A thoughtfully compiled Quiptic from Matilda, which I’d be happy to recommend to those who are new to this kind of torture. Friendly grid, no obscurities, clear cluing. Happy days.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1, 4 Is Keir Starmer like a household appliance?
LABOUR-SAVING
That’s an impertinent question to start the day, I must say. A cd. Can Mr Starmer save the Labour Party? Some on the left would opine that it is beyond saving, but that’s one for a quiet corner in a pub and a pint or two.
9 Silly Mack did not annoy anyone
TOM DICK AND HARRY
(MACK DID NOT ANNOY)* with ‘silly’ as the anagrind. A charade of (MACK DID NOT)* and HARRY for ‘annoy’.
See my comment at 7dn about the edit, and thank you to Shirl and Fiona Anne for pointing out my careless error.
10 Hat for 13?
BOATER
Since the solution to 13 is YACHTSMAN, this is another cd (cum dd).
11 American politician leaving note for innkeeper
PUBLICAN
Matilda is inviting you to remove RE, the second ‘note’ of the tonic sol-fa, from REPUBLICAN, so it’s [RE]PUBLICAN.
12 Was at home when Yeats created noise
STAYED IN
A charade of (YEATS)* and DIN. The anagrind is ‘created’.
14 Told not right to be joyous
ELATED
Another removal clue. Here it’s [R]ELATED.
15 Quiet, fortunate and courageous
PLUCKY
A charade of P for the musically ‘quiet’ and LUCKY.
18 Stays up playing, collecting 100 for the kitty
PUSSYCAT
An insertion of C for ‘100’ in (STAYS UP)* The anagrind is ‘playing’ and the insertion indicator is ‘collecting’.
21 Rapidly oppose easy money
FAST BUCK
A charade of FAST and BUCK. The second element is in its meaning of ‘buck the trend’.
22 Take in some swabs or bandages
ABSORB
Hidden in swABS OR Bandages.
24 Tailless bird is in shade — it’s a pain in the neck!
FLAMING NUISANCE
A charade of FLAMING[O] and IS inserted into NUANCE. The insertion indicator is ‘in’. As you will know by now, I can’t, because Site Policy says that the solution has to be the bird, the whole bird and nothing but the bird.
25, 26 Seen at Wimbledon: new skincare tent
TENNIS RACKET
(SKINCARE TENT)*
Down
1 Guard toilet, king not there
LOOKOUT
A charade of LOO, K and OUT.
2 Offer alien something in the bathroom
BIDET
A charade of BID and ET for the setters’ favourite, perhaps only, ‘alien’. BIDET is derived from a French word for ‘pony’. Go figure.
3 No better copper to infiltrate underground
UNCURED
A clue where you have to employ what some folk call ‘lift and separate’ (copyright Playtex bras circa 1966). If you separate ‘underground’ into ‘under’ and ‘ground’, then the latter becomes your anagrind, giving you (UNDER)* which leads to UNRED. Insert (‘to infiltrate’) CU for the chemical symbol for ‘copper’ in that, and you’ve got a word that means ‘no better’. A bit like the leader of the free world.
5 Car bomb will explode finally within earshot
AUDIBLE
A charade of AUDI for the ‘car’ and BLE for the last letters of the second, third and fourth words of the clue.
6 It’s all in the head of one famous mother downing a ruinous drink
IMAGINARY
A charade of I and GIN inserted into MARY. GIN is ‘a ruinous drink’ because it’s often referred to as ‘mother’s ruin’; MARY, as I should perhaps explain in these irreligious and secular times, was the mother of Jesus, which is a pretty famous gig.
7 Pants tucked up into mega bra? Goodness!
GARBAGE
Hidden reversed in mEGA BRA Goodness. The hidden indicator is ‘tucked up’, which works because it’s a down clue. ‘Pants’ is a British English expression which overseas solvers often fail to recognise in this usage. ‘Your parsing of that clue is pants, Pierre.’ I have no idea where it comes from.
8 Happy end not quite come to pass
HAPPEN
A charade of HAPP[Y] and EN[D]
13 Cathy’s kinky island sailor
YACHTSMAN
A charade of (CATHYS)* and MAN for the Isle of Man or ‘island’. The anagrind is ‘kinky’.
16 Circular field left undone
LEAFLET
A charade of LEA and (LEFT)* with ‘undone’ as the anagrind.
17 We hear how urinary infections start
YOU AND I
This made me laugh. The gag is that U AND I are the initial letters of ‘urinary’ and ‘infections’. The setter has included the ‘hear’ bit to take account of the fact that U is a homophone of YOU.
