Guardian Quiptic 1123 Matilda

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Thank you to Matilda. Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

1. Advantageous to be young with a lisp … (6)

USEFUL : … pronounced(to be …) with a lisp, “youthful”(young).

5. … leaving spiritualism to go off for some pudding (8)

TIRAMISU : Anagram of(… to go off) “spiritualism” minus(… leaving) “lisp”(from the previous clue as indicated by the ellipsis).

9. Being true to form after running race (8)

CREATURE : Anagram of(… to form) TRUE plus(after) anagram of(running) RACE.

10. Boy consuming cannabis precisely (4,2)

SPOT ON : SON(informal term of address for a boy) containing(consuming) POT(slang for the drug made from the cannabis plant).

11. Sofa in box with lid free to be moved (12)

CHESTERFIELD : CHEST(a large strong box) plus(with) anagram of(… to be moved) LID FREE.

13. Apple mountain (4)

FUJI : Double defn: 1st: A Japanese dessert apple; and 2nd: … in Japan,.

14. Confront boost in cosmetic surgery (8)

FACELIFT : FACE(to confront and deal with) + LIFT(a boost/a feeling of confidence).

17. ‘Age before beauty’, says V? (5,3)

AFTER YOU : Homophone of(says) “after U”(descriptive of the character V’s position in the English alphabet).

Defn: Like “…”, a phrase to allow or suggest someone goes before oneself.

18. Born and died in poverty (4)

NEED : NÉE(born, used when giving a married woman’s maiden family name, as in “Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis née Bouvier”) plus(and) D(a. “died”).

20. Hits sources of obstruction clutching bosom (12)

BLOCKBUSTERS : BLOCKERS(sources of obstruction/obstacles) containing(clutching) BUST(bosom/a woman’s breasts).

Defn: Films, books or other products achieving great commercial success.

23. See about fixing gate smoothly, leaving no gaps (6)

LEGATO : LO(see, as in “lo and behold”) containing(about) anagram of(fixing) GATE.

Defn: In music, playing smoothly and flowingly without breaks/leaving no gaps between notes.

24. Word for word, very bad time, endlessly (8)

VERBATIM : “very bad time” minus their last letters, respectively(endlessly).

25. Substitutes put up with evil (6,2)

STANDS IN : STAND(put up/to place or set something in an upright or specified position) plus(with) SIN(evil/an immoral act).

Defn: … as a verb.

26. Worked in the garden seeing small early signs of Dutch elm disease (6)

WEEDED : WEE(small/tiny) + 1st letters, respectively, of(early signs of) “Dutch elm disease“.

Down

2. Spoke, being agile (4)

SPRY : S + PRY(to poke/to delve into, somebody’s private affairs, say).

3. The man’s in France getting a dealership (9)

FRANCHISE : HIS(possessive pronoun for “the man’s”/something belonging to him) contained in(in) FRANCE.

4. Stan‘s bay (6)

LAUREL : Double defn: 1st: One half of comic duo, Laurel and Hardy; and 2nd: Another name for the … tree.

5. Always evens out after a couple of dozen (6-4,5)

TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN : Anagram of(… out) EVENS placed below(after, in a down clue) TWENTY-FOUR(equal to a couple of dozen/2 x 12).

Defn: …, short for “24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.

6. Put limits on dress, strip clothing off before court (8)

RESTRICT : “dress, strip ” minus their 1st and last letters, respectively(clothing off) placed above(before, in a down clue) CT(abbrev. for “court”).

7. New Zealander chairman oddly missing train (5)

MAORI : MAO(Zedong, aka Chairman Mao, former Chinese Communist Party chairman) + 1st, 3rd and 5th letters deleted from(oddly missing) “train“.

Defn: One of the indigenous people of mainland New Zealand.

8. Fresh plot twist involving a thief (10)

SHOPLIFTER : Anagram of(… twist) FRESH PLOT containing(involving) I(Roman numeral for “one”/a).

12. With one movement, fluent about movie’s completion (10)

FULFILMENT : FLUENT with U moving 1 position towards the start(With one movement, …) containing(about) FILM(a movie/moving pictures).

15. Secures part of Batman’s outfit for picture (9)

LANDSCAPE : LANDS(secures/wins, say, a trophy) + CAPE(part of the outfit of superhero, Batman the Caped Crusader).

16. They rise in surprise as Matilda reads aloud! (8)

EYEBROWS : Homophone of(… aloud) “[I(Matilda, the setter using the self-referential pronoun) browse(casually reads through books, magazines, etc.)]”.

19. Kind of language used by the bloke with tea? (6)

HEBREW : HE(third-person pronoun for a bloke/guy) plus(with) BREW(an example of which/? is tea).

21. Links from China with a promotion (5)

CHAIN : “China” with “a” moved up(with … promotion, in a down clue).

22. Business policy (4)

LINE : Double defn: 1st: …/a specific area of activity, like trading, say; and 2nd: …/an agreed approach or position in a matter, as in “to follow the official line”.

