Mephisto 2,445 – Chris Feetenby

Posted on Categories Mephisto
Did this a week ago, but have only now gotten round to writing the blog – don’t remember there being anything contentious or overly difficult in this puzzle, but as I write this, I may come up with something.

ACROSS

1 MON(TESS)O-(<=NAIR) – Montessorian education involves self-motivated education by children free to decide their own goals and curriculum. MONO is “old record”, I assume as opposed to STEREO, and NAIR are people of a caste in Kerala in SW India.

10 OP-U-LENT

12 (penta)TEUCH – a good Scots word. Because of the part of Scotland from which I originate, I am somtiems referred to as a “teuchter”, a supposedly derogative term applied by Lowland Scots to their more Northern compatriots. I am in fact not from Teuchter country, but if I were, I’d be proud to be considered “tough”.

13 TEW-HIT – TEW meaning “excitement”, according to Chambers

14 ACC-OUR AGE

15 (r)EGENCE

17 ROR(T)Y

19 MIST-1-CO(ld) – a Mediterranean vessel

20 O’-C-CITAN (I can’t)* – the medieval dialects of the Languedoc

21 DETER – hidden in “maDE TERrified”

25 AS-KANT

27 FIFTEEN-ER – a verse of fifteen syllables

28 A(F)FINE

29 SOLD-I – old Itlain copper coins (sing: soldo)

30 FINI-KIN – don’t have Chambers handy, but “fini” to me means “done, over”, not necessarily “ruined”

31 TAN-GEN(T)IALLY – TAN is short for “tangent”, so I’m not keen on its use here

DOWN

1 MATTER-OF-FACT – double definition

2 OVERGO – reverse cryptic – OG was the ruler of Bashan in the Old Testament

3 TACAN – Tactical Air Navigation, used by military aircraft, and made up of first letters of “that aids captain and navigator”

4 SPA(C-E)M-A-N

5 OLE-UM

6 REW-RITE – again, without Chambers, assuming “rew” is a derivation of “rue”

7 IN HABIT-ABLE

8 NOTE-WORTH(IL)Y

9 QUEER CUFF-IN – an old name for a Justice of the Peace

11 TIGE(r) – the central stem of a plant

16 GIN AND I.T. – GIN being an older word for “begin”

18 TIN-TIN-G

22 ENODAL – (<=LAD-ONE)

23 M(IF)F – “IF” is the Rudyard Kipling poem once voted as Britain’s favourite, and MF = mezzo-forte

24 PEN(I)E – not sure of the PENE bit – someone with access to Chambers may be able to help out here?

25 KRONA – (<=AN-ORK)

One comment on “Mephisto 2,445 – Chris Feetenby”

  1. As I pointed out to Chris, ORK is not in Chambers (2003) as a variant spelling of ORC, although he replied that it does occur in other dictionaries. Jason J

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