Mephisto 3149 – Tim Moorey

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto

Well we have often told you that you need Chambers to complete Mephisto (or at least to verify definitions), but in this case it is true four times over. There have been a few puzzles like this with a word or a phrase repeated in the Mephisto series.

I saw that gimmick pretty quickly and put all four occurrences in without checking the clues too hard, so this was one of my fastest completions of a Mephisto puzzle.

Since definitions (the most direct of which is underlined) can be found in Chambers, Chambers, Chambers or Chambers, I will focus on the wordplay here.

Away we go….

Across
1 Divine player of bridge, for example (8)
SOUTHSAY – SOUTH(player of bridge), SAY(for example). Found under SOOTHSAY
7 Horse, that is to say Silver (4)
SCAG – SC(scilicet, that is to say), AG(silver). Horse meaning heroin here.
11 Leaning forward as before, look stern pulling faces (6)
ASTOOP – CAST(look for as in cast a net), and POOP(stern of a ship) missing the first letters
12 Missing father, college student in Surrey town (5)
ESHER – remove FR(father) from FRESHER(first-year college student)
13 Doctor in search for treatment? Room for diet perhaps (8)
CHAMBERS – MB(doctor) in an anagram of SEARCH
15 Commonly made from a table (10)
OFTENTIMES – OF(made from) a TEN TIMES table
16 Poet’s still evasive, about to retreat first (5)
ACCOY – COY(evasive) with CA(about) reversed at the start
19 Fish caught for Sabbath in Manhattan area (4)
COHO – C(caught) instead of S(Sabbath) in SOHO(South of Houston, NYC area)
20 Director not quite 20 gets Will’s “enough said” (8)
SCORSESE – remove the last letter of SCORE(20) then SESE(enough said, found under SESSA in Chambers) for the US film director
21 China firm on American left repeatedly (8)
COALPORT – CO(firm), A(American), then L and PORT both being left
23 Independent is carrying leader on Rupert Murdoch (4)
IRIS – I(independent) and IS containing the first letter of Rupert for the writer
25 Delivery firm not half late, on reflection tip out (5)
UPSET – UPS(United Parcel Service – a delivery firm that is not in Chambers), then half of laTE reversed
27 A Baltic rum drunk in retirement (10)
UMBRATICAL – anagram of A,BALTIC,RUM
30 Mrs Beach composed suite for recorders? (8)
CHAMBERS – anagram of MRS BEACH
31 Run alongside Russian river in the country (5)
RURAL – R(run), URAL(Russian river)
32 Film story covering literary hero short of money (6)
TALKIE – TALE(story) containing KIM(eponymous hero of the Kipling novel) missing M(money)
33 Brand (only two letters of solution required!) (4)
ESSO – sounds like S and O(the first two letters of SOlution). One of the brand names of ExxonMobil
34 Pierced skin of tiny Dee eel caught (8)
EYELETED – anagram of the outer letters of TinY, DEE and EEL. The anagram indicator here is caught, meaning tangled.
Down
1 Absolutely no magic initially in bed (4)
SACK – SMACK(absoutely) missing the first letter of Magic
2 Unfinished cabin below old plant (5)
OSHAC – SHACK(cabin) missing the last letter under O(old)
3 Trifles of T Moorey all wrong? Drop a line! (10)
TOMFOOLERY – anagram of OF,T,MOOREY,ALL minus A, L(line)
4 Went about work supporting special constable? (8, two words)
SPEED COP – PEED(went to the toilet) C(about), OP(work) under S(special)
5 Look north for Aberdonian club (4)
AIRN – AIR(look), N(north)
6 Insubstantial indeed, borders on triviality (5)
YESTY – YES(indeed) and the outer letters of TrivialitY
8 Child training bares bottom on them (8)
CHAMBERS – CH(child) and an anagram of BARES with the last letter of theM. The whole being a definition for chamberpot
9 Prince seen with aged knight, mostly calm (6)
AENEAS – AE(aged), N(knight), and EASY(calm) missing the last letter, for the Trojan hero
10 Most rank Diana the star in romance years ago (8)
GROSSEST – the star is Motown legend Diana ROSS inside GEST(romance)
14 Describing what can be wasted, engineer stabilised pressure for a short time (10)
DISSIPABLE – anagram of STABILISED with P(pressure) replacting T(time)
16 Australian cricket club away from home about to prepare for a battle? (8)
ACCOUTRE – A(australian) CC(cricket club), OUT(away from home), RE(about)
17 Note it’s missing out “BAME” — case for revisions? (8)
CHAMBERS – Here we go.. the note is a CHIT, remove IT.  Then an anagram of BAME and the outer letters of RevisionS.  The whole is a cryptic defintion referring that BAME(an acronym for Black And Minority Ethnic) does not appear in Chambers but may end up in the next edition. It was added to Mirriam Webster this year, I believe
18 Salt type one consumed? (8)
FORMIATE – FORM(type), I(one), ATE(consumed). Found under FORMATE
22 Very large rodent loses tail containing hard, grey element (6)
OSMOUS – OS(very large) MOUSE(rodent) missing the last letter
24 Liberal in club is a twin (5)
MACLE – L(liberal) inside MACE(a club)
26 Spot around outskirts of Rimini is a top spot (5)
EYRIE – EYE(spot) surrounding the outer letter of RiminI
28 Some kind of square dance (4)
THEY –  A T square, then HEY(dance)
29 Scottish expert reflected miles away (4)
USED – MUSED(reflected) missing M(miles)

