Guardian 28,095 – Matilda

by

Matilda is familiar as a setter of Quiptics, but I think this is her first appearance in the cryptic spot. This was an enjoyable but brief diversion as another long day of confinement stretches out in front of us, with a few clues that would probably count as easy even in a Quiptic (4d, 23d for example). Thanks to Matilda, and welcome to the other side.

[Off-topic, if I may: to pass the time I’ve been recording some short bits of piano music for some friends and family, and this one went down particularly well, so I present it for your entertainment.]

Thanks to Scutter for pointing out that there’s a theme of the novels of Ian McEwan.

 
 
 
Across
9. ATONEMENT Intended heartlessly to follow United as a penance (9)
AT ONE (united) + ME[a]NT
10. USAGE America, for example, backing employment (5)
USA + reverse of E.G.
11. DRIFT Stray doctor provided the end of treatment (5)
DR + IF (provided) + [treatmen]T
12. NUMBSKULL Result of dental anaesthesia overdose? Idiot! (9)
Too much anaesthetic might give you a NUMB SKULL
13. CENTRAL In the middle of the red line (7)
Double definition – the Central Line is red on the London Underground map
14. EARLDOM Title giving lad more trouble (7)
(LAD MORE)*
17. LEECH Church chasing film vampire and bloodsucker (5)
LEE (Christopher Lee, who played Dracula in several films)
19. BEE Annoying electronic sound endlessly made by buzzer (3)
BEE[p]
20. COYPU Animal is a shy bear, by the sound of it (5)
COY + homophone of [Winnie the] “Pooh”
21. ORDINAL Number making heck of a racket in exam (7)
DIN in ORAL
22. JANUARY Time for resolution as jury split by two different articles (7)
AN and A separately, in JURY, with a reference to New Year’s resolution
24. LARCENOUS Strangely unrecognisable without being criminal (9)
UNRECOGNISABLE* less the letters of BEING
26. INEPT Useless computers holding writer back (5)
Reverse of PEN in IT (computers)
28. VENUE Not a street where things happen (5)
AVENUE (street) less A
29. AMSTERDAM Cockney pet mad about city (9)
[h]AMSTER + reverse of MAD
Down
1,2. HAND LOTION What softens onion dhal, cooked with a tiny bit of turmeric (4,6)
Anagram of ONION DAHL + T[urmeric]
3,25. BETTER THAN EVER Gambler seen on top of tavern, he may be the finest yet (6,4,4)
BETTER (gambler) + (TAVERN HE)*
4. KENNEL Boys back-to-back in the doghouse (6)
KEN + reverse of LEN
5. STAMPEDE Deep trouble following street in the morning rush (8)
ST + AM (in the morning) + DEEP*
6,8. NUTSHELL Crazy nightmare might be the case for Brazil (8)
NUTS (crazy) HELL (nightmare)
7. SATURDAY Study Arabic, half drunk, for 24 hours (8)
Anagram of STUDY + half of ARA[bic]
13. CELLO G’day! Swap taps for some strings (5)
HELLO with H[ot] replaced by C[old]
15. RECONSIDER Side and corner shot? Think again! (10)
(SIDE CORNER)*
16. MOUSY Quiet and timid, like Mickey, Jerry or Stuart? (5)
Double definition – Mickey and Jerry are very well known mice, Stuart perhaps less obvious
18. ENDURING Long-term, it’s said you are in the finale (8)
Homophone of “you are” in ENDING
19. BALMORAL Raise little dog just for one’s holiday home? (8)
Reverse of LAB[rador] MORAL (just); “one’s” shows that it’s the Queen’s holiday home, though I think she stopped referring to herself as “one” some time ago, at least in public. I’ve always suspected this was because she was lampooned for it, as with her other catchphrase “my husband and I”, which she also doesn’t use any more
22. JUST SO Fair, therefore bang on (4,2)
JUST (fair) + SO (therefore)
23. AGENDA Schedule non-disclosure agree­ment after a long time (6)
AGE + NDA
24. LOVE Nothing to be found between 13 down and 28 (4)
If you put O (zero, nothing) between 13d and 27a then we see ordinaL O VEnue; it’s not really an &lit (aka clue as definition), but that’s the general idea Ignore that rubbish: it’s hidden in celLO + VEnue – thanks wooden_tree
27. TOME Volume of customers (4)
Hidden in cusTOMErs

58 comments on “Guardian 28,095 – Matilda”

  1. I enjoyed this puzzle.  I think 24a is the last two letters of cello (23d) and first two of venue (28a) with Nothing just being the definition.

