Mephisto 2881 – Tim Moorey

I got held up a bit in the top right and the middle left, and have one or two wordplay quibbles, which the hive mind may be able to help out with. In case I have an error in here, I’m going to be out of town on Saturday night and Sunday so this is a scheduled post, and I may not be able to correct promptly. Check in the comments!

Away we go…

Across
1 QALAMDAN: NADA, Q reversed surrounding LAM(leather, thrash)
7 AS IS: the right half of EMPHASIS
10 LIEUTENANT: in the US, this sounds like LOO TENANT
11 ITERANT: ITINERANT missing IN
13 POIS: French for pea, Hawaiian for taro mush
14 ASH,CAN
15 SMITTEN: reversal of NET, TIM’S
16 TWANK: SWANK with S replaced by T
19 RHONDDA: ADD,NO,HR all reversed
21 UTOPIST: clear from the definition but it took me a while to figure out the wordplay – there are apparently two islands called UIST, inside which you put TOP
23 NOWED: knotted – anagram of DOWN,(ti)E
24 TO-BRUSD’: TOD(fox) carrying BRUS(h) – found in Chambers under TO-BRUISE
26 DUENDE: DUE with END inside
28 SECS: sounds like SEX
30 STOLLEN: TOLL inside SEN
31 STEVEDORED: (DROVE)* inside STEED – clever definition, LAST meaning cargo (definition 4 in Chambers)
32 TIDE: double-def, think of anythingTIDE for the festival
33 CHEDDITE: an all-in-one – CITE surrounding HE and D(ate)D
 
Down
1 QUIP: take the first letter from EQUIP
2 ASTOMATOUS: without a mouth – A, SUS surrounding TOMATO
3 AIRSTOP: (TO,PARIS)*
4 MEANT: MEAT(game, think hunting) containing N
5 DUNKER: DRUNK(whistled) missing the R, then ER
6 N,EUSTON
7 ANKH: KHAN with the two halves swapped
8 SACCADE: reversal of E, DACCA’S
9 STINKARD: DRATS reversed surrounding INK(press coverage)
12 CAN,DESCENT
15 STUNDIST: I think this is NUTS reversed, then ‘D for LORD, IS, T
17 LOWERED: remove the first letters from FLOWER BED
18 MIDDLE C: since the middle letter of PUCCINI is a C
20 NURSLED: NURSED surrounding L
22 TOE,TOE
25 BOORD: BROOD with the R moved down
27 NAVE: EVAN reversed
29 SNEE: SEE (phonetic C, close to B) around (garde)N

2 comments on “Mephisto 2881 – Tim Moorey”

  1. I can’t spot any errors George – all looks fine

    I thought 10A weak and didn’t like 21A. The two islands are North and South UIST which are joined by a causeway – they are known locally as the UISTS. The clue would be better for UTOPISTS

    Other than that a reasonable puzzle

  2. I found this much, much harder than other recent puzzles, and only got round to finishing it this morning. Mind you there were a lot of clues where the answer seemed fairly obvious once I’d solved it so perhaps I was just being thick this week.
    A few I didn’t understand, so thanks for the explanations. I thought 15ac was a reversal of NETT, I’M… and I wondered where the S came from!

    Edited at 2015-11-22 12:33 pm (UTC)

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