A Quiptic from Matilda that mainly did what it is intended to do. I do have a couple of niggles, however.
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 Violent act, a bit like pancake mix?
BATTERY
A cd cum dd. The whimsical part is suggesting that a pancake mix might be BATTER-Y. A bit like a compiler describing an octopus as ARMY.
5 Looked into dust storm, initially in equatorial desert
STUDIED
A charade of (DUST)* and IED for the initial letters of ‘in’, ‘equatorial’ and ‘desert’. The anagrind is ‘storm’.
10 Blue feathers
DOWN
A dd.
11 Boils spuds or pasta for relative to tuck into
CARBUNCLES
An insertion of UNCLE in CARBS. The insertion indicator is ‘to tuck into’. I can’t see or hear this word without thinking of our beloved future king.
12 In hotel, gripped by a book
AT HOME
An insertion of H for the phonetic alphabet ‘hotel’ in A TOME. The insertion indicator is ‘gripped by’.
13 Hugo Boss announcing no neckwear for a decade
NINETIES
A charade of NINE and TIES. The first particle is a homophone (‘announcing’) of NEIN. Also sprach Zarathustra, und Hugo Boss sprach Deutsch.
14 Changing direction, vicar? Hesitate, then sign off
REVERSING
A charade of REV, ER and (SIGN)* The anagrind is ‘off’. ER, for me, is an interjection expressing hesitation, so ‘hesitate’ doesn’t really work for me. You might get away with it if you consider the phrase ‘to um and to er’, I suppose.
16 Glamour of biker escaping blitzkrieg, somehow
GLITZ
Matilda is asking you to extract ‘biker’ from ‘blitzkrieg’ and make an anagram. So it’s ([B]L[I]TZ[K][R]I[E]G)* with ‘somehow’ as the anagrind.
17 Card acceptable in one half of Jersey
JOKER
An insertion of OK in JER[SEY]
19 Lean to one side and sneer, agitating the audience
LISTENERS
A charade of LIST and (SNEER)* with ‘agitating’ as the anagrind.
23 Vibrant tirade about broken nose
RESONANT
An insertion of (NOSE)* in RANT. The insertion indicator is ‘about’ and the anagrind is ‘broken’.
24 Mind check and vacate the set after Matilda stands in line, they say
IQ TEST
A charade of I for the self-referential ‘Matilda’, Q, T[H]E and S[E]T. ‘Vacate’ here means ‘remove the middle letter from’. The homophone indicator is ‘they say’, but the clue doesn’t work for me because ‘stands in line’ would sound like QUEUES, not QUEUE.
Edit: the clue is perfectly fair. As Spooner’s catflap points out, ‘Matilda stands’ can be rendered as ‘I queue’. Thanks to him for the explanation.
26 Tedious jobs completed at last, OK with New York’s redevelopment
DONKEY WORK
A charade of D for the last letter of ‘completed’ and (OK NEW YORK)* The anagrind is the apostrophe s followed by ‘redevelopment’.
27 Ministry of Defence’s scooter squad
MODS
Here you need the apostrophe s as part of the wordplay. MOD is the abbreviation for Ministry of Defence and the MODS were scooter fanatics in the 1960s.
28 Excuse used before the advent of phone messaging
PRETEXT
I suspect many readers will have spent a significant part of their lives living in the PRE-TEXT age. We survived, didn’t we? Prospered, even.
29 Ate nothing around the end of June, then ate a lot
FEASTED
An insertion of E for the last letter of ‘June’ in FASTED.
Down
2 Preacher of letters overwhelmed by beer
APOSTLE
An insertion of POST in ALE. The insertion indicator is ‘overwhelmed by’.
3 Fly northwards with love and dance
TANGO
A charade of GNAT reversed and O. The reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue, is ‘northwards’.
4 Chairs for 27 rivals
ROCKERS
A dd. The ROCKERS were the rival youth sub-culture in the 1960s to the MODS, who appear at 27ac.
6 Skipping school, tour USA (North-West’s borders)
TRUANT
A charade of TR, UA and NT, for the outside letters or ‘borders’ of ‘tour’, ‘USA’ and ‘North-West’. Again, I’m not convinced this works: TRUANCY would. TRUANT can be a verb, but it still doesn’t work if the definition is ‘skipping school’.
7 Multiple events, then a cold snap
DECATHLON
(THEN A COLD)* with ‘snap’ as the anagrind.
8 Some of the clientele mentioned water, perhaps
ELEMENT
Hidden clientELE MENTioned. Before the scientists get a bag on and start telling us water is a compound and not an element, Matilda is reaching further back, to Greek times: earth, air, fire, water …
9 For spies into mischief infiltrated by ‘one taking orders’, in a manner of speaking
PRONUNCIATION
An insertion of NUN for ‘one taking orders’ in PRO, CIA and (INTO)* The insertion indicator is ‘infiltrated by’ and the anagrind is ‘mischief’.