  3. Ian McEwan theme helped a lot after the first pass got me Amsterdam, and then Hand Lotion led to Atonement.

  4. Yes, some of the clues were very Quiptic-y; but there were also some excellent ones, for instance 24ac (I do love well constructed partial anagrams) and 3, 25dn.

    And 24dn, which was my LOI because it took me ages to see VENUE, was crafty enough to fool our esteemed blogger.

    Thanks to Matilda and to Andrew

  5. Really enjoyed this, all solved and parsed, no cheating. Kennel, Central and Balmoral being particular favourites.
    There’s an Ian McEwan theme too which I only noticed afterwards.
    Congratulations Matilda and thanks Andrew.

  8. Thanks Matilda and Andrew

    Yes, rather Quiptic for the most part – it crossed my mind that the Grauniad had, as it did recently, accidentally published next Monday’s Quiptic. LARCENOUS was very clever, though, and not a Quiptic clue. No theme for me, of course.

    “Red line” for CENTRAL is rather London-centric.

  9. Enjoyed this very much, even without getting the theme until loi ATONEMENT.
    Thanks Matilda and Andrew – for the blog and also the lovely calming music to start the day.

  10. Many thanks and welcome Matilda.

    Was hoping for something a little more sinewy to pass the hours today.  My words to the Memsahib, “I’ll get on with that when I have time” are starting to ring in my ears!

    A couple of nice ones here; enjoyed the cockney ‘amster, SATURDAY, and the coy Pooh.

    Julie in Oz, if you’re around, thinking of our newcomers chosen handle, what is the Matilda reference in the famous Aussie song?

    Raised an eyebrow over the synecdochal  computers for the the general subject of IT but it’s probably OK these days.

    Stay safe, everyone.

  11. Many thanks, Andrew and Matilda.

    A delightful solve, especially when the theme became apparent.

    Like NeilH, I’m an admirer of clever partial anagrams.

    [And ‘Thank you for the music’, Andrew. 😉 ] What a lovely way to fill these empty hours.

  12. …apologies, forgot to congratulate the setter on the excellent (and for me) concealed theme.  No excuse as I’ve read at least 3 of these!

  13. I love the idea of turning onion dhal into HAND LOTION 🙂 and I enjoyed LARCENOUS and CELLO but the rest of it felt a bit Fisher-Price. Maybe not helped by the absence of the PDF link so I had to use the extra-large grid that the print option seems to use. I completely failed to spot the theme so no change there. Thanks to A&M. Keep well folks

  14. Welcome, Matilda, to the cryptic slot. I look forward to further puzzles by this setter.  I thought the theme was well employed – perhaps because, for once, I spotted it.  I’ve read most of the Ian McEwan novels that appear here – Saturday, Atonement, Enduring Love, Amsterdam – but had not come across Nutshell.

    Enjoyed AMSTERDAM, SATURDAY and LARCENOUS (the first two didn’t really need solving as I had the crossers in place – nice clues, though); both COYPU and BALMORAL raised a smile but HAND LOTION secures COTD for the delightful anagram.

    Thanks Matilda and Andrew for the blog.

  17. All too brief, though fun. I missed the theme and have never read the author so it would not have helped. No harm in it being there, and no problem for those of us not familiar with it so just added fun for the setter and those in the know.

    “nutshell” with its odd break was neatly done and I thought a number of the cryptic definitions (“one’s holiday home” for example) were up there with the best. Wordplay was a little more Quiptic, as others have commented but thank you Matilda and Andrew for blogging it.

