Mephisto 2873 – Paul McKenna

This one wasn’t as tricky as it look at a first glance – I think on a first reading of the across clues I was only able to get three of them, but slowly the grid built up and I think I’ve parsed everything.

I was a little surprised to see ‘S indicated by IS twice in the puzzle (if I’ve got everything correct of course).

I managed to fall into two pretty well laid-out traps, first by thinking WINGS could be cotton flaps, so confidently writing WRINGS in at 5 across, and then near the end, at 27 down, thinking it must be SIT,U which left me scratching my head at 31 across for a long time.

Away we go…

Across
1 BOWLED: OWL in PIT – since b can mean BOWLED in a cricket scorecard
5 WRICKS: WICKS containing (spide)R
10 ONION-EYED: O, then an anagram of (DOYENNE,I)
12 HEAVE THE LOG: the cutter is a ship in this clue – HE then (LET,GO,HAVE)*
13 BAN: three definitions
16 EPOCH: H and COPE all reversed
17 OVERPEDAL: musical (keyboard) term – OVER(balance, as in left over), PE,DAL
18 KIR,K
19 STRUDEL: (RUSTLED)*
21 SAW(considered),GATE(path)
22 I,BR,D
24 PROS,ATE,UR
26 A,R,ROW
28 AP,(dop)E
29 PESTOLOGIST: (GETS,TO,SPOIL)
31 REIOMETER: reversal of RETE and MOIRE
32 ESTATE: GESTATE without the G
33 NOUS,LE(t)
 
Down
1 BOSBOK: ‘S,B in BOOK
2 WIENERWURST: anagram of STEW,WE,RUIN and (cooke)R
3 LOAF: OAF and L in the other order
4 DEE(damn),PEST
5 WYTED: W, then T in DEY(pasha) reversed
6 REHEARSAL: HEARS(takes in) in REAL
7 IDE: I.E. around D
8 KNOCKER-UP: reversal of PURE, K(id), CONK
9 SEGHOL: (SLOG,HE)*
11 BLOND BEASTS: (BLASTED,SNOB)*
14 A,VIA,(s)TRESS
15 S,PEAR(l),WORT(h)
20 TESTOON: TEST, O(over), then NO reversed
21 SOAPIE: or SO A PIE
23 DREARE: REARED with D at the front(top)
25 OL(d),LIE: the board being a skateboard here
27 LIE,U
30 TEA: marijuana=grass – TEACH missing CH

3 comments on “Mephisto 2873 – Paul McKenna”

  1. Don’t have my print-out of this to hand, but I do remember I was SIT-ting at 27D rather than LIE-ing for quite some time.
  2. Glad I wasn’t alone with SITU for far too long. I also failed to parse TEA, so thanks for that.
    I thought the double hyphen/dash in 1ac was a bit odd.

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