Mephisto 3158 – The Earl of Rochester, for example

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Mephisto
I found this one rather tough.   The grid is very unfriendly to the solver, as eight of the answers have an unchecked first letter, and there are two entries where more than half of the letters are unchecked.   If you are used to just looking up the words in Chambers once you get a few starting letters, you’re going to run into difficulties here.   And it’s not like the answers are well-known obscure words – they’re genuinely obscure, at least the ones I didn’t know.   It’s nice to be able to biff calzone, rugate, and Varna, but that’s not going to get you very far.    You’re really going to have to work the cryptics, and maybe even cheat a little, to really get going.   I didn’t cheat, but it was a long haul to the finish line.

1 Counts about one hundred lymphocytes (6)
T-CELLS – T(C)ELLS, an easy one, if you’re ready for a hyphen.
6 Gold coins found by the way in US state? Pinch of salt applied (6)
KOBANS – K(OB)AN + S[alt].   I went through the states a couple of times before getting this one.   Ob is the abbreviation for obiter.    The three-letter state abbreviations are not longer in use, but that doesn’t stop the Mephisto team.
11 One Knight facing another in felt cap? Could be me (8)
BANNERET –  B (AN,N) ERET.   A banneret is a lead knight carrying a banner, not to be confused with a baronet, which was a fund-raising scheme dreamed up by James I and the Duke of Buckingham.
12 Local rules mostly to stop teens flying kites (7)
ELANETS –  E(LA[w])NETS, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of TEENS.    Elanets are the bird.
13 Charlie in spikes returning from gravelly slope in the Cairngorms (5)
SCRAE –  EAR(C)S backwards, for what is scree in England.
14 Royal deputy is most important purveyor of depravity (8)
VICEKING – VICE KING, an important position, evidently.
16 Quickly going round behind line associated with running water (5)
LOTIC – L + CITO backwards.   I had thought cito would be a musical direction, but it is just a stray Latin word that has somehow got into Chambers.
18 The ground crews knowing position of Polish officer (10)
HETMANSHIP – Anagram of THE + MANS + HIP.
21 The Romans get on dealing with a stag (10, two words)
GENS TOGATA – Anagram of GET ON + A STAG.
26 Poet’s together with sanctimonious Greek character (5)
SAMPI – SAM + PI,   Sampi is a disused Greek character, along with digamma and koppa.   It was used to represent 900 in Greek number notation.   In Ionic dialects, it was apparently some sort of S sound, perhaps TS.   I was actually able to remember it, but not many solvers will be so lucky.
28 Spot to defend Resistance struggle (8)
SPRANGLE – SP(R)ANGLE, where spot is not a very friendly definition of spangle.
29 What may be seen in peaks of Tibetan range surefootedly? (5)
TEHRS – T[ibetan](EH)R[ange]S[urefootedly], more often called tahrs.
30 Conserve and supply one flowery muslin (7)
JAMDANI – JAM + anagram of AND + I.
31 Blades overwhelmed by City and close to fatigue fade away (8)
EVANESCE – E(VANES)C + [fatigu]E.
32 Wrinkly’s game entry (6)
RUGATE – RU + GATE.
33 Both sides of Xmas tree awkwardly stick out (6)
EXSERT – Anagram of X[ma]S + TREE.
Down
1 Leader on pandemic missed, Telegraph’s too subtle for shallow minister (12)
THEOLOGASTER –  Anagram of TELEGRA[p]H’S TOO.   It a poetaster is an amateurish poet, then an amateurish theologian must be a theologaster!
2 Look out from nearby areas for folded over pizzas (8)
CALZONES –  [lo]CAL ZONES.   Since I lived in Manhattan for 30 years, this was a biff for me – every block had two or three pizza places offering slices and calzones.
3 Bang on about cutting levy on energy going up (5)
EXACT – T(C)AX + E, all backwards.
4 Stories going round interest flyers (7)
LINTIES – L(INT)IES, perfectly simple, they’re Scots-speaking linnets.
5 Scorer starts with screen activated before match (5)
SATIE – S[creen] A[ctiviated] + TIE, an easy starter clue.
7 Start where shooting takes place (5)
ONSET – ON SET, as in shooting a movie.
8 Sharp character, governor’s holding barrister up (5)
BECKY –  BE(K.C. upside-down)Y.   Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, that is.
9 Field in Hebridean isle, a little hard to get to the bottom (6)
ARRISH – [h}ARRIS =>H.   The island that Harris tweed comes from, presumably.
10 Gripping topmost of hotel skyscraper, I get to slip badly? (12)
STEGOPHILIST –  Anagrm of H[otel] S[kyscraper] + I GET  TO SLIP.  Here, the Greek root stegos apparently does not mean hidden, but refers to roofs.
15 Stick that’s good for large number in tribe (4)
CLAG – CLA(-n,+G), a letter-substitution clue.   Stick is a verb, and so is clag.
17 As before, I’d arrange day with expert screening internet business (8)
DISPONER – D (I.S.P) ONER – yes, expert is one of the meaning Chambers offers for oner.
19 Ambling without purpose not very good for crowd (4)
MONG – MO[pi]NG.   Moping means something different in the US.
20 More than one saw deplorable meetings about dropping English (7)
STADDAS – SAD DAT[e]S upside-down.
22 Hurry up witch for the Tower (6)
NURHAG – RUN backwards + HAG, more usually nuraghe.
23 Nirvana contrived in failing Hindu caste (5)
VARNA – Anagram of N[i]RVA[n]A, a subtraction anagram.
24 Do absorbing new series on heart of Whitehall? Not yet firm (5)
UNSET – U(N)SE + [whi]T[ehall].   Do and use in the sense of swindle, but I’m not sure about the last letter. U(N,S,[whit]E[hall]T, where ut = do.   See my reply to Peter B below.
25 Quiet apart from attending home (5)
PLACE – PLAC[at]E, as in let’s go over to Jack’s place.
27 What signifies no end of fishermen close to shore? Lots of herring (5)
MEASE – MEA[n]S + [shor]E, where the missing N is the last letter of fishermen.   A mease is about 500 herring, while a cran is 37 gallons of herring.