18 Giving a nudge to pig whose heart is moved by a distressed ‘oink’
POKING
An insertion of (OINK)* in P[I]G. The removal and insertion indicator is ‘whose heart is moved by’, which works perfectly if you think about it for a bit. The anagrind is ‘distressed’.
19 Tasmania, lacking a renewable energy
STAMINA
(TASMANI[A])* Or (TASM[A]NIA)* Or (T[A]SMANIA)* Australians can never make their minds up. The anagrind is ‘renewable’.
20 Pair bananas with initially cherries or tangy fruit
APRICOT
A charade of (PAIR)* and COT for the initial letteRs of ‘cherries’, ‘or’ and ‘tangy’.
23 Pile of spin?
STACK
I can only think that this must be a dd, but I can’t really see the equivalence of the second element. Some kind soul will come to my rescue and explain it, I’m sure.
Edit: the second element relies on the fact that ‘spin’ could become s-pin, so S-TACK. Thanks to the kind soul (Bullhassocks) who did explain this.
Many thanks to Matilda for this morning’s Quiptic.
Thanks Pierre, and Matilda for a steady and enjoyable, but not ridiculously easy start to the week. (PS, re 23: I belatedly worked out that S+Pin = S+TACK)
Very nice Quiptic.
Liked: LABOUR-SAVING, YOU AND I, LEAFLET, FLAMING NUISANCE
Thanks, B+S
I had been thinking of spin/stack along the lines of ‘the odds were stacked/spun against him’, whcih is not ideal! I prefer Bulhassock’s parsing @ 1 above.
I only started doing cryptic crosswords a few few months ago and discovered the quiptic a bit later. I am becoming familiar with the different setters and when I see that the setter is Matilda I know that have a good chance of getting many or even all of the clues with just a little help from the dictionaries and check this button.
Today’s puzzle was lovely. Just right for a newbie. Lots of different types of clues and I made it to the end.
When I see the setter is Vlad on the other hand (as on Friday), I know I will be coming to 225 after a long tussle with still more than a few gaps in the grid and needing some help with parsing. But the number of gaps is getting (slowly) smaller.
Thanks to Matilda and Pierre
Thanks both. I think that 9a is an anagram of MACK DID NOT plus HARRY for “annoy”
I think 9a is (Mack did not)* for Tom Dick and – and then Harry for annoy.
Nice Quiptic. LABOUR SAVING made me laugh. I also had problems with LOI STACK, but Bulhassock @ 1 must have it right. Just for the record, Tasmania runs entirely on renewable hydroelectricity (except in the occasional drought) – the clue was another that provoked hilarity. Thanks, Matilda and Pierre. [PS Now we have daylight saving, I – and other East Coast Aussies – have to wait until 10am to see the new crossies – and that will shift to 11 am when Pommyland goes to winter time.]
Thanks for the explanations and corrections. Blog updated.
7d. My limited research throws up a possible explanation. “Pants” is a very recent derivation from “knickers”, which my edition of Chambers defines as (slang) “a mild expression of exsperation, etc.” more familiarly known in “get one’s knickers in a twist” – to become harassed, anxious or agitated.
Fiona Anne @3
If you can even attempt to tackle Vlad after just a few months you are doing very well indeed.
I’ve been doing crosswords, at different levels, for most of my 74 years and the bylines of setters such as Vlad, Boatman, Imogen, Enigmatist etc. still make me sweat. Some are a pleasurable struggle and some are a pretty joyless pain for me – I’ll leave you to guess which ones are which.
This was fun. I do enjoy Matilda. Thanks to M for the fun and P for the blog
George Clements @9
When I started, as advised by Tim Moorey in his book How to crack cryptic crosswords, I got the Chambers dictionary and both the Chambers and Bradfords crossword dictionaries and I made extensive use of them as well as the check this button once I discovered that the puzzles were on line. With Matilda I use the dictionaries etc less and less. With Vlad I am heavily dependant.
Some would call this cheating – but as Peter Biddlecombe (who says it took him about seven years to be able to finish cryptic crosswords regularly) says it’s only cheating if you pretend that you didn’t use help and as one editor said “It’s your puzzle. Solve it any way you want.” And with Vlad it will be many years before I don’t need help.