15 Viewer plugged in here
EYE SOCKET
A cd.
18 Not quite honoured, playing for 60 minutes
ONE HOUR
(HONOURE[D])* with ‘playing’ as the anagrind. Change 60 to 120 and you’ve got a description of last night’s match.
20 Shine like the seafood in Yorkshire?
TWINKLE
There’s trouble at t’mill, as the cliché goes.
21 What’s left of rise may be owing
RESIDUE
A charade of (RISE)* and DUE. The anagrind is ‘may be’.
22 Cat eating a rat’s head? Speak with it!
LARYNX
An insertion of A and R for the first letter of ‘rat’ in LYNX.
25 Newspaper getting by
TIMES
A dd. The second definition is the mathematical multiplication one.
Many thanks to Matilda for this week’s Quiptic.
Found this easier than the cryptic today although there were a couple I didn’t fully parse – and were of course obvious once I read this blog.
Liked CARBUNCLES, GLITZ, MODS, PRETEXT, LARYNX
Thanks to Matilda and Pierre
Not sure about the niggle with TRUANT – I’ve seen it used in a form that’s directly interchangeable with “skipping school”, eg he was truant / he was skipping school, so seemed fair enough to me. Happy to be told that construction might be ungrammatical though!
Suspecting the pangram helped with PRETEXT / LARYNX – I’m always pleased to see setters squeezing things like pangrams and ninas into the Quiptic – there’s no reason to deny us duffers a bit of elegance or wit!
Thanks Pierre. In 24A, IQ TEST, you have had a problem with the homophone because you have parsed for ‘Matilda’ [I], followed by ‘stands in line’, which should be ‘queues’. However, I think the syntax of the clue intends ‘IQ’ to function as a homophone of the whole phrase, ‘Matilda stands in line’, which translates into the first person verbal phrase ‘I queue’.
Of course, Spooner’s catflap – that’s what Matilda intended and it’s perfectly fair. I’ll amend the blog.
Thanks Matilda and Pierre
I had no idea what was going on in NINETIES (I tried “noughties”, but it didn’t fit!). I didn’t parse TRUANT either. Favourite AT HOME.
I know it’s Guardian policiy, but giving IQ as (2) rather than (1,1) is a particularly ridiculous example that made this LOI.
As Ben+T suggests, using TRUANT as an adjective makes grammatical sense of the clue.
Having WRITTEN for 28a didn’t help me get LARYNX. It works, sort of. But the currency descended eventually, as it did for the long 9d, my LOI (it was seeing spies = CIA that did it). My reaction to ELEMENT was exactly as Pierre predicted. All fair, and all parsed, in the end. Thanks, Matilda and Pierre.
Thanks both. Enjoyable puzzle and a pangram as well.
peterM @6 (& Ben+T @2)
HAMLET
(to HORATIO) —But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.
TRUANT is also an adjective, so that one works for me, though I didn’t like the sudden switch from the borders of individual words to the borders of a phrase. I guessed Hugo Boss must be German from the construction of NINETIES.
Enjoyed LARYNX, GLITZ, PRETEXT, t’Yorkshire winkle and the small but neat DOWN. This isn’t the first time Matilda has provided a pangram in the Quiptic.
muffin @5: from the website of MENSA … “The only qualification for membership of Mensa is a high IQ.” [sic] If you are a member, you really must resign in protest.
Maybe ‘Octopussy’ = ‘Army’ then.
I really enjoyed this – still not convinced by TRUANT, and found HUGO BOSS less than easy for a Quiptic. That aside, many thanks Matilda and Pierre.
A proper Quiptic, I thought. I was delayed by thinking about Boss = stud, as it too often does in crosswords. Thanks Matilda, Pierre and SC
This was a very good Quiptic, although it did take me a little longer than did the cryptic (that is not a criticism of either).
In 30 years of teaching I never used truant as an adjective but my dictionary suggests that it’s fine to do that.
Thanks, Matilda and Pierre.
…and T’winkle and Battery made me wonder if I was listening to an edition of “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue”.
I also know truant as an adjective. Someone on a book I loved as a child had two horses called Truant and Tranquil. I had no idea Hugo Boss was German, and didn’t parse even though it is the language spoken where I currently am. Duh!
New MODS = 1950s scooter squad, and ROCKERS (thanks, wikipedia).
Liked: PRETEXT, PRONUNCATION.
Thanks, both.
Thanks Matilda and Pierre for a great Quiptic and blog. I liked the spies, too.
Must be an easy one, if I could complete it!