Mephisto 3130 – India, not Africa!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Mephisto

When I generated the blog skeleton and pasted it into Live Journal, I had a moment of panic – I don’t remember any of these answers!   Is this the right puzzle?   Yes, it is, and judging by my copy I solved it.    So some recollection and research may be required here.   I can say that I didn’t solve it correctly, as there was one answer where I did not interpret the wordplay correctly and put in an answer that, although a word, did not fit the literal.   It was a rather tough puzzle in places, and my knowledge of classical languages was definitely useful.   Don Manley isn’t getting any easier, all the way from the Quickie to here in Mephisto.

There were definitely some interesting words here, and you might want to add some of them to your vocabulary.   You can never know too many words if you are solving Mephisto, and they do tend to recur, as they do in the standard puzzles – it’s just that there are a lot more of them.

Across
1 Poet’s mama is strangely changing colour for some reason (11)
APOSEMATISM – Anagram of POET’S MAMA IS, where the the Greek root means something like the act of signalling away, which is applied to creatures who change colour for the purpose of camoufloge.
10 Friend accompanying an old man to get shelter from the sun (6)
PALAPA – PAL + A PA, easy cryptic, at least.  It’s a thatched sun hut.
11 Old fellow with small body attached to knight (6)
GEMMAN – GEMMA + N.  It’s a gentleman as pronounced by a mealymouthed 18th-century lowlife.
12 Embarrassed little wife revived (5)
REDUX – RED + UX, a valid English abbreviation of uxor, a word that doesn’t exist in Engish, according to Chambers.  OK.
13 Story about academic engineer generating fuel in Scotland (7)
EILDING – LIE backwards + D.ING, Doctor Ingeniariae.   Eilding is eldin, in case you were wondering – you could look it up.
16 Earthenware pot mostly used in vineyards (4)
CRUS – CRUS[a].
17 Saint wandering around African country — one like Francis of Assisi? (9)
ANIMALIST – Anagram of SAINT around MALI, with the literal referring to the legend of St Francis and the lion wolf.
18 Pay in advance for a function, sparing nothing (4)
ARLE -A + R[o]LE, another word from up North.
20 Gosh, the first person to hide inside and show fear! (5)
COWER – CO(WE)R, a starter clue.
22 The female taking in journalist for religious instruction (5)
HEDER – H(ED)ER, more commonly seen as cheder.
24 A manuscript containing old piece of scripture (4)
AMOS – A + M(O)S, a clue that you might see in the Quickie.
27 A pert lad’s done body-building exercise (9, two words)
LAT SPREAD –  Anagram of A PERT LAD’S.
29 Leather a vessel brought form the east (4)
NAPA – A PAN reversed.   In the US, they sell auto parts!
31 What may be in envelope — it peels apart (7)
EPISTLE –  Anagram of IT PEELS.   Presumably a modern epistle, since I don’t think St Paul used envelopes.
32 Scientist whoops endlessly about uranium (5)
CURIE – C(U)RI[s].   A bit of a giveaway, using a radioactive element in the wordplay.
33 Priest about to give report on action (6)
SITREP – Anagram of PRIEST, nearly a chestnut.
34 Artist with design following a logical system (6)
RAMEAN – R.A. + MEAN (as a verb).   From Peter Ramus.
35 Insane once about woman at match getting medical treatment (11)
DEBRIDEMENT – DE(BRIDE)MENT.
Down
2 Plant — horse eats one in Scotland (6)
PAEONY – P(AE)ONY, one of the many Scots words for “one”.
3 Experienced person in Newgate? (7, two words)
OLD BIRD – OLD + BIRD, where one of the meanings of bird is a prison.
4 Rested outside university compound in Glasgow? (4)
SAUT – SA(U)T, known as a salt down here.
5 Seaweed from liquid realm (5)
MAERL – Anagram of REALM.
6 Instrument given new steel covering (9)
TELESCOPE – Anagram of STEEL + COPE.
7 Drizzle in southern commune overlooking river (5)
SMIRR – S MIR + R.   A mir was a peasant farming commune in early Soviet Russia.
8 No longer occupy island, unconditional leader having been deposed (6)
MANURE – MAN + [p]URE, an obsolete and obscure meaning of manure being meant.
9 Trading ends sadly, making one very troubled (11)
ANGSTRIDDEN –  Anagram of TRADING ENDS, which invokes a word manipulation that is not used in this clue.
10 Each prominent feature penned by journalists showing tendency to moralise (11)
PREACHINESS – PR(EA CHIN)ESS.
14 After hostilities extravagant speaker is one offering guarantees (9)
WARRANTER – WAR + RANTER, another easy  one.
15 Strip of material that is kept in room (4)
RIEM – R(I.E.)M.
19 Strip machine almost to the bottom (4)
LATH –  LATH[e].
21 Ewe possibly as one of a minority flock (7, two words)
WEEFREE –  WEE FREE, a reverse cryptic of EWE.   An early 20th-century splinter group.
23 Snake Greek character found in valley to the north (6)
ELAPID – PI inside DALE upside-down.
25 Curse man who deals in rupees? (6)
BANIAN – BAN  IAN.   This is where I came a cropper, putting in Malian.  Unfortunately, the rupee was never used in Mali.   A banian is an Indian merchant.
26 Rod applied to kiddie’s bottom brings hatred (5)
SPITE – SPIT + [kiddi]E.
28 Item of archaeological interest curator finally housed in building (5)
SHERD – SHE([curato]R)D.
30 Mother has no yen for masquerade, keeping quiet (4)
MUMM – MUMM[y],

