Here we have a puzzle from the milder end of the Mephisto spectrum. The average cryptic solver might not do so well, but hardened Mephisto enthusiasts will not have much difficulty. I handled most of this one on a Saturday night, and polished it off the next morning.
Some of the answers did resist parsing, but I think I’ve got everything in hand this time.
| 1 | Bloody fool clothing one with fine clobber (4) |
| BIFF – B(I.F.)F – Yes B.F. is given as a valid abbreviation for bloody fool in Chambers – I would have expected boy-friend. | |
| 4 | Splitting sound clearly closing wind up (7) |
| RENDING – R(END)ING. Closing in the sense of enclosing. | |
| 10 | Wind off Réunion’s a right devious one (6) |
| UNREEL – UN + R + EEL. French is spoken in Réunion. | |
| 11 | Recess where yellow wreath is put back (5) |
| ORIEL – OR + LEI backwards. | |
| 12 | Command for servicemen to suffer active kid (11, three words) |
| STAND AT EASE – STAND + A + TEASE. | |
| 13 | Old effigy is back, good decision at last (4) |
| SIGN – IS backwards + G + [decisio]N. | |
| 14 | A shift provided to the Left? ____ indicate exclusion (7) |
| OSTRACA – A CART SO backwards. Both cart and shift as verbs. The pottery shards used to ostracize someone. | |
| 16 | Limit blaspheming to some extent (5, two words) |
| HEM IN – Hidden in [blasp]HEM IN[g]. | |
| 17 | Coloured glasses in pocket all but reversing appeal (6) |
| SMALTI – SMAL[l] + It backwards. As in a pocket of resistance, I believe. | |
| 19 | Meeting sibyl finally being an aid to vision (11, two words) |
| CONTACT LENS – CONTACT + [siby]L + ENS. | |
| 23 | Strangely certain I must withdraw Scots passage (6) |
| TRANCE – Anagram of CERTA[i]N. A transe or trance is a through passage in Scots. | |
| 26 | With no little depth, mass of leaves will screen very English tree (5) |
| HEVEA – HE(V,E)A[d]. A very specialized meaning of head, but this is Mephisto, and it is in Chambers, of course. | |
| 28 | Cheats detaining Henry with a gold coin of old (7) |
| THRIMSA – T(H)RIMS + A. | |
| 29 | Duck runs away from small lake (4) |
| SMEE – S + ME[r]E. | |
| 30 | Port piece? (11) |
| COMPOSITION – Double definition; a port is evidently some sort of bagpipe tune. | |
| 31 | House of Representatives retaining old note of Trump’s privilege (5) |
| HONOR – H(O,N)OR. Trump is here only to supply the American spelling. | |
| 32 | Mallows could be uniform and, volte-face, more normal (6) |
| URENAS – U + SANER backwards. | |
| 33 | Dead tie unfortunately conceived (7) |
| IDEATED – Anagram of DEAD TIE. | |
| 34 | Dramatic call to drink leads to raucous inebriety, see over (4) |
| RIVO – R[aucous] I[nebriety] + V + O, switching in the middle from first letters to abbreviations. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | One royally pressed by plonker’s palms (6) |
| BUSSUS – BUSS + US. A plonker and a buss are both a smacking kiss. | |
| 2 | Redolent of brotherhood accepting relative (8) |
| FRAGRANT – FRA(GRAN)T. | |
| 3 | Edible plant from low-lying land mostly given up (6) |
| FENNEL – FEN + LEN[t] upside down. | |
| 4 | Rabbit accepting hoax of a reaction (5) |
| REDOX – RE(DO)X. | |
| 5 | Is cattle suffering with problem for tendon, perhaps (13, two words) |
| ELASTIC TISSUE – Anagram of IS CATTLE + ISSUE. | |
| 6 | A denial from polled bowler, say (7, two words) |
| NOT THAT – NOTT + HAT. We’re verging on green paint here. | |
| 7 | Spenserian mishaps had minimally on residence (6) |
| DRERES – ‘D + RE + RES. | |
| 8 | Nice scene replaced ignorance (9) |
| NESCIENCE – Anagram of NICE SCENE, my FOI. | |
| 9 | Acorn or some such round back of roble picks up (6) |
| GLEANS – GL([robl]E)ANS. | |
| 15 | Newly homed so protecting so-so fire protection (9) |
