Mephisto 2451 – Chris Feetenby – an extra H?

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Straightforward enough, although I can’t quite see the wordplay in 1ac, and 11ac doesn’t appear in Chambers. Some excellent clues, especially 16ac, 27ac and 13dn.

My only criticism, and it is very minor, is that there are three “reverse” clues in a row among the down clues.

ACROSS

1 EST-H-ETE – I can’t explain the H in this clue – EST and ETE are French words for “east” and summer (“season”), and ESTHETE is an American spelling of “aesthete”

6 SCAPI – A featured in (pics)* – flower stalks (singular – scape)

10 ON ACCOUNT

11 BARGE-COUPLE – UP in (gable core)* – Chambers only has this in the plural, meaning gable rafters

14 I-DAN-T

16 (<=NOD-ALEC) – Chinese pale green pottery

18 EN-1 AC. – Electrinic Numerical Integrator and Computer, a massice supercomputer built in the 50s

20 OUTDATE – reverse cryptic – “tead” = out (i.e. – anagram of) “date”

25 OUTSIZED

26 SU’S-CITATION

27 OL(FACT)IVE

28 NY(A)LA – NY = New York and La = Louisiana – a NYALA is a large South African antelope

29 A(CID-D)YE

DOWN

1 EMBL(emat)IC – an East Indian tree

2 S(LAND)ER(i)OUSLY

3 TERVALENT – VALE in (Trent)*

4 HOGAN – a log hut or a Dutch word for strong liquor

5 TACK-(<=MOOR)

7 COP-LAND

8 PNEUMATOLOGY – homophone of NEW, MAT + OLOGY

13 FRIAR-(<=DRIB) – an Australian honeyeater

15 (<=CITE-RUNE)

17 (<=LASS-Y-B.A.)

19 (<=NO MO-NG) – the GNOMON is the upright bit on a sundial that casts the necessary shadow

22 TIC(o)-CA – means “hired”, a Tico being a native or inhabitant of Costa Rica

3 comments on “Mephisto 2451 – Chris Feetenby – an extra H?”

  1. ESTH,ETE – An Esth is an Estonian – should probably be North European rather than East European though.
  2. Just a point of historical accuracy, ENIAC was designed and built in the 40s towards the end of the second world war, although the war was over by the time it was completed. The Americans then ran lots of courses based around ENIAC to propagate the knowledge of computing into the universities

    On the other hand, the British, having build a large electronic computer Colossus at Bletchely Park, and who were arguably ahead of the americans, destroyed everything and kept it all secret until the 1970s. The faceless civil servant who took that decision probably put back computer science in Britain by decades and certainly the Americans from that point on were always ahead.

    Paul

  3. Re 1 across – the extra H ?

    In an old Chambers, I found this definition –
    Esth – an Estonian of the original Finnish stock

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