Mephisto 3160 – The Hight Report

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Mephisto

Well, here’s one for Mephisto beginners – I’ve actually got a time, 48 minutes.   I mostly just filled in the obvious answers, glancing at Chambers every once in a while, until I had only a few tougher ones left.   I had heard of most of the answers, so biffing was certainly within reach once a few crossing letters were in place.   I have to admit I was a bit disappointed, as the whole point of Mephisto is to take up hours of your time and completely baffle you.    However, your experience may have been different, depending on what words you know and what allusions are familiar to you.

Across
1 Thinks about prisoners being given a time in place of worship inside (12)
CONTEMPLATES – CON(TEMPL(A.T.)E)S, a matryoshka clue.
9 Beginning to escape, Spice Girl may get a female adviser (6)
EGERIA – E[scape] + GERI + A, a nymph who was the emperor’s girlfriend, which is quite handy when you’re founding an empire.
10 Some dry goods in untidy heap at front of hospital (5)
EPHAH – Anagram of HEAP in front of H, a word from US crosswords.
12 Country folk right by mountain range (6)
RURALS – R + URALS.
13 Historic decay in extended realm? Source of anguish for one (6)
EMPARE – EMP(-i,+A)RE, a simple letter-substitution clue for a Spenserian variant.
14 Fab musician with sitar to chant outside hotel (9)
RAVISHING – RAVI [Shankar]  S(H)ING.
15 Film providing some lurid entertainment (5)
IDENT – hidden in [lur]ID ENT[ertainment], a usage I didn’t know, but the obvious answer.
17 Spots what sounds like an East End carriage? (4)
ACNE –  Sounds like ‘ackney, guv.
18 Educator retaining only one element of basic education — not a loyal type (8)
TREACHER –  T(R)EACHER.
20 So this could be a forest? Erm, possibly! (8, two words)
TREE FARM – Anagram of FOREST? ERM Compound anagram, A FOREST ERM gives SO TREE FARM; ERM can stand for Environment Resource Management, so a neat &lit.
26 Party hit with embarrassment having ditched leader (4)
BASH – [a]BASH.
28 Paintings of fashion princess (5)
TONDI – TON + DI.
29 A vertebra broken in rodent (9, two words)
BEAVER RAT – Anagram of A VERTEBRA.
30 Like a lump of mud ultimately ruining foyer? (6)
GLOBBY – [ruinin]G + LOBBY.
31 Below a Welsh location (6)
ANEATH – A + NEATH.
32 Eel is cooked in vinegar no longer (5)
ESILE – Anagram of EEL IS.   I started with the common spelling, eisel, but saw it wouldn’t do.
33 The writer at home that is establishing old-style household (6)
MEINIE – ME + IN + I.E.
34 Having secured corner that’s quiet, maybe watch bird (12)
TANGLEPICKER – T(ANGLE,P)ICKER.   The only question was whether ingle or angle was needed.
Down
1 Tree with fruit he plucked one by one (6)
CERRIS – C[h]ERRI[e]S, where you have to follow the instructions carefully.
2 Having a network working in Denver (6)
NERVED – Anagram of DENVER.
3 Learner has come down, needing a little support externally (7)
TRAINEE – T(RAIN)EE.
4 Maiden meets Jacob’s son, a flirt (6)
MASHER – M + ASHER, a word with different connotations in the US.
5 Old-fashioned demonstration set off fire in gym (6)
PREIFE – P(anagram of FIRE)E.
6 Group of plants, many regularly found in meadow (5)
LEMNA – LE(M[a]N[y])A.   Duckweeds.
7 PM ignoring the Queen? That could be hairy! (6)
THATCH – THATCH[er].
8 Sun in this place no longer bright? (5)
SHERE – S + HERE.
11 Spider very dry secures a drain finally, ending in latrine (7)
ARANEID – AR(A,[drai]N,[latrin]E)ID, a rather difficult construction.
16 A slider in trouble comes off the track (7)
DERAILS – Anagram of A SLIDER.
19 Foot’s getting cold after job, restricting one (7)
CHOREIC – CHORE(I)C.   Pertaining to a choree, which is more usually called a trochee.  Interesting, this word is more often used to mean pertaining for chorea, but that meaning is not given under chorea in Chambers.
21 Remove old lines somehow with introduction of Olay (6)
ESLOIN – Anagram of LINES + O[lay], and not O[ld] as you might think.
22 Aged man’s being buried — to get resurrected, as the Bard would have it? (6)
ARAYSE –  A(RAY’S)E, from All’s Well that Ends Well.
23 Minister, a politician providing overhaul (6)
REVAMP –  REV + A MP.
24 English knight king (a new king) put in position as before (6)
ENRANK – E + N + R + A + N + K, almost a parody of cryptic construction techniques.  Don is having a bit of fun here.
25 Shrink from someone trying to be funny — that woman! (6)
WITHER – WIT + HER.
26 Father maybe to ask for money with extremes of embarrassment (5)
BEGET –  BEG + E[mbarrassmen]T.
27 Jack, heading off, one to rise up hill (5)
JEBEL – J + [r]EBEL.   I didn’t know this one, but that had to be it – and it was.

15 comments on “Mephisto 3160 – The Hight Report”

  1. We still have a couple of queries, if anyone can help: in 20 ac there are 2 letters unaccounted for in the anagram, and 22 down we don’t see the “aged” in the outer 2 letters
    2. Ae is an abbreviation for the Latin aetatis, aged. Check Chambers!
      As Kevin says 20ac is what’s known as a compound anagram.

      Edited at 2021-03-28 09:45 am (UTC)

  2. I think this may be an easy one for old hands at Mephisto, as there are several answers or wordplay elements that are new to beginners but used fairly often.

    For “Jebel”, one not very helpful tip is that “Gibraltar” is one of our English garblings of foreign names – in Arabic it’s “Jebel al Tariq” = “Tariq’s mount”.

  3. This took me 25 minutes, which is about as quick as it gets.
    I put EISEL too, but I’m not sure I’d call it ‘common’! It shows you’ve been doing these things for a while when you know there are two possible spellings for an obscure word like this.

    Edited at 2021-03-28 08:53 am (UTC)

  5. 38:30 is probably my fastest Mephisto even when held up by a few at the end. Count me as another who had EISEL first for 32A. Good fun. Thanks Don and Vinyl.
  6. A rare, quick, single session solve for a Mephisto, with hardly any trips to Chambers required, trusting to some very solid wordplay throughout.
  7. Similar experience as most only question mark was next to ESILE until I got checking letters.

    Edited at 2021-03-28 05:06 pm (UTC)

  8. I agree with Vinyl. This was a very poor effort, with many feeble clues that were scarcely of the standard of the Times Concise. The most egregious was prob 16 down. I’m really surprised that the crossword editor accepted it.

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