I agree with Pierre and Fiona Anne that this was ideal for a cryptic newbie. As I was progressing through the clues, I noticed with admiration the variety of devices being employed. Most were signaled in a reasonably straightforward way, although UNCURED required a bit more thought. Thanks to Matilda for a pleasant waltz, to Pierre for a thorough and entertaining blog, and Bullhassocks @1 for educating me on the parsing of STACK.
Nice little Monday morning ego boost. Finished in a single sitting. Had to do a little googling afterwards on the preferred spelling of racket / racquet to find out that I was in the wrong, not the setter …
Personally I think using the check button as a way of checking potential letters is a better way for newbies (like me) to decode some clues than the time-honoured tradition of checking the answers in the next day’s paper (or here, of course) – there’s a high chance that getting one or two extra letters unlocks the whole clue for you, and you might learn more about solving it than simply parsing it later from the whole answer. It’s certainly my own justification! And as Fiona says, it’s your puzzle to enjoy as you wish.
I’m always happy when I see Matilda as the setter for the Quiptic, and as usual my optimism was rewarded. Thought S-TACK was tougher than Quiptic level cluing but critically all the crossers were there to make it easily solveable, which of course makes all the difference. Same happened for TOM, DICK AND HARRY – the crossers revealed it to me very early on, and like Pierre I fell into the trap of not actually checking the letters of the anagram fodder.
Thanks to both Pierre and Matilda – I agree with those saying this was a fun start to the week.
Thanks P&M – I thought this was an excellent crossword with FLAMING NUISANCE my fave.
I’m not keen on the wordplay grammar for REPUBLICAN – for me it just doesn’t make sense but we see it so often I guess it’s become a thing? “Leaving” alone feels like there’s a word missing eg “leaving note out” etc
I find Matilda’s puzzles invariably full of joy, and today was no different, from the cheeky LABOUR SAVING, to the sneaky UNCURED. LOOKOUT and FLAMING NUISANCE were also well worthy of mention (not every day you see a flamingo in the fodder).
Difficulty was bang on right for a quiptic, unlike some of the other torturers lately.
Many, many more like this please Matilda.
Bodycheetah @15, I hadn’t noticed the issue with PUBLICAN, so it wasn’t a problem as far as I was concerned, but on reflection I agree with you. Would “Note left by American politician for innkeeper” work better for you?
I’m not a newbie, just not very good and I thought this an almost impeccable Quiptic; (like some others I thought 23 a little gnomic). Incidentally, I have found the check button a most useful aid to learning.
I found this fun though it had some tricky moments. The clue for REPUBLICAN works for me now i see that RE is the note; I I read “leaving” as “leaving [behind]” as in “I left my purse at the shop.” However I had not parsed it myself. My reading of STACK shows my age; we had a gramaphone that would play a stack of records (which spin), so I saw this as a CD; I agree that S-TACK is probably what Matilda had in mind. Loved YACHTSMAN and then BOATER: very neat! LOI was LABOUR SAVING whihc provoked a gulp! Many thanks to Pierre for the witty blog which complemented Matilda’s witty crossword.
And like Fiona Anne, i am very grateful for the Quiptic, 15^2 and the online corssoword format, which together have got me back into solving cryptics after many years (=ca. three decades) away! It is so much more satisfying to be able to see quickly what’s what, and to come here for an explanation of why it is that, than to have to wait for the next day and still not really see why. Over the past few months I have gone from struggling with the Quiptic to getting somewhere with the likes of Imogen and Vlad and solving the occasional Prize, and that is mostly down to the bloggers here.
Re Colin F @13’s comment on “racket” vs. “racquet”: I always thought that this was a US / UK spelling difference, and I might have thought that the clue should include an indicator that the US spelling was required.
If only there were a US location as strongly associated with tennis as Wimbledon, substituting that would do the trick nicely. The US Open tennis tournament is in Flushing Meadows, but I don’t suppose that place name evokes tennis to everyone in the way that the name Wimbledon does.
Much like beobachterin, I thought of a DJ spinning a STACK of records… all pretty old school in this age of mp3’s, streaming, etc… though I do still have a stack of LPs tucked away somewhere 🙂
Many thanks to both Matilda and Pierre. A pleasant little solve and, yes Fiona Anne, coming here helped me immensely when I was starting. I have noticed an increase in the S-TACK type clues over the last few months, so I suppose it is the new fashion in clueing. These days I remember to look for it if I get stuck.
It took a few days, but my first fully completed quiptic! A huge thank you to the setters and everyone who posts the solutions, I wouldn’t have made it without this site.
Thanks Matilda for a lovely Quiptic with some great funny moments, and to Pierre fir an impeccable blog.