Mephisto 2803 – Tim Moorey (I presume)

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
I had a tough time getting started with this one, although I broke up my usual solving routine. I typically solve Mephistos backwards, from the last down clue – not from any scientifically-proveable hypothesis, but my printer often chops off the last two or three clues and I have to look them back up on the website. This week however the entire puzzle printed on one page, so I went back to starting with one across…

And none of the across answers jumped out at me until 20 across. So I thought I was in for a tough time, though many of the down answers jumped out at me, and things started to fill up nicely, until I got to 8 down, which needed a trip to the Interweebs to find out about a place I wasn’t familiar with.

Away we go…


Across
1 SPU(e)D
4 HIGH,SPO(r)T
9 THEROPOD: (OTHER)* then POD(school)
11 CORTADERIA: AIRED,AT(alongside),ROC(k) all reversed
12 MYLONITE: (ONLY)* in MITE
15 PRASE: PRAISE without 1
16 STADE: D for T in STATE
17 TALAUNT: A,L in TAUNT
18 PARISON: For the non-cricket fans, this might be a tricky one. Andy Roberts was a fast bowler who I remember from a really terrifying attack in the 1980-81 tour of Australia – here’s a video of him knocking over Ian and Greg Chappell in successive balls. So if AR IS ON, he’s bowling. Put a P in the front.
20 SENES: S(ession) then (SEEN)*
22 REDDY: sounds like READY
24 HAEREMAI: (nort)H,I containing A(one),ERE,M(aori),A – an all-in-one clue
25 MALENTENDU: (TUNNEL,MADE)*
26 RENEGATE: It showed in Australia and I thought ‘Allo ‘Allo was about the worst show ever (my parents loved it) – but I seem to remember one of the main characters was Rene, so his scandal would be RENE GATE
27 SOOTHSAY: (SHOOT)* in SAY(express)
28 E,MIR

Down
1 S,TIMES
2 PHLYCTAENAE: (EACH,PENALTY)*
3 DROOG: GOOD reversed around R
4 H,OR(before),N,IE
5 GOA TRANCE: or GO AT RANCE
6 SIERRA: double definition, one being the Ford vehicle
7 PER(on),S,AUNT
8 THANET: NE in THAT – an island in the SE
10 DIES
13 INTO,NATES: “duff” for buttocks was new to me
14 GARDYLOO: (OLD,GRAY)* then O – “cave” in this case meaning a warning
18 PRIMES: EMIR in SP, all reversed
19 IDLEST: ID EST surrounding L
20 SARNEY: YEN reversed after SAR
21 SEINE,R
23 KEDGE: take the outside letters from SKY then EDGE

3 comments on “Mephisto 2803 – Tim Moorey (I presume)”

  1. No problems here working top to bottom. The fact that we had yet another obscure cricketer went right over my head – I just looked up P-AR-IS-ON in C without giving it a moments thought. I liked 24A – excellent clue.
  2. I found this decidedly tricky – in fact I’ve only just finished it. But I’ve had a busy week and I decided to tackle Azed’s magnificent ‘Wrong Number’ puzzle first, which took up most of my allotted solving time last Sunday (and a bit more) and left me trying to do this in bits and pieces, usually at the end of a long day, in bed, after a couple of glasses of wine. I find I don’t usually get more than one or two clues in that kind of solving session.
  3. Thanks George- was baffled by hornie, never knew that OR could mean before. Thanks for the Andy Roberts clip as well, always amazes me how few serious injuries there were in the pre-helmets era.

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