Greetings barred-grid fans.
Don’t remember a lot about solving this last week, as it was through a Sunday morning fog after enjoying myself thoroughly (maybe a little too thoroughly) at a Renaissance Faire on Saturday. I do remember some of the wordplay being tricky, hopefully I have it all together for the blog. There’s a number of clues that Tim Moorey calls all-in-one in his book (they are also called &lit), where the entire clue is wordplay and definition.
In Mephisto puzzles, definitions (the most direct of which I have underlined) can be confirmed in Chambers, so I will focus on wordplay here.
Away we go…
| Across | |
| 1 | Stuffed vine leaves and cheese back in sold out (8) |
| DOLMADES – EDAM cheese reversed inside an anagram of SOLD. Delicious Mediterranean bite. | |
| 7 | Hard disk unwanted ?— it’s fallen out of use (4) |
| SLID – SOLID(hard) minus O(disk) | |
| 10 | Capital risk, second hundred goes missing in Scottish district (10) |
| PARISCHANE – PARIS(capital) then CHANCE(risk) with the second C(hundred) missing | |
| 11 | Gathered little resistance shown by United (7) |
| RALLIED – R(resistance) and ALLIED(united) | |
| 13 | Article on monster Indian tree (5) |
| AGILA – A(article) and a GILA monster | |
| 14 | Teacher associated with learner’s close shave (6) |
| BARBER – BARBE(Waldensian teacher) and the last letter of learneR | |
| 15 | Veteran’s gone astray in southern seaside town, as reported (5) |
| WRIED – sounds like RYDE (town in the Isle of Wight) | |
| 16 | Criticise what’s put before me: famous oysters (7) |
| PANDORE – PAN(criticise) and the notes before me in the musical scale are DO and RE | |
| 18 | Your chaps came out in a skin condition (7) |
| ECTHYMA – THY(your) inside an anagram of CAME | |
| 20 | One about to get help at sea for swimmer (7) |
| ACALEPH – A(one), CA(about) and an anagram of HELP | |
| 23 | One square metre area adopted by resort (7) |
| CENTARE – A(area) inside CENTRE(a resort) | |
| 26 | About the start of restaurant meal, one’s given out? (5) |
| CARTE – CA(about), the first letter of Restaurant, and TEA(meal) minus A(one) | |
| 27 | One tailless rodent in container for deadly snake (6) |
| KARAIT – A(one), RAT(rodent) minus the last letter inside KIT(container) | |
| 28 | Bass missing in clear sound (5) |
| RIGHT – remove B(bass) from BRIGHT(clear) | |
| 30 | Forget about any drips with this whirling (7) |
| SPIN-DRY – remove A(about) from an anagram of ANY,DRIPS | |
| 31 | Nothing’s in front of Nigel Havers that’s simple and straightforward (10) |
| NO-NONSENSE – O(nothing) in the first letter of Nigel and NONSENSE(havers, found under HAVER in Chambers) | |
| 32 | Pieces of grievous anarchy Trump supported? (4) |
| GATS – first letters in Grievous Anarchy Trump Supported | |
| 33 | Boiled Italian greens could make you retch as before (8) |
| STREIGNE – anagram of IT(Italian),GREENS | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Indian grass showing up a redness (4) |
| DURA -A, RUD(redness) all reversed | |
| 2 | Sadly no acreage accepted for type of evening primroses (10) |
| ONAGRACEAE -anagram of NO,ACREAGE,A(accepted) | |
| 3 | Count on American from the south getting stick (6) |
| MALLET – TELL(count) and AM(American) reversed | |
| 4 | Greek daughter in song finished loveless (7) |
| ARIADNE – ARIA(song) and DONE(finished) minus O(love) | |
| 5 | End with academic course in French town (6) |
| DIEPPE – DIE(end) and PPE(Philosophy, Politics and Economics, academic course) | |
| 6 | Credit filling hospital food (5) |
| SCRAN – CR(credit) inside SAN(hospital) | |
| 7 | Gap got rid of stores back in September (5) |
| SHERD – SHED(got rid of) containing the last letter in SeptembeR | |
| 8 | Old kilted plates a hit with the lads (7) |
| LAMBOYS – LAM(a hit) and BOYS(lads) | |
| 9 | Loss of French corps in action (8) |
| DECREASE – DE(of, in French) then RE(corps) inside CASE(action) | |
| 12 | The new primer is about pesticide (10) |
| PERMETHRIN – anagram of THE,N(new),PRIMER | |
| 15 | What’s great with riding for pleasure? (8) |
| WHACKING – W(with), HACKING(riding a horse for pleasure) | |
| 17 | Minutes are not including name for body of vassals (7) |
| MANRENT – M(minutes), AREN’T(are not) containing N(name). Found in Chambers under MANRED | |
| 19 | Aberdonian shrink following origins of tiredness advised drug? (7) |
| TACRINE – CRINE(shrink) after the first letters in Tiredness Advised | |
| 21 | More aware of the latest record in hot period (6) |
| HEPPER – EP(record) inside H(hot), PER(period) | |
| 22 | Scholar’s call for truce as if in for trouble (6, two words) |
| FAINS I – anagram of AS,IF,IN | |
| 24 | High cost includes first-class fare from Mexico (5) |
| TACOS – anagram of COST containing A(first-class) | |
| 25 | Look north and south for clubs in Scotland (5) |
| AIRNS – AIR(look), N(north) and S(south) | |
| 29 | Not entirely empty kennel for a dog (4) |
| TYKE – hidden inside empTY KEnnel | |
I only got 1 across and 4 downs on a first pass through the clues; in all this took me over 1 1/2 hours. But I got there in the end. I liked the 3 &lits and the wordplay for do re. Thanks Tim and George.
I didn’t understand pandore, so thanks for that. Otherwise, all correctly parsed and understood after a lot of research. I put in fains I from the cryptic, but wasn’t sure if I’d got fain si, fa insi, or fains I, so I had to go Google all the possibilities.
I found this tricky, and opted for WRYED at 15ac. It’s an archaic word and there’s no indication in Chambers as to how to conjugate it so I went with what looked like the more olde worlde spelling. Harrumph.