Mephisto 2443 – Mike Laws – who he?

Not terribly difficult by Mephisto standards, I solved most of this within 40 minutes without resorting to dictionaries. After Chambers was called on, the rest fell into place, although the wordplay has me beat on a couple of occasions.

ACROSS

1 P(IT’S)AW – clever wordplay

6 DIE(SE(t))S – those little dagger things that printers use to indicate notes

10 S(CUT-ChE)ON – ChE being short for Chemical Engineer

12 TERATOMATOUS – TOMATO in (Seurat)* – a kind of tumour (“growth”)

14 TH(<=GAME)US – “The Magus” is a novel by John Fowles

15 A-L(i)EU-T

16 OMASA – hidden in “ThOMAS Arguing”, plural of OMASUM

17 COYSTREL – (rest)* in COY-L, an old name for a groom

21 LARKS-PUR – according to Chambers, a PUR was a jack in an old card game

23 YDRED – (dry)*-ED – a barred-puzzle favourite

26 APHRA – (harp)*-A

27 PRO(<=ON)TUM – the back of an insect’s prothorax

28 NEWSPAPERDOM – (pen amp(L)e sword)*

29 C(hoose)-LIEN-TELE

30 ARC-HIL – a lichen which wields a dye, although I don’t understand the HIL but

31 SCHLEP – SC-(help)* – clumsy individual

DOWN

2 ICE FLOE – (I feel co(LD))* – “sheet” would be a weak definition on its own, but the whole clue acts as a definition

3 TUR(KEY-BROW)N – the mayfly, or an artificial fly used in angling

4 STAT(U)S

5 W(HOH)E – wordplay is straightforward but I don’t get the “dictionary” reference

6 DE(ME)TER – the Greek goddess of fertility (cf Roman Ceres)

7 ENTAME – E-(meant)*

8 E-QU-U.S. – Peter Shaffer play, the one in which Harry Potter got naked recently

9 S(ASS-A-FR)AS

11 BOG ASPHODEL – (gh pool-based)* where GH is “growth environs”

13 TACHYPNEA – (patchy)*-NEA(t)

18 R(A-TT)AIL

19 A(URE-O)LE

20 MENSCH – (n schem(E))* – honest fellow in the States, from the Yiddish for “person”

22 S(PART)H – a battle-axe, as in the weapon, not Maggie Thatcher

24 (<=RD)EAR – RD = Rural Dean

25 NUPES – UP in (<=Sen.) – a West Nigerian people