A sound and entertaining Quiptic from Matilda this morning, with a good variety of subject matter for our delectation and delight. As always, if there is something that I haven’t explained properly or fully, just ask.
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 Very keen to have a look into god
ZEALOUS
An insertion of A and LO! in ZEUS.
5 Europeans declared money orders
CHEQUES
A homophone (‘declared’) of CZECHS. Some folk (specifically, me) aren’t madly in love with the idea of putting the homophone indicator between the two elements, as here. But at least the word length tells you which to insert in this case.
10 Street silver for blokes
STAG
A charade of ST and AG for the chemical symbol for ‘silver’. In the context of rat-arsed men stripping the future bridegroom naked and leaving him tied to a lampost, you could make STAG synonymous with ‘blokes’. Just.
Edit: in fact, the definition is ‘for blokes’, which makes perfect sense. Thanks to Shirl and roughtrade.
11 Disraeli prepared to tour Home Counties one bit at a time
SERIALISED
An insertion of SE (South East, crosswordspeak for ‘Home Counties’) in (DISRAELI)* The insertion indicator is ‘to tour’ and the anagrind is ‘prepared’.
12 Fashion gala in Olde England
ANGLIA
(GALA IN)* gives you the name that the settlers/invaders/colonists/immigrants (delete as appropriate) lent to post-Roman Britain, which of course is still part of the nomenclature for residents of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
13 Cooked incorporating Zen, perhaps, or its opposite!
FRENZIED
An insertion of (ZEN)* in FRIED. Matilda is suggesting that FRENZIED would be the opposite of being in a Zen-like state. The insertion indicator is ‘incorporating’ and the anagrind is ‘perhaps’.
14 Fiats can’t crash? That’s unbelievable!
FANTASTIC
(FIATS CANT)*
16 A nice kind of accent
ACUTE
A charade of A and CUTE gives you the accent that most will be familiar with from French in words like née or (the joint record holder) hétérogénéité. In French, it changes the sound; in other languages it often indicates stress.
17 Islander‘s copper prohibition
CUBAN
A charade of CU and BAN.
19 Innocent and feeble in praise
BLAMELESS
An insertion of LAME in BLESS.
23 Herder: ‘Say nothing terribly deep or grand, initially’
SHEEPDOG
A charade of SH! (DEEP)* and OG for the initial letters of ‘or’ and ‘grand’. The anagrind is ‘terribly’.
24 Youngsters producing rubbish
LITTER
A dd.
26 The ratings are misleading: fix what’s bent
STRAIGHTEN
(THE RATINGS)*
27 Acknowledges dresses no good
OWNS
[G]OWNS
28 Agree with boy eating fish
SHAKE ON
An insertion (‘eating’) of HAKE in SON. We haven’t done so much of that this year, and elbow bumps don’t have the same feeling of certainty about commitment to the arrangement in question.
29 Tiny part in any field of study
ANATOMY
An insertion of ATOM in ANY.
Down
2 After the start of expansion Nato is changing this country
ESTONIA
A charade of E for the first letter of ‘expansion’ and (NATO IS)*
3 Nigella gelatinised revolting stuffing — that’s valid!
LEGAL
Hidden reversed in NigelLA GELatinised. A TV chef known almost always by her first name.
4 Dislodges mixed nuts, swallowing large amount of water
UNSEATS
An insertion of SEA in (NUTS)* The insertion indicator is ‘swallowing’ and the anagrind is ‘mixed’.
6 Got better chief to hold the Spanish back
HEALED
An insertion (‘to hold’) of LE for EL, one of the Spanish words for ‘the’, reversed, in HEAD.
7 French who sleep I largely call confused
QUIZZICAL
A charade of QUI for the French word for ‘who’, ZZ for ‘sleep’ (as in ‘I’m catching some zeds’), I and CAL[L].
8 Highest point for serviette without it disintegrating
EVEREST
(SERV[I]E[T]TE)*
9 If girls get involved with that FC it’ll be a stop-go situation
TRAFFIC LIGHTS
(IF GIRLS THAT FC)* with ‘get involved with’ as the anagrind.
15 Label paintings put up on loan finally out of Denmark
TRADEMARK
A charade of ART reversed and DE[N]MARK.
18 Leaders of Ukraine never had strong desire to be free from attachment
UNHITCH
A charade of UNH for the initial letters of ‘Ukraine never had’ and ITCH.
20 Found in caramel, an incredible colour
MELANIN
Hidden in caraMEL AN INcredible. MELANIN is the pigment that determines skin colour in humans and other animals.
21 In addition, bird has a breastbone
STERNUM
An insertion of TERN in SUM.
22 Slowly undressing, lady bags Dior
ADAGIO
‘Undressing’ is your invitation to remove the outside letters of the last three words of the clue, which leaves you with AD, AG and IO.
25 Quintet for river dweller
TROUT
A dd, the first one referencing Franz Schubert’s Trout Quintet in A major.
Many thanks to Matilda for this week’s Quiptic.
Thanks both. I wonder if the definition in 10a is “for blokes”, as in STAG party
I think the definition in 10ac should be “for blokes”
Thanks Matilda and Pierre
Very nice. Favourites OWNS and ADAGIO.
Thanks for the blog. OWNS was unparsed for me, ta for the explanation, doh.
