This puzzle was a mix of easy clues and some really obscure stuff. Fair is fair, after all, and this is Mephisto. While I managed to finish, I got the wrong end of the stick on one of the clues and had to ask George for the parsing – not the first time either. I think we’ve got it under control now, but corrections and expansions are welcome.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Slight cut in gallery’s top exhibits? (7) |
| SKETCHY – SK(ETCH)Y. One of the definitions of sky is ‘the upper row of pictures in a gallery’. I’ll have to keep that in mind as I built my collection, so far I only have a single row. | |
| 7 | Wandering about with Shakespearean finery (4) |
| GAWD – GA(W)D. | |
| 11 | Student admitted making arrangement to cram tutorial? (12) |
| MATRICULATOR – Anagram of CRAM TUTORIAL. A write-in for me; my freshman class was probably one of the last to have a formal matriculation ceremony. | |
| 12 | Heavenly recital he reviewed (9) |
| ETHERICAL – Anagram of RECITAL HE, a starter clue. | |
| 15 | Decree one went by horse in the north (5) |
| IRADE – I + RADE. | |
| 16 | Root extract in Azed I’d found anagrammed (8) |
| DAIDZEIN – Anagram of IN AZED I’D, and you’re even told it’s an anagram. | |
| 18 | Home in reserve towards the interior of Scotland (4) |
| INBY – IN + BY. | |
| 19 | Half fear English weak in a line of Spenser (4) |
| AREW – [fe]AR + E + W. W for weak probably comes from Germanic verb forms or something along those lines. | |
| 20 | Is not installing hospital behind in places? (5) |
| AHINT – A(H)IN’T. | |
| 22 | Label male anterior part of an insect (5) |
| TAGMA – TAG + M + A. A word I knew – I even knew it had something to do with insects. | |
| 23 | Scots land where squirrels nest on return (4) |
| YERD – DREY backwards, a hollow in a tree or something of that sort. | |
| 24 | Gemstone’s power must be volume like an egg (4) |
| OVAL – O(-p,+V)AL. An easy letter-substitution clue. | |
| 25 | Audible shock after band leads when the kirk marched (8, two words) |
| GANG DAYS – GANG + sounds like DAZE. The key here is knowing when they walked the boundaries of the parish in Scotland. | |
| 27 | Acceptable garment worn by women mostly over island (5) |
| CORFU – U + FROC[k] backwards. | |
| 31 | Rare gas? I’m surprised over name being concealed (9) |
| CRYPTONYM – CRYPTON + MY backwards. CRYPTON is a rare variant spelling of Krypton; unfortunately, there is no variant spelling of cryptonym. | |
| 32 | Belief Jesus was just a man, point sharply demolished (12) |
| PSILANTHROPY – Anagram of POINT SHARPLY. Only if your Greek vocabulary is very good will you recognize psilos. | |
| 33 | Ultimately, clue idea seems very facile? (4) |
| EASY – Last letters of [clu]E [ide]A [seem]S [ver]Y. Easy indeed for a Mephisto clue. | |
| 34 | Inspirations of Ximenes result in tributes (7) |
| DUENDES – DU(END)ES. Here, Ximenes just stands for some Spanish chap. The actual Ximenes would have treated them as a dangerous superstition that needed to be extirpated. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Seabird: small gull (4) |
| SMEW – S + NEW. | |
| 2 | Ask to hear vau with changing form of Greek (12) |
| KATHAREVOUSA – Anagram of ASK TO HEAR VAU. A write-in for me, as I am familiar with the controversies surrounding Modern Greek. | |
| 3 | Split apart after tail end of violent wind (5) |
| TREND – [violen]T + REND. | |
| 4 | Small bird, only heard in France (4) |
| CIRL – Sounds like SEUL, it seems, if pronounced in a non-Rhotic English dialect. | |
| 5 | Ugh, failing to finish a cassava (4) |
| YUCA – YUC[k] + A. | |
| 6 | Getting even accounting for losing former partner (8) |
| PLAINING – [ex]PLAINING. | |
| 8 | Titanic? Part of a sunken world (9) |
| ATLANTEAN – Double definition, the first referring to Atlas, who was a Titan, so a DBE requiring a question mark. | |
| 9 | Print process reportedly is ready to cover with pattern (12) |
| WOODBURYTYPE – Sounds like WOULD BURY + TYPE. | |
| 10 | Hardline politician appeared on stage without greeting? (7, two words) |
| DRY EYED – DRY + EYED, the first as a non-wet politician, the second Shakespearean. The literal refers to the Scots meaning of greeting, which I learned from the June Tabor version of When I Was No But Sweet Sixteen. | |
| 13 | One is directing cursor (5, two words) |
| I BEAM – I + BEAM, referring to the cursor that appears when inputting text. | |
| 14 | Soviet forces obliterating base but not so forcibly (9, three words) |
| VI ET ARMIS – [so]VIET ARMI[e]S, where e is Euler’s number the base for natural logarithms, and so is so. | |
| 17 | Volunteers share Scots language in Africa raising Babel, perhaps (8) |
| ZIGGURAT – T.A + RUG + GIZ upside down. Rug is an obscure Scottish word, and Giz is a variant spelling of Ge’ez. Biffing is much easier here. | |
| 19 | A little exercise reducing the rear a bit? (7) |
| APOCOPE – A + POCO + P.E., referring to shortening the end of a word, not your bottom. | |
| 21 | Fortune including Anglo-Norman goblet (5) |
| HANAP – H(A-N)AP. | |
| 26 | New Cross sent over tree to East London (5) |
| DOORN – N ROOD upside-down. East London refers to the city in South Africa, where this tree is found. | |
| 28 | Support for mill heard outside (4) |
| RYND – Sounds like RIND. The support for a mill is also usually spelt rind, but rynd is a valid alternate. | |
| 29 | Ed’s thirty-three the following June — no junior (4) |
| ETHE – [jun]E + THE. Ed Spenser, that is. The literal refers to the answer to 33 across. | |
| 30 | Terrapin — some easy meat when brought up (4) |
| EMYS – Backwards hidden in [ea]SY ME[at]. | |