I felt this was a fairly moderate puzzle, but I still picked at it over a couple of days, being rather lazy about the whole thing. A surprising number of the answers are pretty common words, disguised as cleverly as possible in both the cryptic and the literal. This means that if you are a good cryptic solers, but not a polylingual polymath, you are likely to make pretty decent progress. I did get a little stuck at the end, having two left, but the next day I saw an answer that should have been obvious, and that enabled me to see how the cryptic in the down worked. Some of the disguised literals are pretty good, almost cryptic clues in themselves.
Having completed the blog, I’m off to print off the next Mephisto. They’re pretty addictive. Maybe I’ll try to finish is one sitting, I’ve got plenty of time tonight.
| Across | |
| 1 | Short lawyer gets long case (7) |
| ATTACHE – ATT + ACHE, rather easy for Mephisto, and my FOI. | |
| 6 | First-class part of Sunday Times? Go Mephisto! (5) |
| APAGE – A + PAGE. Here the difficulty is in the literal, it is short for apage Satanas, get away from me, Satan. | |
| 10 | Son with sporting wife gets depression (4) |
| SWAG – S + WAG (wives and girlfriends, used to designate the supporting section of sports teams). Swag itself is a word of many meanings, including the US acronym | |
| 11 | Doctor leading is what serves as a model (8) |
| LOADSTAR – The one I can’t parse, and the variant spelling gave trouble too. Audience participation time! Jerry’s got it, LOAD as in load the dice for doctor, plus STAR for leading. Simpler than expected, no wonder everyone was confused! | |
| 12 | Small dish is timeless Portuguese fake (9) |
| PORRINGER – POR[t] + RINGER, one of the many I biffed, misreading the last word as lake. | |
| 15 | Original cover, for instance for plants with tubers (4) |
| OCAS – O + C + AS. I cannot trace O and C as legitimate abbreviations for original and cover, so something else may be going on. | |
| 16 | One shoots wading bird on river? (6) |
| SNIPER – SNIPE+ R, an easy one. | |
| 17 | Prepare case of trout in English river (6) |
| ATTIRE – A(T[rou]T)IRE. | |
| 18 | Initiates an attack from the front in darts (10) |
| SPEARHEADS – SPEAR(HEAD)S. | |
| 21 | Fruit unfortunately containing fish bone (10) |
| ALGARROBAS – AL(GAR,ROB)AS. Yes, bone as a verb has several interesting meanings. | |
| 23 | Notes held in one song with tabla initially backing (6) |
| TENUTI – I TUNE + T[abla] backwards. | |
| 25 | Dry number first for Andy Williams? (6) |
| SERENA – SERE + N + A[ndy] – fooled ya! | |
| 26 | Champion of course forgoing golf range? (4) |
| TIER – TI[g]ER, as in Woods, the man, not the clubs. | |
| 29 | Trifle: lovely to eat a piece (9) |
| BAGATELLE – B(A GAT)ELLE. | |
| 30 | Pale bubbly in vessel (8) |
| POSTCAVA – POST + CAVA, a blood vessel. | |
| 31 | Sun mess up getting press together (4) |
| SERR – S + ERR, the one that gave me trouble. | |
| 32 | The west lacking leader not yet firm (5) |
| UNSET – [s]UNSET. | |
| 33 | See Ireland’s capital in summer? Not half a delightful place (7) |
| ELYSIUM – ELY + S(I[reland])UM[mer]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Nursemaid hugging son after hot bath is a charmer (7) |
| ASPASIA – A(SPA,S)IA, more often spelt ayah. | |
| 2 | Item a Venetian restaurant served up? (4) |
| TART – TRAT[toria] upside-down, an semi-&lit. | |
| 3 | Old general, one with a tight hold reportedly (7) |
| AGRIPPA – Sounds like A GRIPPER to you non-rhotic folk. | |
| 4 | Muse about painting that’s turned up (4) |
| CLIO – C + OIL upside-down. | |
| 5 | Hard working men on song getting fees paid voluntarily (9) |
| HONORARIA – H + ON + OR + ARIA – the ON comes from working, not the literal in the clue. | |
| 6 | One part of company showing skill (5) |
| ADEPT – A DEPT. | |
| 7 | Sterility in skunk one accepted (6) |
| ATOCIA – ATOC + I + A, from a widely-used Greek root – και συ τέκνων? | |
| 8 | Tailor bargained for twill fabric (9) |
| GABARDINE – Anagram of BARGAINED, surprisingly never seen before. | |
| 9 | Yanks leaving Japan could be personnel in forces (4) |
| ERKS – [j]ERKS – aircraft maintenance personnel, to be specific. | |
| 13 | Learning nothing about L-shaped building material (9, two words) |
| ANGLE IRON – Anagram of LEARNING O. | |
| 14 | Royals not normally seen around throne in Russian city (9) |
| YAROSLAVL – Anagram of ROYALS around LAV. | |
| 19 | Seals ostensibly are so brave when force unleashed (7) |
| EARLESS – [f]EARLESS. | |
| 20 | See tar organised introduction of Microsoft Word on board (7, two words) |
| SEA TERM – Anagram of SEE TAR + M[icrosoft] | |
| 22 | Sounds like kind of coarse-grained rock (6) |
| GNEISS – Sounds like NICE. | |
| 24 | Pamphlet found in vehicle or shed (5) |
| TRACT – TRACT[or]. | |
| 26 | It’s forbidden down under to eavesdrop on oriental mister (4) |
| TAPU – TAP + U – how many solvers remember U Thant? | |
| 27 | Time for bit of Waterfront in rock live from Edinburgh (4) |
| STAY – S(-w,+T)AY. | |
| 28 | Fish live in Florida swamp (4) |
| VLEI – Anagram of LIVE, my LOI. What an anagram indicator! | |
(Collins: to weight or bias a roulette wheel, dice, etc)
‘S = “is”
TAR .. well sailors serve, don’t they? In the Royal or Merchant navies.
I would call the spelling wrong, rather than variant, but Collins has it. Not in the OED though.
‘Fish live’ was weird.
‘Fish’ is a very strange anagram indicator but one of the definitions in Chambers is ‘to ransack’, which I guess kind of works.
O may not be an abbreviation for original, and C may not be an abbreviation for cover, but OC is an abbreviation for original cover. A term from philately, apparently.
The editing team at the Times and Sunday Times watch the blog, so I know of some instances of asking an editor for a puzzle early. I’ve occasionally had a setter run a puzzle by me as a test solve.
Thanks!