  18. A nice friendly solve with a theme that even this non-notice of themes couldn’t fail to spot

    Thanks to Matilda and Andrew

  19. I’ve not read Enduring Love or Saturday, though the latter is on my shelf and it may get an airing some time in the next days/weeks/months of nothing much else.  Atonement is my favourite of the ones here that I have read.  Nutshell, if you can get past the jarring embryo-as-narrator conceit, is an enjoyable Hamlet riff.  Amsterdam left me cold, probably because I found the two central characters so tiresome and unlikeable that I didn’t give a toss what happened to them.

    On the puzzle itself, COYPU was my cotd.  HAND LOTION, LARCENOUS, and JANUARY were other favourites.  Thanks Matilda, here’s to many more, and ks to Andrew for the blog and the music

  20. Lovely crossword which brought many smiles along the way, and which I thought was full of panache.  Favourites were COYPU. NUMBSKULL and the beautifully worked LARCENOUS which had me foxed for far too long.  So, many thanks Matilda and welcome to the cryptic slot I shall look forward to more I hope in due course.  Also thanks for the blog Andrew but much more than that thanks for the music.  My dear old Dad who coincidentally died on this date in 2006 loved Gershwin so this was very emotional for me.  I listened on and really enjoyed the Satie which I have attempted to play myself but without the same level of panache that you achieve.  I shall follow you from now on!!

  22. It was good to pit myself against a new cryptic setter and once I felt I was on Matilda’s wavelength, this puzzle unfolded pleasantly. I didn’t see the theme (well done, Scutter@3!) though strangely enough I thought of the film when I solved 9a ATONEMENT. Pity I didn’t take that thought further! Despite missing that extra layer to admire, I enjoyed myself and liked 19a AMSTERDAM (already mentioned as a “goodie” by others) , 6,8d NUTS-HELL and 14d LOVE. I didn’t mind the Tube reference in 13a CENTRAL, muffin@8, as I accept that doing the Guardian puzzle comes with British references like this one, which was perfectly gettable.

    Many thanks to Matilda: glad to have you to waltz with*, and thanks to Andrew for the blog and the piano piece.

    [*William@10, the “Matilda” in the song was the Jolly Swagman’s swag or bluey in which he carried his possessions (usually slung over his back). I love the poignant song by Eric Bogle “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” if anyone hasn’t heard it. Shane and The Pogues do a good version too.  I also love the way the late great Warren Zevon (whose song “Splendid Isolation” was recently cleverly referenced on 15²) goes into a few riffs of “Waltzing Matilda” during a concert he delivered in Adelaide, recorded on the album “Learning to Flinch.]

  23. Welcome to the Cryptic Matilda. For me this should have been a Monday puzzle, as it was easier tgan yesterday’s. I missed the theme despite having read all of them, though I wouldn’t count McEwan as a favourite writer.

  26. I’ve read most of McEwan’s novels and he’s one of my favourites, but I still missed the theme! Corona paranoia is frazzling my brain, I think.

    I did particularly like BALMORAL and AMSTERDAM.

    Thanks Matilda for a well-crafted puzzle, and to Andrew for a good blog and some nice calming music.

  27. Thanks Matilda and Andrew. Not overly taxing but fun.
    Since we all have a little extra time on our hands i hope i will be forgiven for a longer than usual blog prompted by yesterday’s flash in the pan. Hamlet and Horatio can hear the sounds of drinking and revelry as Hamlet’s uncle, the new king, carouses inside. ‘Is it a custom?’ Horatio asks. ‘Yes’ says Hamlet, adding that ‘he’s native here and to the manner born’, implying Claudius has behaved thus since birth. The expression’to the manor born’ was only used some 2 hundred years for its humorous effect. Who knew?

  31. Lovely to hear the Gershwin, a wonderful composer sadly lost to the world far too soon and before even I was born. Thanks Andrew.

