It’s been one of those weekends, I completely misread the day of John Halpern’s skype call (did anyone else make it?) and when I came to write the Mephisto blog, LiveJournal is down. It came up just before I’m of to commiserate the closing of a bar and theatre (where I have performed stand-up, but I don’t think that was what killed it), and the opening of another one (where they want me to do improv, so they may not have that long of a life expectancy).
LiveJournal was down again when I tried again, but it seems to be back now, better type quick! I did most of this on a plane with Bradfords but no dictionary, and only needed to confirm a few once I got back, so a fun puzzle.
The saga continues – I forgot I was out of town last Sunday and that the Mephisto I had done on the plane was the one I had to blog. Of course it was the one from two weeks ago which has already been blogged. Fortunately I was already a test solver on this, so I’ve done an earlier version.
Away we go…
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RANDOMLY: anagram of DEMONSTRABLY less BEST |
| 7 | CRUE: CRUDE without D(God) |
| 10 | TEA CHEST: TEACH(Blackbeard),EST |
| 12 | JAW,A,N |
| 13 | CORSAC: AC for O in CORSO |
| 14 | PINDARI: PINDARIC missing the end</strike> |
| 16 | UNION: double def, the Shakespearean one being under UNIO |
| 18 | YNAMBUS: MANY reversed then BUS(help out waiters) |
| 20 | GRAMMA: R in GAMMA |
| 21 | A,DON,IS |
| 25 | TAMARAO: river TAMAR then AO from LAOS |
| 26 | MAT,A,1 |
| 28 | GUN MOLL: M in NO(New Orleans) in GULL |
| 30 | ANTLER: (LEANT)*,R |
| 31 | RGOL: LOG,I,R(take) all reversed in this case Pachyderm means an insensitive person |
| 32 | PARADISE: IS in PARADE |
| 33 | EMYS: hidden |
| 34 | AGE LIMIT: A,GEL,IMIT |
| Down | |
| 1 | RAJPUT: PUT under JAR reversed |
| 2 | A RAINY DAY: mushroom being umbrella here |
| 3 | NOW,N |
| 4 | DEAD ON: DO in DEAN |
| 5 | MERRY AS A GRIG: anagram of GAY MARRIAGES with an A replaced with a R |
| 6 | LACING COURSE: PLACING without the P(hilosophy) then COURSE(lecture series) |
| 7 | CH,ROMA |
| 8 | RESUBMIT: SUB in REMIT |
| 9 | ETC,H |
| 11 | COWARD: double def |
| 15 | B,UMMA,LOT,I |
| 17 | ISOMETRY: anagram of TORES MAY without A(about) |
| 19 | AIRBED: RUSH removed from AIRBRUSHED |
| 22 | NABLAS: NAB(procjection) then the middle of CLASP – the symbol I usually call del |
| 23 | SAMITI: SAMIT,I |
| 24 | KILL,UT |
| 27 | CAP,E: CAP is from CAPITUS(let him take), then end of nubbing-covE |
| 29 | O,GAM |
2730 is easy again on a weekend when one might expect something a little harder. In contrast AZED has a splendid Christmas puzzle that kept me engaged for a couple of houtrs. Now have to try and compose a rather complex clue!