Mephisto 2619 – Paul McKenna

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
Oh boy did I make a mess out of this one, first off writing a wrong answer in at the pretty obvious 19down and then letting it keep me from getting the equally obvious 30. Lots of deception here and enough to keep me on tenterhooks for a few days.

I’m going through withdrawl at the moment, the hotel I’m staying at is lacking a printer, and I don’t really have time to stare at the screen and finish the Saturday times or the Jumbo. Tomorrow I’m going to sneak into someone’s office and try to print today’s Mephisto. People have been locked up for far less.

Across
1 STOOP AND ROOP: STOOP(submit), A,N, DROOP. Still needed most of the checking letters to get this
10 MASSORETE: (TESREMOS,A)* – a compiler of the Masora
12 I,BIS
13 KISAN: S,A in KIN
15 PORT-FIRE: (REPORT,IF)*
16 KNEVELL: KNELL around V,E. To pound with neives or fists in the talluwhacker what ho!
18 EDTA: (DATE)* – I forgot, I was going to take a picture of this crossword next to a bottle. Chelating agent, very good for dissolving or separating late transition element cations (that Inorganic Chemistry degree finally comes in useful!)
20 SOYA: SO(well),Y,A(highest grade). Random soya fact – the first steroids were discovered by chemical analysis of all the oils and proteins in soy beans
21 J,A,NE: and Tarzan is our swinger, yeah, baby
22 RETE: anagram of first letters in Emphasize Early Telly Ratings. Interesting that the American spelling was used for “emphasize” and the UK one for Telly in my copy
23 SCUR: CU in SR… I don’t think it can be anything else, but I don’t see how the definition fits the Chambers def for SCUR (maybe the whole thing?)
25 S,TAR: in this case, star meaning to spread out in a star-like shape (I think)
27 HARSHLY: from checking letters HARL is the fly, and the L is trapped by SHY
30 NICK,NAME
32 GRIEF: BRIEF with G for B
33 HUMA: HUMAN short
34 PENSTEMON: (MONET PENS)*
35 RAISE THE WIND: (IN,DISHWATER,E)*
 
Down
1 S,MICK(Jagger),ERINGS: the last part is an anagram of SINGER
2 TABUN: TA, then BUNG shortened
3 OSSA: add MD and you get MOSSAD
4 PORPESSE: POSSE about R,PE – odl word for PORPOISE
5 ARGO,L
6 NEARLY: EARL in NY
7 REIFY: IF in RE,Y
8 OPSIMATHY: (PHYSIO)* about MAT
9 OCARINA: OC for M in MARINA
11 ON EVERY HAND
14 FETTUCINI: FET(call, as in fetch), then (INUIT)* about C
17 BARRETTE: not sure I get the wordplay here
19 DELIRIA: hidden reversed and not DELERIA though that’s what I wrote in for a long time
24 CH,AUNT
26 SKEPS: IS removed from SKEPSIS
28 AM,IS,H
29 LEMON: double def – to LEMON can mean to scent it (with lemon, I guess, to give the impression of sanitariness)
31 W,HEW: to bustle about (second meaning in Chambers)

8 comments on “Mephisto 2619 – Paul McKenna”

  1. Only my 2nd Mephisto, but I wasn’t getting anywhere with AZED’s ‘Spoonerisms’. I think I shall do ‘Mephisto’ more often, as I take too long solving the AZED ‘specials’!
    I liked the ‘JANE’ clue.
    1. I usually do both, I’m with you in not really feeling the Azed this week, though I did complete it and send in a clue – to be added to my list of “non-winning Azed clues” which is all of them.
  2. Embarrassingly, failed to finish this.. having done 1dn and 1ac in reasonably short order I thought it was going to be straightforward. But after completing the top half plus a few in the SW things slowed down. I put it to one side but forgot it and never came back to it. Might have been different if I’d got 35ac, it seemed to be an anagram but I never made the connection between soap and money. c’est la vie.
  3. At 23A it’s S(CU)R where FULL-2 in C means to scour

    At 25A it’s S-TAR where STAR-2 in C means rush

    At 17D it’s BARRETTE(r) where a barretter is a detector of radio waves

    Good puzzle I thought and much more fun than those damn AZED Spoonerisms which drive me nuts.

  5. Thanks Jimbo/ George
    I like ‘Plain’ barred puzzles. As Jimbo has blogged before ‘plain’ puzzles help with honing your skills for the daily paper, and my ambition is to solve ‘The Times’ on a regular basis. I also get stern looks from my wife if I spend too long on Sundays over a puzzle. It’s ‘Mephisto’ from now on, whenever AZED does an odd ‘special’ (although I do enjoy ‘Letters latent’ and ‘Wrong number’.)

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