25 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1123 Matilda”

  1. Another great puzzle from Matilda. I imagine the homophone police will complain about USEFUL but I liked the link to TIRAMISU. Also liked CHESTERFIELD, EYEBROWS, SHOPLIFTER and FULFILMENT. The photo of one half of my favourite comedy duo made me smile.

    Ta Matilda & scchua.

  2. Always good fun to have a Matilda puzzle to wake up to on a Monday. The link between the first two across clues was very clever, and I enjoyed EYEBROWS and VERBATIM, too.

    If I have any disappointment. It’s that the 4-letter words weren’t propped up well by precise cluing, which they needed to be given that the crossers were unhelpful. I teased out LINE eventually, but it was a horrible place to have a dd.

  3. The little ones gave me the most trouble. Missed the lift-and-separate in SPRY, took a long time to remember FUJI apples, and I had OVER (hidden in poverty) instead of NEED for 18d for quite a while. Favourites AFTER YOU, EYEBROWS and TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN … and it’s nice to have a meaningful ellipsis for once. Thanks Matilda and scchua.

  4. Thanks to scchua for the parsing of ‘spry’, which I could not see, despite the solution being oretty obvious.

  5. Another great puzzle from Matilda. I echo the praise for the meaningful ellipsis and AFTER YOU. I was tricked into trying crossword movies like ET before the penny dropped on FULFILMENT. I also missed the lift and separate for SPRY, trying to make sense of something with Constance.

  6. Enjoyed this – found the bottom half harder than the top half. For the first time I remembered NEE for born. Didn’t spot the mechanism for SPRY.

    Favourites have been mentioned especially EYEBROWS

    Thanks Matilda and scchua

  7. Surely in 6 down it’s both “dress” and “strip” which are minus first and last letter. In 24 across I parsed it as “stand” = “put up WITH”, i.e. “endure”.

  10. No big deal, but the obstacles in 20a are BLOCKERS rather than BLOCKS, placed around BUST.

    Thanks for the call on SPRY, which I could not for the life of me see.

  14. Enjoyed this although there were three I could not parse. Perhaps a bit hard for Quiptic-level.

    Favourites, CHAIN, USEFUL, FRANCHISE, AFTER YOU, CREATURE, FULFILMENT (loi).

    Did not parse SPRY; Matilda reference in 16d (thought it was something to do with Roald Dahl’s book); TIRAMISU but guessed anagram of SPIRITUALISM less SLIP.

    Thanks, M + scchua.

  15. A good puzzle, more difficult than the Cryptic, and not really appropriate for a Quiptic, IMHO – or maybe I’m just having a bad day. It would be interesting to see what a beginner makes of this.

    I liked the TIRAMISU, yum-yum! I didn’t know the FUJI apple, and like Boffo @2, I had trouble getting LINE.

    Thanks Matilda and scchua.

  16. scchua — the definition in 1a is “young,” not “to be young.” Typo in 13a — “ad” should be “and.” And I agree with erike44 that the explanation for RESTRICT shouldn’t include “respectively,” which would lead to RESSSTRI + CT.

    And for once the ellipsis is doing its job!

    I couldn’t parse S-PRY, and now I love it! That and EYEBROWS were my favorites. I agree that this was harder than the Cryptic, though that isn’t saying much.

    Thanks, Matilda, for your usual entertaining and meticulous fare, and to scchua for the pix (did Stan Laurel really look like that in his youth?) and the explanations, especially SPRY.

  18. I’m not sure about “including a” in 8d asking for the letter I. Otherwise an enjoyable solve.

  19. I wasn’t very happy with the clue for TIRAMISU, until I remembered that, for Brits, just about anything they can swallow is called a pudding.

  20. As a relative beginner I found this quite difficult but had put it down to feeling tired after jab #2 and not having seen Matilda for a while. Was shocked to see a meaningful ellipsis – so I didn’t pick up on it. I liked Chesterfield and Landscape amongst others. I got Spry and now I understand the parsing. Thanks to all.

  21. Beginner of many years found this fairly tough! Particularly the splitting of ‘SPOKE’ into ‘S-POKE’ and the ‘LISP’ being used in the linked clue – have not come across these before. DNF with many to go

  22. Since being elevated to cryptics I’ve felt that Matilda has trouble dumbing down to create her sparkling, witty, and above all simple quiptics of old. I did enjoy this puzzle but it’s not really for tyros.

  23. This was great – thanks, both. The L&S for SPRY eluded me, and I was shocked to see an ellipsis that actually did something!

  24. I have a slight quibble with the clue 1a, since it feels like it’s backwards. It’s meant to read “Find the word that, when spoken with a lisp, gets you youthful“, but the way it’s actually written, it reads like “Pronounce youthful with a lisp to gert the answer.” Small potatoes, but it did trip me up, so I wanted to say so.

    Aside from that, I dug this grid. “Very bad time” -> VERBATIM was a brilliant discovery.

  25. EDIT: and the second I hit post, it occurs me to that 1a is supposed to be parsed “[synonym for] Advantageous [will] be [synonym for] young [when pronounced] with a lisp.” Gotcha.

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