Mephisto 2551 – Mike Laws

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
I usually find Mike Laws to be the most difficult of the Mephisto setters, but the shape of this grid made it a bit easier. Mike set himself no small task with a 13×11 grid containing four 13-letter words and 3 11-letter words crossing each other. I got all the long entries and most of the rest of the grid without Chambers (didn’t take it on the road with me this week). An excellent puzzle for fans of wordplay, there were a lot of “is this a word” moments when piecing things together, so although I had completed the crossword reasonably quickly (only two sessions), there was a lot of checking things in Chambers that I might not have done if it wasn’t my turn to blog.

Across
1 QUA(=as),DR(=driver),I,LATER,AL(e): Don’t think I’ve seen Dr for driver, but it’s in Chambers. Near it is the word DRATCHELL which caught my eye and means a slut. Note to self, make use of this.
13 ANON,A: a custard apple is an example of one of the anona fruits
14 A,TOPIC: hypersensitive
15 STAMINIFEROUS: TAMIN(worsted fabric),IF inside SER(i)OUS – got the answer well before the wordplay – when Mike Laws is around, there’s some biology to be had!
16 SAPWOOD: WOO in (PADS)*
19 LIMIT: I’M in LIT – nice clue indeed
21 THRO(ugh),W IN: there may be a shorter word for “Because of” – a restart in rugby or Australian Rules football
22 ACORN: COR in AN – homer and cor (the Hebrew measure, 10 epaphs = 1 homer = 1/5 of a simpsons) are used pretty often in the barred-grid world
23 PARONYM: AR in PONY then M fr Mature – two words that sound the same
25 STREE,T T(HEAT)RE: I was working through the acrosses, so the part wordplay for this was enough to get 25 and 31
28 FEE(l)ING: Didn’t know the word, but pretty obvious from the wordplay
30 ODE,A: There’s that A for ARE again
31 ENTERTAINMENT: ENTENT(e) about R(reading, righting or rithemetic) and (I MEANT)*
 
Down
1 QUASSIA: anagram of IS SQUARE without RE
3 ADIAPHORIST: PAID reversed followed by H inside AORIST (a tense in Greek). A latitudinarist.
4 (o)RATIO(n)
5 IRON ORE: I think the RONO in the middle is Henry Rono, but there’s also a Peter Rono that comes up when you look up Kenyan athletes
7 (t)ARIF(f): the proper names continue – is this meant to be referencing a particular Arif?
8 END,RIN: an organic pesticide
9 RODOMONTADE: boasting, named after a character in Orlando Furioso wordplay is a beast here – RODE surrounding DO(ditto),MONTA(na)
11 LAWS: SWAL(e) reversed
17 AUCTION: U in ACTION. A friend of mine is an auctioneer and she says it’s far less interesting than you might think
18 SWA,HILI: HILI is a seed scar, found under HILUM In Chambers. Thanks for the generous checking letters
20 TAME CAT: (CAME) in TAT. OK, I’ve heard SCAREDY CAT, but not TAME CAT. Hunting around for it throws up an Ezra Pound poem, and it’s in Chambers, but feel free to comment if it’s part of your regular vocay
21 TREM(bled),IE: Loved this wordplay! An underwater concrete hopper
24 RENIN: N in REIN – and BP is blood pressure
26 TELT: two words I didn’t know, TELT is scots for TELL, and TET is the Vietnamese New Year (yes, I should have known that from the Tet Offensive)
27 REEN: NE’ER reversed, and the third time I’ve seen that word this week

4 comments on “Mephisto 2551 – Mike Laws”

  1. How interesting – I find ML the easiest of the trio, must be commom cultural heritage or something. This harder than his last two but I agree, see if the word you think it is exists, I always have to do a bit of that on planet Mephisto. Good blog!
  2. I also find ML the easiest of the Mephisto setters, and very welcome for that. Most of it went in without Chambers, which always leads to a bit of smug satisfaction inside!
  3. I agree with George’s comments on the puzzle and particularly about the grid. I also did most of this without Chambers (although I had it on holiday with me, of course)but would also have delved into it if I was writing the blog – nice one George
  4. Interesting on the level of difficulty comments, I’ll stand by personally finding Mike Laws the hardest, Tim Moorey the easiest, and Peter McKenna a floater in the middle (though of the three I really like Peter’s sense of humor in wordplay. Chris Feetenby I found on the harder side, but I didn’t complete Mephistos regularly during his time.

    And thanks for the blog compliments! Sometimes tough to know if anyone is reading Mephisto blogs, a daily Times blog takes me around 20-30 minutes, but a Mephisto blog takes a bit longer with all the double checking.

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