I didn’t find this Mephisto very difficult, and finished in one sitting. I did not parse all of the answers while solving, so now I’ll have to figure a few out. This is not usually too difficult, but I may have a few questions left for the crowd mind.
Sorry, it looks like I can parse everything – only orra man and kinkle gave any difficulty. Time for the next Mephisto!
| Across | |
| 1 | Rural odd-jobber and a local mate mostly coming over (7, two words) |
| ORRA MAN – ‘N’ A MARRO[w] backwards. Marrow is an old word for a companion. | |
| 7 | Scots bishop, pastor and primate (4) |
| PAPE – P + APE. Yes P is a valid abbreviation for pastor. Pape referred to a particular bishop, according to Chambers. | |
| 11 | Monkey in China so could be in this (12) |
| CHIMONANTHUS – CHI(MONA)N + THUS. Yes Chin. is a valid abbreviation for China, and a Chimonanthus is a Chinese bush. However, the monkey is from Africa. | |
| 12 | Bodily degeneration left out of pictures (5) |
| TABES – TAB[l]ES. | |
| 13 | Loose types of soil each lacking density (6) |
| UNGIRT – [d]UNG + [d]IRT. | |
| 15 | Blue colouring of duck’s egg? (4) |
| ANIL – ‘A NIL. | |
| 16 | Tree spirit, Greek, old (6) |
| GINGKO – GIN + GK + O. | |
| 17 | Starting well, rich yule fare is just half eaten (8) |
| SPUDDING – [i]S + PUDDING. Spudding is, not surprising, the act of starting to dig a well. | |
| 20 | A local girl, popular with one group of boys aiming for love (7) |
| AMORINI – A + MOR + IN + I. | |
| 22 | Always time to turn back on narcotic growth in America (7) |
| HOPTREE – E’ER T backwards on HOP, which is a a slang word for a narcotic. | |
| 27 | Governor’s office unmoved about independence declaration by Indonesia (8) |
| MUDIRIEH – M(U.D.I + RI.)EH. Universal Declaration of Independence, and RI the two-letter country code for Indonesia. Meh, indeed! | |
| 28 | Article broadcast about group of mammals (6) |
| THERIA – THE + AIR backwards. | |
| 29 | Accepted a certain Scots character (4) |
| AYIN – A + YIN, a variant of AIN. | |
| 31 | A mark in pillowcase, one present during weaving (6) |
| BEAMER – BE(A,M)ER. A pillow-beer is a pillowcase. | |
| 32 | Ear of corn in places increasingly diseased, lacking sun (5) |
| ICKER – [s]ICKER. Places up North, evidently. | |
| 33 | Church helper chasing a friend so as to come for evensong? (12) |
| ACRONYCHALLY – A CRONY + CH ALLY. | |
| 34 | Very little Scots bonnet, say, worn by English (4) |
| HAET – HA(E)T, evidently a Scots form of whit. | |
| 35 | Mistake during contract bid set back game (7) |
| MARRELS – SL(ERR)AM, all backwards, using the bid from whist or bridge. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ring up air-traffic control unit at airfield (4) |
| OCTA – O + A.T.C upside-d0wn. A portion of the sky. | |
| 2 | Right-hand amplifier, very warm, one hospital sent back. What covers the bill? (12) |
| RHAMPHOTHECA – R.H + AMP + HOT + ACE H backwards, for what covers the bill of a bird. | |
| 3 | Runs unit with data rate low as before (6) |
| RIBAUD – R + I + BAUD. | |
| 4 | Not quite a fixed penalty (6) |
| AMENDE – A + MENDE[d], a Spenserian word or similar. | |
| 5 | Nosy suckers, like workers when king’s about (7) |
| ANTLIAE – ANT-LI(-k,+A)E, a letter-substitution clue. | |
| 6 | I invested in a new, perhaps Zulu, artist (8) |
| ANNIGONI – AN + N(I)GONI. The Ngoni included the Zulus, but also other tribes. | |
| 8 | A turn to the left for SNP in the air? (5) |
| AHIGH – A + HIGH, where high is the farmer’s call to the horse to turn left. | |
| 9 | Family judge Ecstasy composer’s swallowed — bit of a nerve (12, two words) |
| PURKINJECELL – PUR(KIN, J, E)CELL. I never thought Purcell could be used in a cryptic, but there he is – I was plugging for Poulenc for a while. | |
| 10 | Loiters around Iberian beach resort (7) |
| ESTORIL – Anagram of LOITERS. | |
| 14 | Scots cause embraces Nationalist grumble (4) |
| GNAR – G(N)AR. | |
| 18 | King bearing in dowry relating to a fairytale princess? (8) |
| DORMIENT – DO(R,MIEN)T, where the literal refers to Sleeping Beauty. | |
| 19 | Friday sermon finally took to dwelling on Habakkuk going to heaven (7) |
| KHUTBAH -[too]K + HUT + HAB upside-down. | |
| 21 | Small fish father caught in well visited spot (7) |
| MEDACCA – ME(DA)CCA. Caught is an enclosure indicator, not a C. | |
| 23 | Troop mislaying lubricant in confusion (4) |
| TURM – TURM[oil]. | |
| 24 | Del Boy’s wheels? Erratic, failing to start, breaking down (6) |
| TRICAR – Anagram of [e]RRATIC. | |
| 25 | Twist end of thick linen tape once (6) |
| KINKLE – [thic]K + INKLE. | |
| 26 | Brilliant English fellow, now old (5) |
| PEARE -PEAR + E, i.e. a pear cut of a gem, a sub-type of a brilliant. An obsolete Scots variant of peer, with fellow in the sense of equal. | |
| 30 | Fervently hope to avoid a small valuation? (4) |
| PRYS – PR[a]Y + S. | |
Terrific Mephisto, and kudos to John Grimshaw for not clueing those obscure long answers with anagrams!
It took me quite a long time to break into this. When I did I finished it Tuesday evening with only ORRA-MAN parsing not understood. I’m grateful for the explanation.
Isn’t 17a half of ‘Christma/s pudding’?
I’ve only just started doing the Mephisto in the last few weeks and, although close, have yet to complete one. I was nowhere near with this, so obviously have a bit of work to do!
Always enjoyable though, even when completely flummoxed.
17a: yes.
Thank you for the help with ORRA MAN and PEARE – I must remember about these gem cuts.
I’d had trouble with the order of the wordplay elements in SPUDDING – why put the “is just half eaten”(= i) before the “rich yule fare” (= pudding)?
I think Kevin McC has identified the correct parsing. To misquote a well known UK advertising campaign: This is not just “pudding”, this is “Christmas pudding”!