Mephisto 2916 by Don Manley – Carlos Prieto would have done

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Mephisto
An easy puzzle that had solvers scratching their heads over 1 across which contained an error. Don Manley gave his apologies on the Times website.

I also have a query at 20 down where I don’t recognise the spelling of a well known biblical name.

Across
1 CORPOREALIST – supposedly an anagram of “apostle crier” except it isn’t! Solved from definition and checkers;
9 AMIR – star=mira then move the “a” to the front;
10 FISTULAR – FI(ST-U-LA)R; superior=U; narrow passage;
11 NA-DENE – N(A-DEN)E; languages;
12 MORALE – M(OR)ALE;
13 TWEER – TWEE-R; old word for look;
16 DIAS – DIAS(pora); Portugese Bartolomeu Dias 1451 – 1500 first man to sail around Cape of Good Hope;
17 PERSUANT – PERS(on)-AUNT;
18 PLEATHER – PLEAT-HER; fabric;
23 PARIETAL – P(ARI(d))ETAL; of a wall – also the two bones that form the top of the skull;
24 TUTELAGE – TUT-E-L-AGE;
29 EMES – SEME reversed; somehow scatttered in heraldry=SEME; old word for family members;
30 REFEL – RE(F)EL; disprove;
31 AMYTAL – hidden (dre)AMY-TAL(k);
32 OBELIA – OBE-LIA(r); the little dagger symbols used by printers;
33 LENITION – (online)* surrounds IT; softening of language;
34 LERP – hidden (travel)LER-P(erhaps);
35 TRACHYPTERUS – (rupert’s yacht)*;
 
Down
1 CANTY – longer work=canto then change “o” to “y”;
2 RIDERED – (b)RIDE-RED;
3 PREED – P-REED; tried out at Troon;
4 RIEVE – (g)RIEVE; to rob;
5 ATOCS – A-(SCOT reversed); skunks;
6 LURDANE – LUR(e)-DANE; old word for dullard;
7 SALANGANE – (as an angel)*;
8 TRESTS – TRES(T)S; T from T(hieves);
14 WELSUMMER – WEL(l)-SUMMER;
15 BRER – BR(i)ER; Uncle Remus;
19 AVESTIC – AVES-TIC; birds=AVES;
20 HAAR – HA(nn)AR presumably; I thought her name was Hannah?;
21 STIFLER – STI(F-LE)R; LE from LE(ft); old slang for the gallows;
22 STEALT – S(TEAL)T; stole in St Andrews;
25 LOATH – L-OATH;
26 GLOOP – G-(POOL reversed);
27 NEELE – (k)NEELE(r); old word for needle;
28 ELAPS – SPALE reversed; splinter in Stirling=SPALE; snake is the definition;

7 comments on “Mephisto 2916 by Don Manley – Carlos Prieto would have done”

  2. This was the first Mephisto I attacked in a long time, and although I left a bunch unsolved, at least the ones I put in were correct. EME is (or used to be) a NY Times favorite, meaning ‘uncle’; cf. Dutch ‘oom’ as in Oom Paul. LENITION (my FOI, I believe) is the process where e.g. consonants are voiced or become fricatives in certain environments, as in European Spanish b, d, g becoming [beta, eth, gamma]. A bit discouraging to learn that this was an easy one!
    1. No, you mustn’t be discouraged Kevin. If it was your first try in a long time any puzzle would have been difficult. I mean easy in comparison to other Mephisto rather than per se. Use the blog to get yourself back in the swing.
  3. Must admit the Biblical Hagar comes in a distant 3rd in my list of Hagars, behind the Viking cartoon character and the post-Dave Lee Roth singer in Van Halen, but we do get the HAAR frequently where I live so that wasn’t necessarily a problem for filling in the grid.

    I think OBELIA is the plural of obelion (Chambers: “A point in the sagittal suture of the skull between the two parietal foramina”) – the printers’ daggers are obeli.

    1. Correct on obelion/-ia – a loose definition, but with that vital word “point” that I can’t see as matching a little dagger (i.e. something with a point, rather than a point). Now that I’m writing a few crosswords, I can understand the difficulty of conveying any more of the obelion def without producing something very leaden indeed.
    2. Thanks for that. Must confess I didn’t bother to look it up in Chambers. Clue was so easy I just wrote it in from the cryptic and assumed something to do with the printer’s dagger

Comments are closed.