Mephisto 3169 – Don Manley

Posted on Categories Mephisto
Greetings barred-grid fans,

Don Manley has treated us to another grid of obscure words clued with immaculate wordplay.  I cannot say much else other than that this would be an excellent puzzle for setters who are not regular solvers of Mephisto to try dipping their toes into as the clues are precise and have wonderful wordplay.

In Mephisto puzzes the definition can be confirmed in Chambers, so I will focus on wordplay here.

Away we go….

Across
4 Smart demo contrived to gain absolute control (9)
MASTERDOM – anagram of SMART,DEMO
11 Fresh intelligence of the Parisian Match (6)
LATEST –  LA(the in French), and a TEST match
12 Mineral store I’d established, depleted at either end (6)
OREIDE – hidden inside stORE ID Eestablished
13 Musical character revealing opening, not closing (4)
CLEF – CLEFT (opening) missing the last letter
14 One day in Paris when going round avenue an old coin is found (8)
MARAVEDI – MARDI (Tuesdsay in French) containing AVE(avenue)
15 “How much does ____?” asks pub customer Herb (7)
ALECOST – a pub customer may want to know how much does ALE COST
19 Restricts the loins (5)
REINS – double defnition
20 Cellist in informal attire not appropriate for top person (6)
CASALS – CASUALS(informal attire) missing U(for top person)
21 Lout was badly taken in, just made miserable once (6)
NEW-SAD – NED(lout) containing an anagram of WAS
22 Piano playing harsh in tone with note oddly missing (6)
STRIDE – STRIDENT(harsh in tone) missing alternating letters in NoTe
24 Function in which you’ll see this writer smoke (6)
SMEECH – SECH(hyperbolc secant, function) containing ME(this writer)
27 Shown to have discarded red outside covering no longer used (5)
VEALE – REVEALED(shown) missing RED on the exterior
31 One hundred of the stars in camp (7)
CASTRAL – C(100), ASTRAL(of the stars)
32 Rogue president once to rave stutteringly (8)
ABERRANT – ABE(president once) next to R-RANT(rave stutteringly)
33 Old Scottish miser offering loveless song (4)
CARL – remove O(love) from CAROL(song)
34 Force no longer wrong (6)
EXTORT – EX(no longer), TORT(wrong)
35 Wary football team losing one member before match (6)
TENTIE – a football team would be an ELEVEN, so remove one member leaves TEN then TIE(match)
36 What’s used by surgeon apt to go wrong with a “Sorry!” (9)
RASPATORY – anagram of APT and A SORRY
Down
1 Surprisingly classical English no less strangely poetic somehow (6)
ALCAIC – anagram of CLASSICAL,E(English) minus LESS
2 Having a tax that’s unbelievable I ab’orred (9)
TALLIATED – TALL(unbelieveable), I, ‘ATED(abhorred)
3 Chilly precipitation’s coming up, bringing nerves (6)
STEELS – SLEETS(chilly precipitation) reversed
5 In the manner of rot burning slowly (9)
ASMOULDER – AS(in the manner of), MOULDER(rot burning)
6 Police arrest getting last character carted off (5)
STASI – STASTIS(arrest) missing the last letter
7 Nothing right in the unfilled cake (5)
TORTE – O(nothing), RT(right) inside THE missing the middle letter
8 Minister that is getting married is subjected to criticism (8)
REVIEWED – REV(minister), IE(that is), WED(getting married)
9 Printer’s mark fades — is placed at the bottom (6)
DIESIS – DIES(fades) containing IS
10 The old lament when soldiers have captured island (4)
MEIN – MEN(soldiers) containing I(island)
16 Muscle twitching when stuck in bit of furniture at ground level (9)
CREMASTER – REM(twitching) inside CASTER(a piece of furnature at ground level)
17 A cairn has unusual sort of plant (9)
ANACHARIS – anagram of A,CAIRN,HAS
18 Old pram I flogged in advertising exercise? (8)
MAILDROP – anagram of OLD,PRAM,I
23 Certain plants — rodents will eat half of them up (6)
RAMETS – RATS(rodents) contaning half of thEM reversed
25 Time despicable person admitted mistakes (6)
ERRATA – ERA(time) containing RAT(despicable person)
26 Author, the fellow with hesitation to pen lines (6)
HELLER – HE(the fellow) and ER(hesitation) containing L and L for the author Joseph
28 Short slightly crazy tribute (5)
SCATT – SCATTY(slightly crazy) missing the last letter
29 Something poetic from significant orator (5)
CANTO – hidden insie signifiCANT Orator
30 Set up genuine fortification (4)
LAER – REAL(genuine) reversed

7 comments on “Mephisto 3169 – Don Manley”

    1. My initial problem with this was reading ‘twitching when’ as REM AS, and wondering what on earth CTER had to with it. Very straightforward otherwise, including an diversion to explore the musical meaning of diesis, and a subsequent reacqaintance with the Pythagorean Comma.
  1. I enjoyed this a lot, needing no other reference guide than my Chambers dictionary. I was a bit slow getting started solving only 1 of the across clues on my first pass but the downs got me going. Only CASALS went in unparsed – thanks for explaining that, George…. and thank-you for the entertaining challenge, Don

    Edited at 2021-05-30 12:57 pm (UTC)

  2. A whiz of a Mephisto completed in 28.54 with very few occasions for those confirmatory look-ups. Fantastic and generous cluing.
    I don’t recall parsing CREMASTER properly, convinced that AS for “when” was part of the wordplay, making the rest of it other than REM opaque.
  3. Rare dive into Mephisto-land for me. My rules are (1) happy to check words in Chambers (2) will occasionally allow myself the luxury of an anagram solver. On those terms a steady solve from the NE clockwise but just couldn’t work out how the parsing of CREMASTER worked so faced with _REMASTER I did use a word finder to check that one letter

    Very enjoyable

    Thanks Messrs G and D

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