  33. Andrew – you’ve fallen victim to the same popular misconception as Matilda regarding the Queen referring to herself as ‘one’ (which is particularly odd as you also reference the phrase ‘my husband and I’).The Queen consistently uses ‘I’ when referring to herself in the first person and uses ‘one’ as the ‘generic you’ (i.e. when expressing something that might apply to each and everyone).

  34. I’ve been a huge fan of Matilda’s for some time and it was only when Andrew pointed it out that I realised she’s been doing Quiptics, not Cryptics. I love the neatness of her clues (there may be a proper cruciverbalist term for this but, not knowing it, “neatness” will have to do) and today VENUE, TOME, LEECH and JANUARY were very pleasing. However even these were surpassed by the delightful BALMORAL and COYPU.
    Many thanks, Matilda, for lightening my morning – and Andrew, many thanks for both the entertaining blog and the evocative Gershwin…

  35. I know that some crossword setters use computers to help them fill the grid; LARCENOUS is so unexpected it smacks of having a computer discover the word algebra part, but I hope I’m wrong.

  36. I hope that Matilda continues to set Quiptics, as she’s very good at it, but it was a pleasure to see her in a cryptic slot for a change. I’ll join in the general praise for LARCENOUS, as well as NUTSHELL, COYPU, and the CELLO/LOVE/VENUE combination. Thanks to Matilda and to Andrew for the blog (haven’t clicked on the music link yet, but looking forward to it).

  37. Oh, and thanks to JinA @22 for reminding me of that wonderfully melancholy Eric Bogle song, which still gives me goosebumps when I hear it.

  38. Oops, forgot about posting; solved this morning but overshadowed by great relief from London: beloved family, infected, still coughing but have turned the corner.

    Welcome Matilda. Had no idea of theme, haven’t used the Tube map for a while but no matter, Lee/vampire a ‘yeah whatever’, and Stuart Little a nho. I’m sure robert’s right about ‘one’, but there’s enough afterecho to make Balmoral work. Quite fun, thanks both.

  39. Andrew’s too-easy-for-even-a-quiptic answers didn’t go in right off for me, but eleven others did, so … different strokes.

    When my friend Ruth and I visited London in the 70’s we thought of all the Underground lines as “the Red Line,” “the Green Line,” etc., as they would have been called in Boston.  So this one was easy.

    Some who have not heard of Stuart Little may know Charlotte’s Web, by the same author (E. B. White) and illustrator (Garth Williams).

  43. Light but frothy. Enjoyed COYPU (although I have always thought it pronounced Pugh as in the Trumpton fire brigade – all I remember from University eons ago) BALMORAL (whether true or not) and HAND LOTION for the smooth surface.

    Thanks both and good to hear some good news Grant.

    [Lockdown buster number 2 – missing independent cinema try Curzon streaming. We watched the new French film Truth the other night. Priced per film – new ones a bit costly but a selection at 99p]

  44. Strange, but by my records I have Matilda down as the setter for the Cryptics (not Quiptics) for 23/10/2019 and 13/03/2020. Doing a search here came up with the 16/03/2020 Quiptic by Matilda as having been”erroneously published” as a Cryptic on the Guardian website on the 13/03/2020, but the earlier puzzle in October last year, which wasn’t one of her Quiptic days (closest was 28/10/2020), doesn’t come up. It wasn’t on the Guardian website either. It’s very unlikely I would have invented the name and I doubt I clicked on the Quiptic link by mistake, but I suppose that’s what I must have done. Oh well, one of life’s little mysteries.

    No idea about the theme but still enjoyed the puzzle. I was held up by LARCENOUS and LOVE / VENUE at the end and liked BALMORAL and AMSTERDAM along the way.

    Thanks to Matilda and to Andrew – your lovely playing (up to Satie now) has been accompanying me as I type this.

  45. Definitely a Monday feel to the puzzle.  I missed the theme, but am familiar enough with it to recognise most of the titles.  I used to be a fan of Ian McEwan but I’ve lost touch in recent years.  I remember really liking his short story collection “First Love, Last Rites”.

