This was one of the easier Mephistos I’ve done. I definitely gained confidence when I found the first two across answers were write-ins for me, and some of the next few were also rather easy.
Author: vinyl1
Times 28651 – Splendide Mendax!
I did most of this fairly easily, but I got stuck in the NE because of a wrong word. I also had some other answers that I had a lot of doubts about, but finally saw how they worked.
Mephisto 3278 – “Backed by our supreme authority….
I did solve this puzzle, but I would be the first to admit I don’t quite get some of the trickier cryptics. Careful research as turned up some of the parsings, but not all of them.
Times 28639 – A perennial that grows for me!
I thought this was a bit difficult for a Monday, and my solve ran slow, fast, slow, as the crossing letters helped speed me up until I came to the last few.
Mephisto 3276 – “When they were giving out brains, he thought they said trains….”
Last week’s Mephisto was not terribly tricky, and I finished before going to bed on a Saturday night. This is the grid where you can really help your solve by getting the long ones around the edges quickly.
Times 28627 – Brave new world!
This was definitely not a typical Monday puzzle. Even for the clues I solved quickly, I was thinking really, you are expected to know that?
In Memoriam Tony Sever: 1944-2023
As many of you have heard, our former blogger and long-time commenter Tony Sever passed away in March of this year.
Mephisto 3274 – Dial-a-Tory? Laud-a-Tory!
While the puzzle was enjoyable, some of the parsing are a bit obscure – perhaps a commenter will step forward with a clarification or addition.
Times 28615 – The Monday after Pentecost!
I found this a bit on the tricky side, with the kind of literals one might find in Mephisto. Fortunately, the vocabulary was not particularly esoteric, so if you trust the cryptics you will get the answers.
Mepisto 3272 – “With razor blades and hand grenades….”
I didn’t find this too bad, but made very slow progress for a while. I plodded on from ten until midnight, finishing a few bits here and there.