Mephisto 3119 – Tim Moorey

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto

On the gentler scale of Mephistos, but I enjoyed it because of one entry, which reminded me of a book I read last year, and I dug off the shelf to re-read the section pertaining to the entry. Since it will break up the blog, and I need something to occupy this space, I’ll put the digression here.

The answer to 3 down, illinium is defined in Chambers as “former name for prometheum”, which is a spurious definition. The history of element 61 is detailed in The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table’s Shadow Side by Fontani, Costa and Orna (Mary Virginia Orna was kind enough to sign my copy). The Cliffs’ notes version is that a research group in Illinois claimed to isolate element 61 and name it illinium. This was proven to be false, (it had been shown by Mattauch that there should be no stable isotopes of element 43 or 61), however since the idea of elements being discovered in the USA was attractive,several American textbooks continued to use the term illinium even after the two isotopes of the element were isolated and confirmed as a fissile product of uranium and named prometheum.

 Now that I’ve bored you with chemical history, it is time for the clues. Since definitions (other than that for illinium) can be confirmed in Chambers I will focus on wordplay in this report.

Away we go…

Across
1 Hold gutted carp fish (4)
HOKI – HO(hold, as an interjection)., then KOI(carp) missing the middle letter
4 Disaster hit marine creatures (8)
ASTERIDS – anagram of DISASTER
11 House delegate caught in love trap (9)
ODELSTING – DEL(delegate) inside O(love), STING(trap)
12 Salmon colour Riesling? Not popular! (6)
GRILSE – anagram of REISLING minus IN(popular)
13 Lose control in strikes getting backing (4)
SPAZ – ZAPS(strikes) reversed
15 Choose one couple for aristo (8)
OPTIMATE – OPT(choose), I(one), MATE(couple)
16 Shake or nausea associated with cobwebs (8)
ARANEOUS – anagram of OR,NAUSEA
20 Send back harsh oriental food (4)
NORI – reverse IRON(harsh)
21 Quite boring terribly rude landowner (7)
UDALLER – ALL(quite) inside an anagram of RUDE
23 Majestic area in capital (7)
AUGUSTA – AUGUST(majestic), A(area) – the capital of the state of Georgia Maine (d’oh)
25 Italian painter needing drop of light oil (4)
OTTO – the Italian painter Loreno LOTTO minus the first letter of Light
26 Spell of prosperity broken — that’s a blow (8)
UPPERCUT – I think his is UPPPER(spell of prospertity), CUT(broken) but it could be UP and CUT with PER(a) inside
27 Old journalist resisted changes (8)
EDITRESS – anagram of RESISTED
30 Such is a healthy food occupational therapist briefly mentioned (4)
OATY – sounds like O.T. (occupational therapy)
31 Copper alloy in uncovered fire door to be replaced (6)
OROIDE – anagram of the middle letters of fIRE DOOr
32 King squeezed by partners playing joker (9)
PRANKSTER – K(king) inside an anagram of PARTNERS
33 Agricultural experts looked at keeping document signed by yours truly (8)
SEEDSMEN – SEEN(looked at) containin DS(document signed) and ME(yours truly)
34 Jaunty foxtrot rejected by Fay (4)
AIRY – remove F(foxtrot) from FAIRY(fay)
Down
1 This revelry could bring about my early hangover (8)
HOGMANAY – a neat all-in-one – anagram of MY,EARLY,HANGOVER minus REVELRY
2 After sacking odd characters, senior Knight’s on top — that’s me (4)
KEIR – alternating letters in sEnIoR eith K(knight) on top
3 Troy retains nothing set up for radioactive element (8)
ILLINIUM – ILIUM(Troy) containing NIL(nothing) reversed
5 Silly to upset, leave room briefly (7, two words)
STEP OUT – anagram of TO,UPSET
6 Pet‘s condition after bit of a trek? A little tired (4)
TIFT – IF(condition) after the first letter of Trek, then the first letter of Tired
7 Consider lives in Geneva ordered (8)
ENVISAGE – IS(lives) in an anagram of GENEVA
8 Talk over once politician accepted in Ireland (6)
IMPARL – MP(politician), A(accepted) inside IRL(Ireland)
9 Dumb Sally admitting fault finally overturned glass bowl (9)
DIATRETUM – MUTE(dumb) and RAID(sally) both reversed, containing the last letter of faulT
10 Measure of what decorators use (4)
SIZE – double definition (the second referring to a paste)
14 Port charges about to break joint (9)
GROUNDAGE – ROUND(about) inside GAGE(joint, marijuana)
17 Certainly right in being guarantors (8)
ENSURERS – SURE(certainly), R(rght) inside ENS(being)
18 Oil or gas can be processed in plant (8)
GLORIOSA – anagram of OIL,OR,GAS
19 Mere foam remaining in burn (8)
FROTHERY – OTHER(remaining) inside FRY(burn)
22 Lawyer and police officer against ecstasy drug (7)
DAPSONE – DA(lawyer), PS(Police Sargeant), ON(against), E(ecstasy)
24 Act in dashing way on getting swelling (6)
GOITRE – GO IT(act in dashing way), RE(on)
27 Betting game not specified for ages (4)
EONS – EO(betting game), NS(not specified)
28 Test showing reversed cut when Mike’s opening (4)
EXAM – first letter of Mike and AXE(cut) all reversed
29 Bird indeed seen in small tree (4)
TITI – TIT(bird), I(indeed) – apologies for the incorrect parsing originally, saw the finish line and rushed to an incorrect conclusion

