A welcome return by Matilda after her last appearance in July 2025. This puzzle is characteristically on the easier side, but smoothly clued and enjoyable (despite a couple of nitpicks, noted below). Thanks to Matilda.
| Across | ||||||||
| 9 | LOWER-CASE | So we clear out capital? No (5-4) (SO WE CLEAR)* |
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| 10 | AGORA | Pythagoras selectively doing his shopping here? (5) Hidden in pythAGORAs; an agora is an ancient Greek meeting-place or market |
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| 11 | EUNUCHS | Return regularly with such hopeless ineffectual people (7) Alternate letters of rEtUrN + SUCH* |
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| 12 | AMAZING | A mother with energy that’s sensational (7) A + MA + ZING |
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| 13 | OBIT | Love little tribute (4) O + BIT (a little) |
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| 14 | MALEFACTOR | Outlaw the Y-chromosome? (10) In genetics the Y-chromosome is a MALE FACTOR |
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| 16 | TESTATE | Having decided what to do with the last of equipment and possessions (7) [equipmen]T + ESTATE (possessions) |
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| 17 | PLATEAU | Serving gets gold level (7) PLATE (a serving) + AU |
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| 19 | DETACHMENT | Casually chatted about blokes ‘being cool’ (10) MEN in CHATTED* |
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| 22 | JUNG | Young German friend of 23 (4) Jung is German for “young”, and Carl Jung was a friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud |
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| 24 | OLIVIER | One who wanted more after bagging one award (7) I (one) in OLIVER (Twist, who asked for more gruel in the workhouse), giving the Laurence Olivier Award |
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| 25 | TORNADO | Road not negotiable in this (7) (ROAD NOT)* &lit |
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| 26 | BACON | What one may save to rescue artist (5) Double definition |
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| 27 | HERCULEAN | Powerful ambassador touched on nuclear annihilation (9) HE (His Excellency, address of an ambassador) + NUCLEAR* |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | BLUE‑FOOTED BOOBY | Bird settled down first on a kind of trap (4-6,5) BLUE (depressed, down) + FOOTED (settled, as a bill) + BOOBY (trap). I knew Booby as a type of bird, but not this specific, aptly-named one |
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| 2 | TWENTIES | It’s coming up in newest development of the decade (8) Reverse of IT in NEWEST* |
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| 3 | BRACE | Support for couple (5) Double definition |
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| 4 | BAD SHAPE | Heaps in poor condition? (3,5) Reverse anagram: “bad shape” could be a clue for HEAPS |
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| 5 | FEMALE | Iron man or woman (6) FE (iron) + MALE |
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| 6 | CATAMARAN | Boat to have sufficient power to go round a river (9) A TAMAR (river) in CAN (has sufficient power to – not quite the same as the clue says) |
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| 7 | SOVIET | Then life in France finally went communist (6) SO (then) + VIE (French (“life”) + [wen]T |
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| 8 | DANGEROUS GROUND | Like some liaisons, golf and drinks could be a minefield (9,6) DANGEROUS (like some liaisons, as in the film) + G[olf] + ROUND (of drinks) |
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| 15 | SANCTIONS | Permits and penalties (9) Double definition; “sanction” is a well-known contronym |
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| 17 | PUNCTURE | Flat joke on broken truce (8) PUN (joke) + TRUCE* |
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| 18 | EMULATED | Followed suit and dealt inappropriately with Australian native (8) EMU (Australian native bird) + DEALT* |
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| 20 | TWITCH | Little movement from child drinking whisky (6) W (from the NATO phonetic alphabet, though it should really be Whiskey) in TITCH |
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| 21 | MARSHY | As the Fens are where contrary girl’s kept quiet (6) SH (quiet!) in MARY (as in the nursery rhyme, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary”) |
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| 23 | FREUD | Romeo, beset by trouble between Capulets and Montagues, gets a therapist (5) R (Romeo in the phonetic alphabet) in FEUD (as between the families in Romeo and Juliet) |
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Another smooth offering from Matilda with lots of elegant surfaces. I especially liked MALEFACTOR, DETACHMENT, JUNG & FREUD, BACON, CATAMARAN, DANGEROUS GROUND and MARSHY. I’m currently touring the 3 Baltic States, so SOVIET was very apt for me. I enjoyed looking at pics of the BLUE FOOTED BOOBY.
