Mephisto 2943 – Paul McKenna

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
I found this one pretty strightforward and had more than two thirds finished before needing recourse to the dictionary, but at the end I have a few pieces of wordplay that are eluding me, hopefully they will sort themselves out during the writing of this blog.

When I printed this out 19 down was listed as two words, but it was later corrected to three words.

There is also a PaulMcKenna signature pun across the top row, this time for OVERTURNING

Away we go…

Across
1 OVERT: OVER(I’m done, as in “over and out”), ‘T
5 EARNING: LEARNING without L
10 NON-READER: anagram of RARE,DONNE
12 TRITIDE: ID(infectious diseases) inside TRITE(stock, banal)
13 GROPE: ROPE(climbing party) with G(rampians) – almost a perfect “Picnic at Hanging Rock” clue (the Grampians are a bit to the West of Hanging Rock).
14 ASCI: hidden reversed in economIC SAnctions
16 DIADEM: a reversal of MED(Mediterranean) and AID(money grant to the sovereign)
17 UNWIRE: anagram of WE,RUIN
18 CARDINAL SIN: SIN(mistake) with CARDINAL(first would be ORDINAL, one would be CARDINAL)
21 CLOSET DRAMA: CLOSE(secretly) than an anagram (barking) of MAD,ART
24 TENUTO: NET(difficulty) reversed then half of UTOPIA
25 MEDALS: D(iners) in MEALS
28 SCOT: ‘S, COT(small boat) referring to Nicola Sturgeon
29 OXFAM: O(over), X(by), F(following), AM
30 ENLARGE: anagram of NEAR,LEG
31 FLORISTIC: F, LORIS(asian animal), TIC(k)
32 TURACOS: anagram of OUR,ACT’S
33 AEDES: anagram of remove IS from DISEASE and jumble
 
Down
1 OCTADIC?: Here’s one I am stuck on the wordplay for – surely it is OCTADIC from the definition but it isn’t TAD in ODIC and I can’t make CTA from the rest of the clue
2 VERSICLES: L inside an anagram of SERVICES
3 ERICA: ERIC(Irish fine, settlement) and there are multiple A’s in Hampstead
4 TOILED: OILED(rocky, tipsy) with T(Troy)
5 ENDOMITOSES: anagram of DOMINOES,SET
6 REGINA: RE(on),GIN(Geneva is a type of gin),A(last letter in Geneva)
7 NARK: N,ARK(an ark floats)
8 IDOLISM: Tricky wordplay here – I’M surrounding SOLID with the outside letters swapped
9 GREBE: ERG reversed then BE
11 REFUNDMENTS: anagram of TERM,ENDS containing FUN(sport)
15 TRIALOGUE: VOGUE(fashion) with TRIAL instead of V
19 A ONE FOR: A(Australian), ON(forward), then FORE(previously) with the last letter moved up
20 NESTERS: NE(Nebraska) then STEERS missing (th)E
22 ETYMIC: anagram of CITE,MY
23 REALIA: REA(d), then AIL reversed
24 THO,FT
26 ACRED: RACED with the top letter moving down
27 PARA: short for PARAGRAPH – A, RAP all reversed

9 comments on “Mephisto 2943 – Paul McKenna”

  1. Threw in the towel with 1d, 3d, and 12ac unsolved. Hadn’t a clue as to 3d, had the ODIC but, DNK ID. I also didn’t know the Sturgeon lady, but SCOT seemed hard to avoid. I wondered about 19d, since my copy said 2 words. This puzzle struck me as unusual in that I knew virtually all the words (other than THOFT and TRITIDES).
  2. Not too tricky this. One query with 5ac: I don’t see how ‘realising’ means EARNING. To me they are quite different, and it’s not explicity supported by Chambers.

    Edited at 2017-01-29 11:43 am (UTC)

  3. Apologies for not spotting “ODTADIC” as the result of the 1D wordplay, and for “2 words” in the 19D enumeration.

    realising=earning: not as clear as some, but realise=”bring into being” and earn=”gain by labour” seem pretty close.

    1. I can’t see how ‘earn’ means ‘bring into being’, even approximately. The money exists before you earn it! Even if you’re earning something intangible (a well-earned rest, say), it seems to me that the act of earning necessarily precedes, and is separate from, any act of realisation.
  4. Completely thrown by 1D of course and went for OCTADIC via the G8 definition. No problem with the rest of it. Also got 19D from definition before realising enumeration was wrong.
  5. Realising = earning struck me as more of a stock market definition (investments realising dividends) to the point I didn’t go checking it in Chambers, that one was a write-in.

    That Chemistry degree comes in handy sometimes, TRITIDES was a write-in

    1. In financial terms ‘realising’ means converting to cash. A profit can only be realised after it has been earned.

      Edited at 2017-01-29 10:44 pm (UTC)

      1. Well, I convert my crossword-related skills into cash each week. I think I could say that they both “earn” and “realise” that money.

        Mephisto setters have a choice between always sticking to the definitions printed in Chambers and thinking of alternative ones. My thought based on experience in editing is that if they always use Chambers defs verbatim, the clues may have less interesting surface readings than we can sometimes get by going a bit further. In this case, both the answer and wordplay components are everyday words, and I think the verbatim definitions are most helpful when they’re for the words you may never have seen before.

        Edited at 2017-01-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

        1. You could, but I don’t think it’s a standard usage. I think the closest sense is probably the financial one, and to be fair ODO gives some examples where they could be substituted. As a general rule I don’t think specialists have a right to control the meaning of their specialist vocabulary in a wider context (chess buffs objecting to ‘castle’, for instance) so perhaps I just need to chill out a bit and apply that rule to myself!

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