Mephisto 2628 by Paul McKenna

8 comments on “Mephisto 2628 by Paul McKenna”

1. Half of this went in relatively quickly and then I hit the wall, cheating madly to get home. Must brush up on my prostitutes.
   1. They say that the number of words in a language that describe one particular thing reflect the society in which the language functions. Thus in the UK there are a multitude of words for mist/rain but very few for snow compared with say Innuit. Chambers Crossword Dictionary lists over 80 words and phrases for prostitute.
2. Damn, one wrong! I didn’t properly parse the clue to 18dn, and just stuck in SEA-LARK as the only word I could find to fit it. Other than that, a fairly straightforward solve for a Mephisto, about 40 minutes or so.
3. Hurrah! An all-correct completion at last. Don’t ask me about my time.
   Ulaca’s comment above makes me wonder what constitutes “cheating” in Mephisto terms. I had to check over half the answers in this puzzle in Chambers just to be sure they existed, and the same goes for many of the constituents. In some cases I only found the answer by trawling the dictionary on the basis of a loose hypothesis on how the clue was constructed. I never refer to any outside source when solving the daily Times puzzle (I take the view that if I’m going to cheat I might as well just look at the blog) but I wouldn’t dream of attempting a Mephisto without Chambers. From comments here it’s clear I’m not alone in this but I wonder what one is “supposed” to do.
   1. By ‘cheating’, I meant not a) checking in Chambers or (b) trawling through the dictionary (recourse to which is so time-consuming that it doesn’t count in my book) but c) using solvers or, perish the thought, d) answer banks (no link given, as these resources might be deemed ‘unfair’ to those who solve prize crosswords under their own steam).

      I did a bit of all four, a) and b) at first and then c) and d), just to have the admittedly somewhat hollow satisfaction of ‘finishing’. I’m looking forward to the stage when I can reach your level, i.e. not ‘cheating’ at all!

   2. The preamble to the puzzle actually tells you to use C and there is no way one could solve these puzzles without it. Indeed Ximenes used to use things like sequence errors in the dictionary in his puzzles.

      In addition to C I also use the Chambers Crossword Dictionary plus my own notes made over the years. When I first started I had pages of the common substitutions like r=recipe and may have to go back to that as my memory gets steadily worse.

      Deriving a possible answer from wordplay and then looking to see if the word exists is normal solving. When you do that always remember to look at words in the vacinity and root words because C can be quite quirky. You get better at this the longer you go on solving.

      In summary there’s no such thing as what one is supposed to do, we all solve in our own ways. The important thing is to enjoy it and get a sense of personal achievement

      1. Thanks to both.
         I will continue my habit of using methods a) and b) above until a really lengthy block requires the use of c). This pretty much always happens with Mephisto, and indeed even this is not usually enough.
         Jimbo I take your point about enjoyment, and at the moment a Mephisto finish of any kind is very satisfying to me, but I will still strive to complete the puzzle with Chambers only.
4. I found the wordplay a lot easier than in recent Paul McKenna puzzles and also seemed to get half words quickly – FOOT went in before the rest of 5 down, SKATING before the rest of 27, TOAD before the rest of 15

Comments are closed.