Ta Matilda & Andrew.
Good fun. While I don’t mind expanding my lexicon (albeit briefly) with one or two obscurities, it’s still nice to complete a crossword occasionally that doesn’t require Google or Wikipedia.
I was introduced to titch in a puzzle quite recently, so was prepared for what I believe is a British speciality. I couldn’t parse DANGEROUS GROUND but it’s pretty obvious now I see the explanation.
Personally I wasn’t too enthusiastic about some of the surfaces and simpler constructions here, but discovering the excellent semi-&lit TESTATE while teasing out BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY was worth the entry fee, while I also had ticks for BAD SHAPE (I do love an inversion), FREUD and MALEFACTOR. The latter took a while, as I don’t see why a criminal is necessarily an outlaw; but the most cursory glance at a thesaurus is enough to know that that’s not a battle worth fighting.
Thanks both!
Most enjoyable. Had to sneak up on the bird with a sort of flanking movement clockwise.
Didn’t know about the NATO W needing to be spelled with an e, so thanks for that, Andrew.
Lots of nice clues – eg for BACON. Not heard of BOOBY but enjoyed googling it, until my wife spotted me, so I may now be joining the EUNUCHS.
…I also notice (having looked on line) that the J, Juliett, requires 2 Ts. Who knew?
Three female iron men in a fortnight? They’re like London buses!
I hit the gym half way through this. Annoyingly, that meant I forgot that JUNG had a freund. It took me ages to find him because I wasn’t looking for a proper noun. It was plain sailing elsewhere.
I liked MALEFACTOR, HERCULEAN and BAD SHAPE.
Thanks Matilda and Andrew
I’ve missed Matilda’s neat clues and smooth surfaces: welcome back. I enjoyed FEMALE, DETACHMENT, the contrary girl in MARSHY, Pythagoras going shopping, the flat joke and the not-capital (I could see it was an anagram for ages before the penny dropped). I had TESTATE down as an &lit (or very nearly) and the bird was fun.
[William@6: the extra T is to ensure that the word is pronounced correctly by speakers of languages (eg French) where a single final T is often silent.]
On the easier side and went in smoothly. I was pleased to find the charmingly named blue-footed booby as one of the answers.
Favourite was MALEFACTOR, though like AP@3 I didn’t think of malefactor as an outlaw. No problem with the clue.
Thanks to Matilda and Andrew.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Matilda writes clues in the style that I prefer.
New for me: BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY.
Favourite: EMULATED (loi).
More or less exactly what gladys said @8 – special praise for TESTATE.
I’d just add that I really enjoyed FREUD and his JUNG friend.
Many thanks to Matilda – please come back soon! – and to Andrew.
@Andrew,
Re. 11A – You forgot to underline the definition.
I can’t quite understand your quibble with 6D.
Thank you for the parsings, Andrew.
Gladys @8: of course! Makes perfect sense. Many thanks.
Failed on JUNG as a) I don’t know German b) Never heard of him.
Also SANCTIONS as it’s a typical DD that I can never solve.
Thanks both
Anne @12: I wondered about this too. I think the blogger is saying the clue should read “has sufficient power…” rather than “to have sufficient power”.
Like Eileen. I agree with Gladys.
William@15
CATAMARAN
‘have sufficient power’ seems all right in both the surface
as well as the cryptic reading (I can: I have…).
KVa @17: true. Hmmm… so what do you think Andrew’s quiblet was?
Yes, smooth cluing and solving seems to be the name of the game today. Though for a very brief few seconds I did wonder whether Pythagoras at 10ac had ever shopped in the original Argos on the Peloponnese. But no, that one didn’t quite parse.
