I found this one on the more gentle side of Mephistos, particularly the wordplay. I was in the back of a car being driven through mountains of Tennessee and managed to get most of this done during the drive, only had to check a few answers in the dictionary.
I did get held up a while at 6, thinking that HELLIONS was going to be the answer and not knowing the HAL connection (thanks interweebs). Also got 33 from the definition and had to work out the wordplay for the blog. I think I have everything in order now (famous last words).
Away we go….
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PALLAS ATHENE: (ELEPHANT,ALAS)* |
| 10 | SEPHARDI: SE |
| 11 | TORAN: A(rch) |
| 12 | B,LIS |
| 14 | A,GILA |
| 15 | EMULATE: MU surrounded by ELATE |
| 17 | TRITICAL: TIC in TRIAL |
| 18 | SEMPLICE: EMP in SLICE – musical instruction to play simply |
| 22 | ESTANCIA: (A,SITE,CAN)* |
| 25 | OVERT ACT: or OVERTACT |
| 27 | BET(something chancy),ROT,H |
| 28 | STUNG: G,NUTS all reversed |
| 30 | 1,NUIT |
| 31 | ARDEA: D in AREA |
| 32 | TIR NA-NOG: (IGNORANT)* |
| 33 | SINGLE-MINDED: the double container! M,IND in GLEE, in SIND |
| Down | |
| 1 | POT,ASS |
| 2 | LARIAM: 1 in (ALARM)* |
| 3 | LE |
| 4 | SEFER: F in SEER |
| 5 | APOMICT: C in OMIT(miss), under A,P |
| 6 | HAL,LIONS: Bluff HAL being Henry VIII |
| 7 | ERIACH: AIR reversed in E,CH |
| 8 | EISELL: anagram of BELLIES without the B(barrel) |
| 9 | HOG HEAVEN: H then (HAVE,GONE)* – I did chuckle as I wrote this answer in near the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, hog heaven indeed |
| 13 | STATIONER: ION(something with small charge) in STATER(old coin) |
| 16 | SPARRING: RAPS reversed before RING(pugilism), &lit |
| 19 | ISATINE: SATIN in I.E. |
| 20 | OO,BITS: OO for “we” pops up enough that newer solvers should file it away somewhere |
| 21 | RETURN: REAL with TURN(performance) replacing A,L(pound) |
| 23 | CAUDAD: C, DAD with AU inside |
| 24 | ASGARD: link together AG and SARD(chalcedony) |
| 26 | CH,OOM |
| 29 | TRON: STRONG missing the beginning and end |
however I have lost the piece of paper and all I can remember now is being aggrieved that Tir-Na-Nog, as the ODO has it, was listed as “two words.” Since both the Oxford English Dictionary and Wikipedia also list it as three words, I reset my case m’lud..