    LARCENOUS was very good.  I am not good at anagrams in general and even after understanding the construction of this clue, it still didn’t look possible that LARCENOUS was hidden in there without actually writing it down and crossing out the letters!  Similarly with EARLDOM, I needed crossers before seeing it.  I always thought COYPU was pronounced COY-PEW, but the Collins online assistant agrees with Matilda’s version, so fair do’s.

    Thanks, Matilda and Andrew.  Loved the Gershwin piece.  Thanks for that!

  46. I didn’t think to look for a theme, and doubt I would have got it if I had. A pleasant solve that was much easier than yesterday with two outstanding clues for me – the well worked LARCENOUS and the very amusing BALMORAL – also my loi. Do others often find loi a favourite?
    Been out to the shops today after 3 weeks of self-isolation – and what a chilled out and civilised experience it was. Also everything in stock apart from bread flour – are we ever going to make our own bread again?
    Thanks to Matilda and Andrew.

  47. WordPlodder @44 – the Guardian website us rather prone to human errors – there is another today – this time a Quick! There have been at least three occasions on which a Quiptic has been published early on the Cryptic page, but this is Matilda’s first proper Cryptic.

  48. Thanks Andrew and Matilda. I thought this was a fine puzzle. Not too hard, certainly, but full of wit and variety. Many more, please.

  49. Julie in Oz @22:  Many thanks for that.  So I assume if one is Waltzing Matilda, one is wandering about with all ones possessions in a bag.  Right?

  50. I don’t normally do the quiptic so Matilda is new to me. I suppose this was a bit Mondayish but I rather enjoyed it and I got the theme. Indeed as soon as I saw ATONEMENT I rather expected it. I’ve read the novels with the exception of NUTSHELL which I thought sounded a bit naff. Perhaps I’ll give it a go during this time of pestilence.
    JinA@22 I’ve got a version of the Eric Bogle song by The men they couldn’t hang which sounds very like the Pogues but isn’t.
    Nice puzzle.
    Thanks Mathilda

  51. I know the song too – I’ve been trying to remember since it was first mentioned who I have singing it, and where it is (to no avail so far!). There’s also a song about him sitting down on a war grave of a 17-year-old, I think.

    After a Google search, I think my version is June Tabor.

  52. muffin, the second song you’re thinking of is called “No Man’s Land,”or, I now learn, “The Green Fields of France.”  It begins, “How do you do, Private Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?”  Google sends you to various performances of it, but you can find my favorite by googling “No Man’s Land” and “Gordon Bok,” “Ed Trickett” and at this website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0BtHNwqXjY.  Gordon Bok, Ed Trickett and Ann Muir made a lot of wonderful records together: Ed takes the lead in this one.

    Google also tells me that the soldier’s Irish-sounding name was to affirm the Irish, who weren’t terribly popular with the English for some time.  (Bogle is Scottish.)

     

  53. Muffin et al . It was Green Fields of France that I was thinking of when I mentioned the record by The Men They Couldn’t Hang- which I’ve just pulled off the shelf and consulted. The group I mentioned do not seem to have recorded ‘And the band played Waltzing Matilda’
    Another senior moment!

  54. WhiteKing@46: Do others often find loi a favourite?  Not always but sometimes, and then the justification for all of this palaver.

    It’s worth tuning in here just for the occasional badmintoning between WordPlodder and beery hiker. Chapeaux!

  55. [William@49 – Not so much a bag as a bedroll – called a bluey after the blue-coloured blanket swaggies often had. It might have been wrapped around their few meagre possessions. Apparently because they slept with their swag it came to be known by a woman’s name, Matilda. So yes the “waltzing” part was  wandering around to look for work or perhaps handouts.

    And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
    Eric Bogle
    Now when I was a young man, I carried me pack
    And I lived the free life of the rover
    From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback
    Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over …]

  58. Thanks for the music, Andrew, I’ve just played it.  Is it a very long set or does it loop around?  I finally heard a theme I’d heard before.  Included was the melody to a song I frustratingly couldn’t come up with the words for, though I could feel them bubbling just below the surface.  Did you do a lot of song lyrics or just the one?

    Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Comments are closed.