Last one in, despite all the crossers now being in place was BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY. As I might have mentioned yesterday on here I’m not much of an ornithologist.
Many thanks Matilda and Andrew…
A very welcome return from Matilda. I remember her being on the harder side but I have improved in the last year or so. Quite a lot of anagrams or partial anagrams in this which made it a pleasant solve.
Enjoyed TESTATE, MALEFACTOR and our psychiatrist friends.
Couldn’t parse CATAMARAN
Thanks Matilda and Andrew
20d brings back memories of a picture book by Pat Hutchins – ‘you’ll soon grow into them’. I’d almost forgotten the book, but the philosophy is deeply ingrained.
Thanks for the puzzle and blog.
William@18
Unable to guess. 🙂
KVa@17, William@18, that works – but it leaves the “to” unaccounted for. Unless someone has justification for “to” as a link word equivalent to “is given by”.
I assume Andrew was attaching to the ‘to’ to the ‘have’ to produce an infinitive – as indeed did I – and was left wandering how an infinitive could equate to the necessarily-finite modal verb forms such as ‘can’.
A very enjoyable puzzle, but for me the SW wasn’t easy at all. I had to google BOOBY (the rest of the bird was clear) and didn’t know TITCH or the expression “save the BACON”; OLIVIER was a guess. Favourites AGORA, JUNG, MALEFACTOR, SOVIET and BAD SHAPE. Thanks Matilda and Andrew!
Enjoyable, and I thought MALEFACTOR was the pick of the bunch, but the iron ladies need a bit of a rest now.
Very enjoyable, though I didn’t parse CATAMARAN. Surely we had FEMALE clued very similarly just the other day?
It was fun to tackle a Matilda crossword again, she’s been much-missed.
FREUD, JUNG, SOVIET and MALEFACTOR all got rounds of applause, but the rosette went to BLUE FOOTED BOOBY. I’ve always had a soft spot for those daft-looking creatures – I mean, how can you not be impossibly fond of a bird with bright blue feet?
Thanks Matilda and Andrew
Thanks for the blog , great puzzle , I will continue the chain by agreeing with Peter@16 .
The BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY has a small role in Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut .
MALEFACTOR very neat , the Y-chromosome is there to mansplain at great length to the other 45
Martin@7 , three in nine days , different clues but same basic idea , bound to happen sometimes .
AlanC@1 no doubt saving the Western world whilst playing golf as the cover story . You need to swim to the castle on the island in Lake Galve .
I agree with the first paragraph from Geoff Down Under @2.
It’s good to learn new words, of course, but it’s also very pleasant to find a crossword where not a single answer has required the use of a crowbar to get it into place.
Thank you Matilda. My favourites were LOWER-CASE, TESTATE, and BAD SHAPE.
And thank you Andrew for the blog.
I find myself in concordance with many other comments today. I did have to resort to google to find what kinds of birds might be blue-footed, ornithology being one of my blind spots, but otherwise straightforward with a nice mix of clue types.
Entertaining puzzle with some great and vivid surfaces — “Pythagoras selectively doing his shopping here?”, “Then life in France finally went communist”, “Like some liaisons, golf and drinks could be a minefield”…
It’s strange but for TWENTIES I automatically think of the 1920s and it takes a second to remember that we’re in our own TWENTIES now.
Many thanks Matilda and Andrew.
Got held up on this as I bunged in Argos for the shop!. Seemed to me what selectively meant . Nice puzzle. Ta for blog.
As you others have said – incredibly smooth… Without question, admirable. And very enjoyable, if a tad Mondayish. As for Andrew’s self-admitted nitpicking, I would dismiss one of them, and the other I overlooked (the E in WHISKY) because I never knew (though was aware of Juliett/e!)
So, even if my opinion is challengeable, I still feel this is as smooth as smooth can be!
Many thanks both and all
… At a recent Fairport Convention concert I went to, Simon Nicol remarked “In the seventies we were in our twenties, and in the twenties we’re in our seventies”.