As we have come to expect, some fresh and enterprising wordplay from Matilda. ACUTE was – well – cute, and I also liked FRENZIED and the slightly-bonkers TRAFFIC LIGHTS. Not convinced that ‘confused’ is the same as QUIZZICAL, but fair play to Matilda for even squeezing a word like QUIZZICAL into a 15×15 grid.
I’m going to stoutly defend putting a bit of GK in TROUT. I disagree with those who want their puzzles to be GK-free – that just sucks all the fun out of making arcane allusions, and – furthermore – suggests that dds and cds would be non grata.
Thanks for the blog, Pierre.
Thanks, Pierre – sound and entertaining indeed.
My favourites were SERIALISED, FANTASTIC and ADAGIO.
Thanks for the fun, Matilda.
My favourites were QUIZZICAL, TRAFFIC LIGHTS, FRENZIED, UNSEATS, FANTASTIC, SHAKE-ON, ANATOMY.
Thanks Matilda and Pierre.
SE for Home Counties was new to me, but obvious enough once you see it. I always enjoy a Matilda Cryptic and this was no exception. ACUTE was my favourite, though the C and T tempted me to try SCOTS. There seems to be a tendency for setters to tease us with possible Pangrams, or maybe to set the puzzle with the highest Scrabble score.
An entertaining Quiptic with a comforting mixture of write-ins and chewier clues. Like Boffo at 5, I enjoyed TROUT (the clue, the music, the fish – especially rainbow trout baked with stem ginger infused in syrup). Nuffin wrong with including a bit of GK – if you know it, and if you don’t it just adds to the benefits of doing crosswords. (I’ve gained a plethora of snippets of info, from all areas of intellectual life, solely from visiting this site!!)
ADAGIO and EVEREST were particularly pleasing – as was OWNS, though largely because I stared at the remaining two blank spaces for ages before the solution occurred to me. It’s funny how short clues are often the hardest to solve….
Many thanks to Matilda for the fun, and to Pierre for the blog
Indeed, Wellbeck. The prompt appearance of my blogs is often compromised by my finding some reference in the puzzle eliciting a ‘I never knew that’ response, which leads to a twenty-minute digression into the bowels of the internet to find out more. Which is interesting from an increased knowledge point of view but not ideal when you’re trying to get the blog out before dark.
MELANIN is A chemical that determines human skin color. It’s the dark brown one. The other chemical is carotene, which is more yellowish.
ACUTE is a nice kind of accent often found in Nice.
Pierre — where was the TERN picture? Thanks for the blog anyway, and thanks to Matilda too.
An ACUTE accent may well be found in Nice, Valentine, but that’s not how the clue works (if you were indeed suggesting that), since we need CUTE to be a synonym for ‘nice’. The Pierre bird link is only triggered when the bird is the answer, the whole answer and nothing but the answer, I’m afraid. Which is a pity, because the Roseate Tern is one of my favourite coastal birds – and now rare in the UK. Next time, perhaps.
Saw Valentine’s comment re ACUTE as just an amusing quip, not a suggestion of alternate parsing… but now that Pierre touches on it, couldn’t the clue indeed be seen as a cad as well? Not uncommon to see a city name as proxy for nationality indicator, e.g. “Paris agreement”=”French agreement”=”oui”. So why not “nice kind of accent”=”French kind of accent”=”acute”? It’s only marred by the capitalization mismatch… but I still find it a delightful observation; thanks, Valentine!
The capitalisation problem for Nice/Nancy/whatever is usually avoided by making it the first word in the clue. For instance, this one one from Crucible last August:
13. Nancy’s one place to sleep that has no beams? (5)
…though Nancy would be OK in both senses there. I’ll try to find a better example.
[I wondered if there might be a “stag bird” to help Pierre get in a bird link. Investigation yielded no such living animal, but did yield two delightful DNK stag/bird tidbits others might enjoy:
– The peryton: “a mythological hybrid animal combining the physical features of a stag and a bird.” See Wikipedia for more, including a great picture: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peryton
– Derivation of “stag”: ‘First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English stagge; akin to Old Norse steggi, steggr “male bird” (giving rise to northern English dialect steg “gander”)’
So not Pierre-bird-link worthy… yet so close! 🙂 ]
Matilda’s Quiptics are always a pleasure. This one went in very quickly for me. I particularly like 21dn (STERNUM) for the tricky use of “In addtion”: I was sure the answer would involve TOO, ALSO, AND or something like that.
Like Petert @8, I was on the lookout for a pangram after solving the first two clues, but it was not to be.
A seemingly impenetrable puzzle for this beginner today with only one going in on the first pass, but glad I stuck with it and eventually in they all fell. SERIALISED was my LOI despite having grown up in Herts! Enjoyed ACUTE and SHAKE ON.
Only one unparsed which was TROUT, spent a while trying to think of famous five piece bands before other letters appeared. Also couple of new angrinds for the etui/notebook today. As ever grateful thanks to Pierre for the explainers, esp the Schubert!
Unusually, completed in a single sitting over lunchtime. Don’t know whether to feel accomplished or decry the puzzle for being too easy!
I’d go with feeling accomplished, Colin. Bravo.
Buffo @5: perhaps I have a quizzical expression on my face because I always thought quizzical meant confused.
Most enjoyable, it all went in steadily, with several moments when I was surprised and pleased with myself for spotting the answer quickly. It might have been so different on another occasion.
Thanks Matilda and Pierre: great stuff from both. SHEEPDOG had me stopped for a while, followed by that delicious “doh!” moment when the penny drops.