Mephisto 2809 – Tim Moorey

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
I found this one a little trickier than recent weeks, particularly with some “general” knowledge. The two composers were familiar to me but the French town and the Russian Secret Policeman (who may or may not have had a ball) had to be egooglefied.

I didn’t do myself any favors by initially misspelling 22 down and confidently putting in SWALLOW for 20. I was relieved to find my question marks for ones I put in by wordplay alone all turned out to be OK when I checked the dictionaries. There was some very fun wordplay in here, I particularly liked the construction at 24 down.

Away we go…

Across
1 MOPUSES: OPUS in MES(s)
7 TEMS: a strainer that sounds like THAMES
10 HESPERIAN: HEN surrounding PERSIAN with the S moved to the front
11 DOAB: DOABLE without LE
13 IBERIA: lucky guess here – a Spanish airline (who don’t fly to North Carolina) clued as I(current) then Lavrenty BERIA, Stalin’s chief of secret police
14 DANDER: DANDIER without the 1
16 LOST: S(Roger being the NATO code for R, so the successsor is Sierra), in LOT(set)
18 DRENCH: replace the F(fellow) in FRENCH with D(day)
19 EPISEMONS: SNIPE(criticism) reversed around (SOME)* – I didn’t know SNIPE was also the noun
21 SNECK DRAW: NECK(pet) in WARDS(guards) reversed
24 G,RAVES
25 DAD,A
27 OOIDAL: two round O’s then LAD,I reversed
28 NUCLEI: anagram of INCLUDE without D(diamonds) – MUST meaning “ferment” indicates the anagram
29 MILL: three definitions
31 ALBARELLI: A,L then (LIBERAL)*
32 DARG: GRAD reversed
33 SEA-BEAT: AB in SEE, then AT (alongside)
 
Down
1 MIDDLE C: MIDDLE CLASS without LASS
2 (h)OBO
3 PHANSIGAR: a thug, anagram of MANAGERSHIP without ME
4 SEMEME: MEM in SEE – I like it with a Tim Moorey crossword he takes care to make sure the same wordplay element is clued in different ways – here we have “view” and “court” for SEE
5 SPIN DOCTOR: DO in (ON,SCRIPT)*
6 WEBERN: add an N to Carl Maria von Weber (who I think is well known, and is in “Decomposing Composers”) and you get the less well known (and not in “Decomposing Composers”) Anton Webern
7 T,RES
8 MAIL-CLAD: C(see), LAD(y) after MAIL(post)
9 SNATH: (HASN’T)*
12 KROMESKIES: K(King’s head), then (MORE)*, SKIES(heavens). Another to add to the Mephisto ghastly-sounding food section, a croquette fried in bacon or an udder
15 ANDRADITE: (TIRADE)* after AND
17 OPERCULA: LUCRE reversed in OP,A(advanced)
20 SWALLET: SET surrounding WALL
22 NEVER(not),S
23 KGOTLA: GO in (TALK)*
24 GONAD: take ME out of GONE MAD
26 CLAG: L in CAG(e)
30 LEA: hidden in middLE America

5 comments on “Mephisto 2809 – Tim Moorey”

  1. A good puzzle this one – very enjoyable solve.

    IBERIA quite well known in Western Europe George and has some tie in with BA but like you if I’d heard of Beria before I’d forgotten him and had to Google. Also knew Weber but not Webern – same process. My hang up was at 15D where I wanted it to start ENC and couldn’t get that out of my mind for ages. 24D gave me a chuckle too.

  2. I found this reasonably straightforward, solved in one sitting I think. I’m not sure if I’ve come across ‘must’ as an anagram indicator before but I remembered that you get all sorts with Mephisto so I considered it as a possibility and found the ‘ferment’ meaning in Chambers.
    1. It also means in a state of frenzy in relation to elephants – so it has two “anagram” meanings!
      1. Actually I think that may have been the one I found. I’m not sure, although you’d think that sort of thing would stick in the memory.
  3. I can see two meanings for mill but not the third (my Chambers is currently in storage): so does ‘mill’ mean rob as well as fight?

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