Cedric @32: ARGOS is a really good answer for 10a!
Patrick O ‘Brian being one of my comfort reads, Stephen Maturin’s exclamation “I have beheld the BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY!” helped me out with 1D. I especially liked the reverse anagram of BAD SHAPE. I couldn’t parse CATAMARAN, so my thanks to Andrew for that and the rest of the blog; and thanks to Matilda for a well-pitched puzzle.
AP@23
CATAMARAN
‘to’ as a linkword is not a good choice, though some setters have used it
before.
Agree with your pov.
6D. CAN is clued well enough by cryptic wordplay conventions, e.g. “they CAN”.
[Lord Jim@34: I still occasionally wear the now rather faded tie-dye T-shirt I bought at Cropredy in 1983, at Fairport’s “Farewell Concert”. ]
Loved the pictures of 1D – an amazing shade of blue (and LOI). Wondered about an alternative clue for 9A:
calfskin wallet? all here
Thanks Matilda and Andrew
Thanks to Matilda for an enjoyable puzzle at the right level for me. Plus any puzzle that includes FREUD and JUNG has got to be good. Thx to Andrew for the blog.
Favourites: BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY; FEMALE; CATAMARAN; MALEFACTOR.
What everybody said. Finished last night.
Thanks to Matilda and to Andrew for the booby article — they are an interesting bird.
Mostly straightforward. Very enjoyable.
I liked 17 & 18 down
Blue footed booby is sublime
[Roz @28: cover blown again. The castle sounds like a good place to hide out]
This was a lot of fun, with many enjoyable surfaces. Most of the clues were my favourites, so I won’t bother to list them. Not too difficult, except I stumbled on 4d BAD SHAPE, having STATE by mistake (thinking the definition was “Heaps”, as in cars in poor condition). Full disclosure, I also carelessly misspelled 22a JUNG, and couldn’t parse 6d CATAMARAN (for the link word, maybe “to” = “turns into”)
1d I think the BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY appeared in one of David Attenborough’s nature documentaries (no surprise — pretty much everything has)
Thank you both
Cedric@32 and Lord Jim@34, as I had imagined@22 earlier today…
Now, this conversation yesterday and at other times about how we each try to solve or fill in the grid…
As the word Crossword indicates, by filling in Across clues we can then have helpful crossers in place for the Down clues, that’s always been the way I try to do things. Never mind challenging myself to make things as difficult as possible for myself.
Now, in my pre-teenage years a great-aunt of mine taught me how to play chess, by setting up games where she played at first with the handicap of not having her queen on the board. Then as I improved, she played without her rook, then subsequently without one of her minor pieces.
Only after she had passed away was I told that she actually hated losing at the game, even under those terms. Kept her cards or chess pieces close to her chest did my Great-Aunt Kath…
Another good crossword from Matilda. I liked the LOWER-CASE no capital, my LOI TESTATE, the unfortunate BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY settling down on a trap, and the MARSHY fens where contrary wasn’t a reverser.
Thanks Matilda and Andrew.
Nice puzzle, liked the two &lit.-wannabes, TESTATE and TORNADO.
This was the shortest solve in quite a while, but then something has to be, doesn’t it? Nothing wrong with that.
Thank you Matilda and Andrew. TESTATE and BAD SHAPE both very clever I thought. Titch was new to me.
William@15 Yes, I guess you must be right.
Boat has power = Boat can
Boat to have power = Boat to be able
Very classy, numerous fine surfaces. Favourite DETACHMENT.
[ AlanC@43 , when you get to the castle track down the secret message I left for you in 1995 . ]
Had the same quibble as Andrew about CATAMARAN. If the clue had started “Boat has sufficient power …” there would have been no scope for argument and no need for a link word.
Thanks Matilda and Andrew. For me the clear standout was MALEFACTOR. I was in a bit of a quandary with regard to 4D since I thought SAD SHAPE could have worked just as well.
Another fun grid. Thanks Matilda and Andrew.