Mephisto 2434 – Mike Laws

Solving time – 33 minutes, without Chambers

Mephisto puzzles by Mike Laws can be tricky, but this one was fairly straightforward. One or two points of detail mentioned below where you may be able to help me out.

Across
6	RAP(H)E – rape is refuse from wine-making, and a raphe is a ridge as a biological structure
11	YEAR – E = earth in RAY, rev. Tempted by the YURI (Gagarin) trap at first.
12	HEX,A PLO(I)D – hex = spell, def. not checked but sounds like something biological
15	OPEN SIDE (Rugby jargon) – (N=new,EPISODE)*
18	P(APE)ETE – capital of French Polynesia
22	(h)UNT,A KEN
23	NIGH(t) = old word for ‘touch’
24	ST(E’ER)ING – con = ‘act of steering’
26	BAN,QU(i)ET – a Ban is the governer in charge of a Banate, Banat or Bannat – a military district on the edges of Hungary.
29	CON,JUG,ATE
30	(c)LINK – Charlie = C from the ‘phonetic’ alphabet
32	LATHS are strips – don’t really get the rest but don’t think it can be anything else
33	GR(EN)ADE – “nut” is another name for an en in printing. The equivalent daft name for an em is “mutton” – courtesy of the Chambers CD-rom fulltext option.
Down
1	W(AH)OO – or Californian Buckthorn
2	ONER = a one-pound note, and rev. of Reno, Nevada, where you can doubtless gamble as well as get a divorce.
5	B(ROAD)EN
6	REIN,(b)ETTE(r) = rennet(2), “an apple of certain old varieties” as C rather unhelpfully has it.
7	P,EROV=over<=,SKI,A
8	HANNAH -ref. Hannah Gordon, actress, probably best known for playing opposite John Alderton in the 70s sitcom My Wife Next Door, if you’re old enough to remember it.
9	E(RM.)EL,IN – an old version of ‘ermine’
13	RE(PUG,NA=an<=)NT
19	TUTENAG – ut = do (tonic sol-fa), in agent*. “Ut” is the original – most of the tonic sol-fa note names come from the first syllables of lines of a plainchant hymn.
20	PAR,AGON
21	MIAMI,A – an aboriginal dwelling-hut
28	CUR,E – I understand the wordplay here, but can’t quite make sense fo the def. – the opposite of the usual problem
28	STUD – a collection of cars as well as horses, apparently