16 comments on “Mephisto 3119 – Tim Moorey”

  3. Not too surprised that Illinium is wrongly defined in Chambers – several of their plant and animal genera and the like seem to be ones abandoned by the scientific community quite a while ago. On my bike ride in a minute, I’ll be idly dreaming up state-based fictional elements. Floridium and Montanium sound quite convincing, but my favourites so far are Alabamium and Noojoisium.
  4. George, I don’t think you’ve done justice to 2D. It’s a reference to the recent election of Sir Keir Starmer as leader of te British Labour Party and as such is rather clever.

    Decent all round puzzle I thought

  5. The term at 13ac is extremely offensive and I was genuinely shocked to see it here. One of my kids has CP so I am particularly sensitive to it but really it’s awful.
    1. I haven’t heard that term since junior high school. Some time ago here there was a four-letter obscenity; this is actually worse.
      1. Historically, Mephisto solvers have seemed happy to accept some words that were astonishingly rude when looked up in Chambers, and this may have made me relaxed about using controversial words, but I think I was wrong to allow “spaz”. There is a “perform clumsily” meaning in Chambers which is arguably less offensive, but pretty clearly related to the other meanings.
        1. Thanks for acknowledging that, Peter. I saw that Chambers didn’t classify the word as offensive, which surprised me: partly because it is, and partly because the word from which it derives is classified as such.
  6. I misread my handwriting and entered OLOIDE for 31A to get a pink square. Thanks for the chemistry notes, George… and for parsing the very clever 1D which I just took as a cryptic definition.
  7. Thanks George. I think the parsing of 29 is tit (the bird) followed by i(indeed,aye) to give titi (small tree)? Was racking my brains to see how it can mean indeed 🙂
  8. Well I’m just happy to have finished my second-ever Mephisto. Thank you George for your detailed commentary on the element question.

    SPAZ did raise an eyebrow but it was definitely part of my schoolboy vocab so I shrugged at the judgments of history and moved on. Not supporting it but just thinking in passing “Oh, is that still OK?”. I was just thinking as well the other day that I used to get called a four-eyed git at school but it was all just part of the currency. I mean I wore glasses but other people were thick. I could live with that.

    Again, not defending it but just observing that Ian Dury used to glory in being called a ‘raspberry’. I suppose that is the privilege of the afflicted to decide what they find offensive.

    And I am really not making any judgments here. Just saying that I find the eggshells very difficult to navigate. And I always find that when I point the finger I end up finding hypocrisy in my own attitudes.

    Certainly if this term caused real offence then it shouldn’t be there. But I have to admit to confusion.

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