10 comments on “Mephisto 3149 – Tim Moorey”

  1. This was pretty easy for a Mephisto once I found the second CHAMBERS and immediately looked to see if all the symmetric places were also CHAMBERS. I totally missed the BAME not appearing in the dictionary, although that wasn’t necessary to solve the clue. My one big holdup was spelling SCORSESE as SCORCESE, partially because CESE seemed enough like “cease” to be “enough said”. There seemed to be fewer extreme words than usual, the odd ones being things like EYELETED, which I’m sure I’ve never actually seen written down before but isn’t one of those words that you look up in vain hope that it might be in Chambers to find that it really is a word and its meaning is precisely the words in the clue.
    1. ….where my only head-scratcher was AENEAS, and I’m therefore grateful to George for parsing it.
  2. Not difficult, and I spotted the CHAMBERS thing when the second one went in which helped. Fun though, I particularly liked the self-deprecation of 3dn. Funny to see SPEED COP again after it appeared in a puzzle over Christmas.
  3. Chambers’s Twentieth Dictionary was first published in 1901 so perhaps this excellent puzzle was meant to mark its 120th anniversary…

    Midas

    1. I don’t ask the setters to explain the reason for little themes when they’re used, but I think the direct inspiration was the use of Chambers as the word to clue in a certain clue-writing contest linked to a well-known barred grid crossword, in which this word was recently the word to clue. “Recently”, but still in 2020, so the anniversary can’t have been the reason behind that choice.
  4. Apologies: I seem to have missed Century out of the title: Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary.

    Midas

  5. At 1hr 20 minutes this was quick for me for one of Tim’s. I thought this was great fun and loved the multiple Chambers. 8D became a write-in with a couple of checkers. I liked ESSO too. Thanks Tim and George.
  6. I’ve not been working these, but the repetition of an answer word would have driven me absolutely crazy. I didn’t know you could do that!
    1. Sorry for replying slowly – still catching up with various things after the Christmas break. I think Tim Moorey does one of these “four-clue” puzzles about once every 3 or 4 years (I’m guessing that this is the third one I’ve edited in the last 10 years).

      Long ago, when there weren’t as many weekend barred grid crosswords doing all sorts of themes, fairly gentle extra features like this were seen from time to time in Mephisto. When you’ve seen this one before, it means getting a couple of free answer completions when you notice the second of the four and see that the checking letters are OK in the other two of the four symmetrically placed answer spots.

      As for putting people off, it should only do so if you base your solving on perceived rules about grid content, rather than thinking “however unusual it may seem, those must be the answers”, in the style of Sherlock Holmes.

      Edited at 2021-01-16 12:00 pm (UTC)

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