| SMOKEHOOD – Anagram of HOMED SO around OK. | |
| 18 | A million put up with small Native American (8) |
| MENOMINI – ONE M upside-down plus MINI. | |
| 20 | Dejected about lecturer with love of Ovid’s opening for Tristia (7) |
| ALAMORT – A + L + AMOR + T[ristia]. | |
| 21 | Strangely this included starter of cabbage and hot soup (6) |
| SHTCHI – Anagram of THIS + C[abbage] + H. | |
| 22 | In France the one plant for bird (6) |
| LEIPOA – LE + I + POA. | |
| 24 | Wind up Atreus (6) |
| AUSTER – Anagram of ATREUS. Up is an interesting anagram indicator! | |
| 25 | Still quits over … (6, two words) |
| EVEN SO – EVENS + O. | |
| 27 | … cases I take over dead Scots vagrant (5) |
| CAIRD – CA + I + R + D, a compendium of the usual abbreviations found in Mephisto. | |
A straightforward one this week.
‘Pocket’ is just an adjective meaning ‘for the pocket’, and hence small.
This meaning of ‘head’ is very common, here at least, particularly in reference to lettuce.
Yes, as in POCKET BATTLESHIP etc.
Wish I’d found time to get more than an encouraging start on this one. Reading over the blog, the one thing I didn’t (and still don’t) get was Vinyl’s seeing “pocket of resistance” in SMALL. I didn’t find anything in Chambers! Relieved to see your explanation.
We Yanks say “head of lettuce” all the time too.
What I didn’t realise until I looked in Chambers is that this meaning is more general than that of heads of lettuce.
BF was quite commonly used as a euphemism for bloody fool by older people when I was a child in the ’60s. (At that time, “bloody” was considered by some to be quite serious swearing.)
I still hear BF occasionally
95 of 143 squares correct. Never come close to solving one of these, but that’s about the closest. Not using any aids as I think it’ll be more rewarding when I finally crack one.
11 seems a bit unfair syntactically – I was trying to do things with RO at the end. Similarly, I was thinking on the right lines for SMALTI but dismissed ‘all but’ as a curtailment indicator for syntactic reasons, only to find here that it was just that.
Many other interesting things here, it’s great to learn so many strange words – I’m just glad I got the SHTCHI spelling right – I felt like Mark Goodliffe on one of his MCS videos trying to work out which spelling looked the least ludicrous, even though in this case I actually knew the word (thanks to it being introduced in a beginner’s Russian class quite a few years back as an example of difficult spellings!)
Why is SO ‘provided’?
Thanks vinyl and Paul McKenna (whom I assume is not the Paul McKenna of daytime TV fame).
It is customary to use Chambers while solving these puzzles. I was once successful in solving a Mephisto without any use of Chambers, but that is nearly impossible for most of these puzzles.
Yes, you saying it was on the easier end is what persuaded me to have a go. I might start trying it every week in earnest. Thanks!
You have to be prepared for the definition part of a clue often to be quite elliptic. Sometimes just one significant word quoted from a definition in Chambers. As in ‘recess’ in this clue.
Regarding the equivalence of ‘so’ and ‘provided’. It’s listed in Chambers under so(1) without any explanation. However the English Dialect Dictionary may shed light in this. In Norfolk ‘so’ is used as an ellipsis for ‘so that’ for which ‘provided’ can be substituted. I’m from that part of the world but can’t recall hearing this. However I am familiar with a similar elliptical usage from that region where ‘do’ = ‘if’ as in ‘if you do’. Whenever you hear an actor playing a Norfolk character listen carefully to how they intone the word ‘do’. Frequently they wrongly assume an interrogative statement when in fact it’s conditional.