7 comments on “Mephisto 3158 – The Earl of Rochester, for example”

  1. On the grid: I don’t think eight answers with an unchecked letter at the beginning is particularly unusual. I’m not aware of any standard rule on that point, but in a small random sample of Mephisto grids, I found a couple with eight or nine, one with about four, and one with about eleven. There are no answers in this one with more than half the letters unchecked, but there are four down answers with unching above the level specified in the (barred) grid rules laid down by Ximenes long ago. This point was discussed after test solving, but it was decided that it was better to keep the clues that would have been replaced if the grid had been reworked, and a clue for one of those answers was eased up. I am assured by Tim Moorey that his future grids will follow those rules throughout, as they normally do.

    Other points:
    6A: Like much more ancient unused things, the old longer US state abbreviations are still in Chambers …
    24D: NS = “New Series” in Chambers, which allows the “heart of Whitehall” to be the central E. (And “do” = “ut” in some versions of “do re mi”. The ancient hymn from which Guido d’Arezzo took six line-starting syllables sung to the appropriate note started “Ut queant laxis”, and in France, “ut” is still the name used when C is seen as the standard scale. My Eulenberg pocket score of Schubert 9 has “C major—Ut Majeur—C dur”. Even more detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ut_queant_laxis)

  2. Thanks for explaining PLACE. I couldn’t work out how LACE meant attending but now I see it was PLACATE for quiet not P.
  3. It is a funny thing how a week later, these answers seem completely unfamiliar to me.

    This was a hard one. I needed aids (beyond trawling Chambers, that is) at the end for KOBANS, BANNERETS, BECKY, and ARRISH.

  4. I di this in around 40 minutes, average for a Mephisto, but only knew the TAHRS spelling of the mountain goats and smudged the cryptic.
    I was helped by both long entries being in the rare category of unknown words that emerge as likely from the anagrams. THEOLOG- and -PHILIST left not too many letters to sort out.

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