13 comments on “Mephisto 3130 – India, not Africa!”

  1. ….and certainly one of Don’s tougher offerings. I had trouble with the DING of 13A, and didn’t see the curse of the BANIAN for a long while.
  2. I managed this in around 35 minutes, but needed quite a bit of confirmatory looking up.
    I couldn’t find PALAPA in my Chambers, and for quite a while thought I was wrong elsewhere and it was PANAMA. despite not fitting the wordplay.
    I took the ANIMALIST reference to St Francis being pretty much about his enthusiasm for all creatures, though there is a story of him taming a fierce wolf (rather than a lion). I’ve visited the various St Francis sites, including the monstrous Grand Central Station construction that houses his customary humble final hut.
    I liked the neat anagram for ANGSTRIDDEN, and took my time over PREACHINESS working out which bit of the answer belonged to “each” (all of it?) “prominent feature” (ness? chine?, chin?) and journalists.
    The WEE FREEs were joyously taken up by Terry Pratchett as a rabble of impossibly belligerent tiny men with thick Glaswegian accents, I don’t think the original Wee Free would be that displeased.
  3. Is it possible to construct a mephisto without the seemingly obligatory and relentless inclusion of Scottish colloquialisms? Five in this offering alone. Mr Grumpy
    2. Chambers has a Scottish heritage, so there is more coverage of Scottish usage and spellings reflecting Scottish pronunciation than there might be if it had originally come from England. I have never attempted a statistical survey of Mephisto “Scotsness”, but my honest guess is that if you tried to fill a Mephisto-style grid with words mostly in Chambers, you would find it quite hard to keep those words out.

      Edited at 2020-08-30 09:30 am (UTC)

  4. An excellent puzzle I thought that required concentrated application

    Two trips down memory lane. One of my wife and I eating cheese and drinking wine in Assisi. The other of Sauchiehall Street after dark when I think the WEE FREES still roam free at times

  5. All done and parsed in an hour bar my last two, which I needed aids to get – GEMMAN (not knowing GEMMA either) and BANIAN. Like vinyl I considered MALIAN b ut checked the currency so eliminated that. Nice puzzle. Thanks Don and Vinyl.
  7. I found this pretty straightforward: that wavelength thing again. I was all done in about 25 minutes.
    The WEE FREE have come up somewhere else lately. I can’t remember where or find any trace of it but it was a write-in for me, and I had never heard of them a month ago.
    1. They were in a recent Concise Jumbo crossword I think. I knew them from Dr Finlay’s Casebook (!)

      Edited at 2020-08-31 09:06 am (UTC)

      1. You are quite right. I very rarely do those so I didn’t think to check and it makes it even more of a coincidence.
        I have no idea what Dr Finlay’s Casebook is so that was never going to help me!

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