Mephisto 2791 – Tim Moorey

Posted on Categories Mephisto
And now time for sports – there’s an English cricketer and a soccer player in here, and reading the clues I thought there might have been another cricketer hiding in wordplay (not so but I think it’s another sporting reference).

This is not usually the case with Tim Moorey’s puzzles, but I am absolutely baffled by a few wordplays. It will take a while for me to get back to this tomorrow, so you might want to check comments to see if they’ve been explained yet.

Overall I found this one tricky and a little frustrating with all the references – a rare crossword where I used google more than a dictionary.

Away we go…

Across
1 APOMICT: MIC in A POT
6 (r)OUEN,S
10 SIKA: sounds like SEEKER
11 GARDYLOO: anagram of HARDLY GO without (Edinburg)H, then O(duck)
12 PAT,ROLLER
15 SHEA(r)
16 SAM,IT,1: SAM is Spenserian for “together”
17 ASSESS: take the M’s away from MASS,MESS
18 BANGLADESH: LAD in BANG, (HE’S)*
20 APOSTROPHE: anagram of (HOPE,PORT’S,A) the A coming from “one”
24 CON(against),CHA: PAVILLION being a part of the ear in this case
25 VORANT: ORAN in VT – I don’t recommend googling images of this one
26 AGIO: take AD from ADAGIO
29 GAL,RAVAGE
30 CAN’T,REDS? This is one of two that I am stuck on wordplay – Stoke FC wear red at home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the clue
31 NADA: (AND)*, A
32 ASSOT: take the R out of ASSORT
33 METALED: TALE in MED
 
Down
1 ASPASIA: PAS(pops – fathers) in A,S,I,A(acadey)
2 OKTA: AT(by),KO all reversed
3 MARCIA: A1,CRAM reversed – from what I see online this is a queen in the King Arthur lineage
4 IGOR: take the V from VIGOR
5 CALLIGRAM: (A,GIRL)* in CALM
6 ODESSA: anagram of SEA DOGS less G(ulf)
7 ELCHEE: C(see),HE(ambassador) in MELEE missing M,E for another ambassador
8 NO MESSING: or NOMES,SIN,G
9 SORAS: at least I think from the definition (rails) – the troops could be SASor SS, but I can’t fit the rest of the clue
13 ZAMPOGNAS: SANG,OP,MAZ(e) all reversed
14 PALOVERDE: definition works (flowering tree) and I see LOVE can be nothing, but I am really stuck on the rest of the wordplay
19 HOTHEAD: or HOT HEAD
21 ONIONS: reference the cricketer Graham Onions
22 THWART: T then W(weak) in Joe HART
23 HRYVNA: (NAVY,HR)*
24 CASCA: C in CASA
27 FAST: double def
28 DAAL: get rid of the middle of DAy hospitAL

17 comments on “Mephisto 2791 – Tim Moorey”

  1. Struggled with some of these too.

    14D is PARADE (show) around LOVE with the second A (=annum) of PARADE removed (passed).

  2. I can help with a couple George

    At 30A its CAN’T-RED-S where RED=tidy and S=Stokes (CGS unit of viscosity)

    At 14D its PA(LOVE)R(a)DE where show=parade and remove the second a=year

    Can’t remember 9D for the moment

    Hardest Mephisto for some time with ONIONS and HART bordering on the unfair. Neither is well known enough to justify inclusion here.

    1. I’ll give you Graham Onions (though he’ll be familiar to even casual cricket fans, also Ben Stokes (hence the surface of 30A)), but Joe Hart is the goalkeeper for the national team in the country’s most popular sport. Granted, not everyone is interested in football, but I would imagine he has greater name recognition to the man on the street than many of the composers, authors, and even occasional scientists that crop up in puzzles.
      1. I think both ONIONS and HART are here today gone tomorrow sportsmen with nothing particular to recommend them and neither is worthy of inclusion. Likewise Stokes, the cricketing implication of which went right over my head when solving.

        Truely great medium-paced bowlers would be Barnes and Bedser and perhaps now Anderson. Truely great goalkeeprs would be Banks and Shilton. The current perception of the mythical “man and woman in the street” is in my mind irrelevant.

        1. I thought that by “unfair” you meant that they were too obscure for the average person to know, rather than that they were not “worthy of inclusion”, hence my comment about the man in the street.
          1. Much more important is 9D which is starting to bug me

            I can recall thinking about S-OB-AS with OB meaning Outside Broadcast=live and SOBAS meaning noodles but plumping for SORAS on the basis of “rails” but can’t now recall how I got OR or ORA to mean “live” – any ideas?

  3. I’m completely stumped with that one. At the time, I put in SORAS simply because it fitted the “rails” part of the clue, but I put a question mark next to it because I couldn’t see how the wordplay worked. The published solution on the Crossword Club website shows SORAS, so that must be the right answer. It’s bugging me too!
  4. Sorry, that was me. Didn’t do the puzzle but just spent 20 mins trawling dictionaries until the penny dropped.
  5. Ah – I think it’s an anagram (“live”, one meaning of which Chambers has as “stirring”) of across but with the c removed (“Corps going”).
      1. You win the prize by 3 minutes! I’m somewhat chastened to be fooled by an anagram, of all things.
  6. I’m afraid the crossword editor is not convinced that Onions and Hart are unfair compared to the other knowledge sometimes used in Mephisto clues.
  7. thanks all for the parsing. soras, paloverde and cantreds had me stumped- just a pity I have to wait a week for enlightenment. very enjoyable- the c for corps is a bit annoying though. Onions might not make a name for himself (due perhaps to selectorial stubbornness), but I have high hopes of Stokes.
  8. Sir George Stokes is the man – Ben Stokes (who I’d no idea about before seeing the above comments) has no relevance to the clue.
  9. I found this tough, and had lots of question marks, all of which have now been resolved, so thanks to all concerned!

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