Mephisto 2857 – Tim Moorey

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
I struggled a fair bit with this one, though in the end everything makes perfect sense, this time around there seemed to be a number of obscure words clued by obscure wordplay elements, or obvious words with tricky wordplay.

Either that or I’m not having a good week, which is another possibility.

Away we go…

Across
1 JEBUSITIC: two 1’s in (SUBJECT)*
11 MAE(West),(bu)S,TRI(p)
12 L,AURA: AURA as a premonition of danger was new to me
13 ERSE: take P(positive) from PER SE
14 RHEOSTAT: RH(Royal Higness), then ESTAT(e) containing 0
15 OS,TREA(t)
16 REICH: RICH containing(bands) E(nthuse)
17 KOPIYKA: (OKAY,KIP)*
19 NEW DEAL: since LEAD would be a new DEAL
24 NOMADES: MADE in NOS
25 BELL,J,A(before),R
28 RAT ON: RATION missing (Kalahar)I
30 SURAHS: anagram of HARS(h), SU(n)
31 UNA,WARES
32 ASAR: A(are) then RAS(h) reversed
33 CORSO: or C OR SO
34 ALE,VIN,S
35 ESMERALDA: (MALE,DARES) for the heroine of The Hunchback of Notre Dame
 
Down
2 (g)EAR,ST
3 BESTOWAL: LAW reversed after BEST, O(hio)
4 USERS: SER in US
5 STREWER: EWER after STIR without 1
6 TIEPOLO: TIE then L in POO(p)
7 CASEIN: anagram of ARSENIC missing R
8 MUTI: MI(note) containing(shops) UT(do – another musical reference)
9 CRACK,LE
10 CATH,ARSIS: I put this in from definition and agonised over the wordplay until checking ARSIS in Chambers – yup, it’s a weak position in a poetic bar
15 OSNABRUCK: RUCK(prison fight) after BAN(governor) and SO(provided) reversed
18 YGRDASIL: anagram of DRY,SILAG(e)
20 ELEANOR: hidden reversed in veRONA ELEcted
21 ANAGRAMS: since MEPHISTO and TIM HOPES are anagrams of each other
22 SMOUSER: MOUSE in SR
23 BLOWSE: sounds like BLOUSE
26 BRAVA: a cheer for a female performer – BRA, then DIVA without DI
27 ‘S,HAND
29 TARP: PRAT reversed – didn’t know this definition of PRAT even though it is the first in Chambers

5 comments on “Mephisto 2857 – Tim Moorey”

  1. Sorry – didn’t mean to be anonymous – I’m not anon here usually. Don’t know why that happened.

    Adrian

  2. Thank you, sir.

    Would you mind expanding on “then Diva without Di”; I see Di for Diana but the rest escapes me…as usual.

    1. Take DIVA (opera superstar) and replace DI with BRA (Support for Diana, i.e. swap DI for BRA). It took me ages to see this.
      1. Many thanks. And the whole clue is a (sort of?) &lit? Really clever whatever it is!
  3. I didn’t find this one too bad. It’s a sign of my gradually increasing experience with these things that YGDRASIL went straight in.

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