’. That said I could maybe have guessed it from a straightforward clue…

    Enjoyable stuff, thanks.

37. Agree with baerchen @35 about that funny POTUS gaffe reference. And we too were terrified that our elder Sheffield Uni daughter might be eaten by the Sorbie Hall Paternoster, not realising – thankfully – that Salford U younger d was equally at risk.

    Good fair puzzle, and the reminder about those lifts and the Rechabites added fun. And SCOW  was cleverly, and rather non-Monday, clued.

    Thanks to C and E.

38. Thanks Chifonie for smooth surfaces, my LOI was BICEPS. PATERNOSTER is common fare at the Times, especially the jumbo.

39. Mick Hodgkin (aka as setter Morph for the Indy) has been on the case of the Trump gaffe with his Twitmericks hat on today:

    A fellow who’s miseducated

    Thought Super Bowl stars should be fêted

    But baffled the fans as

    He glorified Kansas

    Geography-wise, Trump mis-stated.

    He’s nothing if not topical …

40. Re the use of pie as anagrind: when printing meant letterpress, printer’s pie was a term for a mixture of unsorted letters. Distributing them back into the typecases was not a job anyone wanted! Pie therefore seems a most apt description of an anagram.

41. I found this quite difficult. Rechabite was new to me and I’d never heard of the PATERNOSTER lift nor have I encountered one despite attending two Universities and teaching Summer schools at a number more. I hadn’t clocked Trump’s gaffe either so I felt something of a dunce at the end of this. I liked LIGATURE,SCOW and LOI BICEPS.
    Thanks Chifonie.

42. It’s all already been said, of course, except to add another thank-you to Eileen and Chifonie.

    It is surprising, at least to me, to see a relatively obscure U.S. city put in an appearance.  (Yes, Topeka is a state capital, but as has been pointed out, it isn’t the largest or even second-largest city in its state.  And it’s not even close to the smallest state capital, but it’s pretty far down the list.)

43. Kathryn’s Dad @39 – many thanks for that 😉 and to Trismegistus @15 [I’ve been out for  most  of the  day] for clarifying DB’s comment @1.

44. I thought this was a better than average Monday crossword with some nice misdirections, but what made my day was Eileen’s elegant blog and the delightful conversations about paternosters and Midwestern US geography. Thanks DB@1 and WhiteKing@2 for getting the fun started, and Chifonie and Eileen for startling the week so well.

45. “starting”, although seeing WhiteKing upside-down in the lift would have been startling.

46. A steady solve today. I liked AFTERTASTE, but had to look up Rechabite: though once I did, I recalled that I’d seen it before for “non-drinker”… possibly in a New Statesman crossword. If I might add to the tales of Paternoster lifts: our Engineering Department used to have one. I did go over the top once, despite dark tales of emerging upside-down; it was a bit noisy but a bit of a disappointment in terms of wild excitement. I always thought that the name arose from the resemblance of the compartments to confessionals. Each compartment only took up to two people, so one often had a bit of a wait before an empty slot came drifting slowly by. Of course, it might already contain one person who, well, you might not like to be with on your ascent to the 8th floor; there then followed an interval rather longer than was comfortable for either party of staring into space, doing up a shoelace, finding something of absorbing interest on a nearby notice board, or whatever. But I digress…
    Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

47. Thanks Eileen for the link to PATERNOSTER, a type of elevator new to me. I only knew the word as Latin for Our Father and as the name of a very good winery in Basilicata. (One can say their wines will give you a “lift” but that’s a stretch.) Thanks Chifonie for a most enjoyable crossword — favorites included 9a and 7d.

48. Too late to say very much except that we also had a paternoster in the Lecture Theatre Block at Leeds U. in the seventies.

49. Thanks for the explanation of pie Markfieldpete.

    So it would have been a great anagrind c. 35 years ago and before! 🙂

50. MrPenney@42 – I think Topeka punches above its weight because of its appearance in the name of one of the US’ great railways – ‘The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fé’, the subject, if I’m not mistaken of a well-known ballad.

    Thanks to Chifonie for a well-judged Monday workout, and, as ever, to Eileen.

51. G.Larsen@50 – I’m always reminded of that song (which, BTW, helped a lot with that clue’s solution for me) every time I encounter an “Atchison Topeka” articulated lorry on the road (here in the UK).  Sadly, it would seem that the company has now been incorporated into “Bibby Distribution”, so I guess those lorries will gradually become re-badged.

52. Thanks to Chifonie and Eileen.

    I landed here with PATERNOSTER and ATTENDED un-parsed and find that I still live and learn.  Big ticks for INCARNATION and ELICIT, but I did not like “burglar” = “cat”.

    [Eileen, you always seem to be gadding about; nobody’s business, but shouldn’t you consider settling down a bit? You have us all (cf. JinA) worried to bits.]

53. [Alphalpha @52 – I’m touched by your concern but you really mustn’t worry about me. Today, for instance, I was being well looked after by two 15² friends over lunch.  😉 ]

54. I actually find it quite shocking to see here 53 comments on this fine but, let’s face it, average crossword while Velia in the FT only gets 3 for a puzzle that made, at least, my heart beat a lot faster.

55. I enjoyed this puzzle. It was just right for me, neither too easy nor too hard. My favourites were INCARNATION, LIGATURE, EXACTS, BICEPS (loi).

    New for me were the teetotaller Rechabites, paternoster lift, and Topeka. Also that pie can mean: 1/ printing confusedly mixed type or 2/ a mixed state; confusion – and thus work as an anagrind.

    I could not parse SESAME.

    Thank you Chifonie and Eileen.

56. Sil van den Hoek: Finally completed both crosswords (FT and Guardian) and I see your point about Velia’s puzzle — judging by the number of “ticks” I place by the clues that excite me Velia won the day.

57. Sil @54 – you forgot to say what your LOI was and reminisce about your paternoster lift experiences.

58. Thanks for confirming a couple of parses…This was the first DF for me, so I’m a happy bunny.

    I guessed 8d from the wordplay and hit the right answer, I did need to google the abstainer.

    On to tomorrow where a bump awaits

59. Well done Paul W!

60. For those still baffled by the mechanics of the Paternoster:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster#/media/File:Paternoster_animated.gif

61. g larsen @50  I’d been familiar with the railroad and the song you mention, and one day I thought, “Everybody’s heard of Topeka and Santa Fe, but where the hell is Atchison?”  So I looked it up, and it’s a small city (pop 11,000, if that’s a city) 55 miles NW of Topeka, that really nobody’s heard of who doesn’t live there.  Amelia Earhart was born there and they have an annual festival for her.

62. Now the paternoster makes sense!  You’re truly a prince, principe, thanks ever so.  What a wonderful animation.

63. Held up by putting BARLEY (sounds like a serial/cereal and a country, except Bali isn’t a country) at 23ac. Would have questioned it if it hadn’t fitted with the R and E crossers.

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