Most of this was straightforward enough, but there are a few bits I did’t fully understand while solving. I finished it in two sessions, and checked my results against Chambers.
Having been left with some work to do, I have researched all the clues, and I think I have everything pretty much nailed down. This was quite an enjoyable Mephisto, with a few penny-drop moments. Clues like Mayflower and shewing were both elusive and shockingly simple once you saw them. I hope everyone had fun – on to the next one!
| 1 | Joint game in which husband goes for runs (5) |
| WRIST – W(-h,+R)IST, a letter-substitution clue. | |
| 5 | River home to Gold Rush (7) |
| TORRENT – T(OR)RENT, a bit of lift and separate. | |
| 11 | Stop legal end of race (9, two words) |
| ANCHOR LEG – ANCHOR + LEG, in entirely different senses. | |
| 12 | Unlimited surge gives swing to SNP? (4) |
| SWEE – SWEE[p], assuming the SNP does speak Scots. | |
| 13 | Naughty tyke’s one that which we all turn on? (8) |
| KEYSTONE – Anagram of TYKE’S ONE. | |
| 15 | Distinguished artist inclined to lose head (7) |
| EMINENT – EMIN + [b]ENT. Emin, the
Azerbaijani-Russian singer. If you biffed, I don’t blame you.
|
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| 16 | Short excursion could be excellent buzz (6) |
| AIRING – A1 RING. | |
| 17 | Reluctant to accept a little pot from India (5) |
| LOTAH – LOT(A)H. | |
| 19 | Gift greeting guardian of the gurdwara (7) |
| GRANTHI – GRANT + HI. | |
| 24 | Take adjective with form mostly for dish (7) |
| RAMAKIN – R + A + MAKIN[g]. | |
| 25 | Chap filled by that before starting to have a little port (5) |
| HYTHE – H(YT, H[ave])E. Yt seems to be popular recently. | |
| 26 | Force a cracking addendum to address (6, two words) |
| CARE OF – Anagram of FORCE A. | |
| 28 | Keep an eye on obscure bottle missing name (7) |
| OBSERVE – OBS + [n]ERVE. | |
| 30 | Look once and dynamic Dundee got noisier (8) |
| LOUDENED – LO + anagram of DUNDEE. | |
| 31 | Percolate Scots skink with head skimmed off (4) |
| OOZE – [b]OOZE. | |
| 32 | Some Puritans set off by this? It’s pink and fragrant (9) |
| MAYFLOWER – Double definition, the boat and the plant. You could do the same thing with speedwell. | |
| 33 | Junction’s behind American in Alabama (7) |
| ABUTTAL – A(BUTT,A)L. | |
| 34 | Going back through endless tunnel one finds lassitude (5) |
| ENNUI – [t]UNNE[l] reversed + I. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Spending w/o profit by women pressing a point (7) |
| WASTAGE – W + A + STING. | |
| 2 | Reserve mob circling about Shackleton’s domain? (8, two words) |
| ICE CRAFT – ICE (C) RAFT. | |
| 3 | Old appearing from the get-go somewhat cutting (7) |
| SHEWING – S[omething] HEWING. This spelling was commonly used well into the 19th century. | |
| 4 | Indication’s endorsement in X (5) |
| TOKEN – T(OK)EN. | |
| 6 | Just ignoring new mass priest starts to impute any sporting site (7) |
| OLYMPIA – O[n]LY + M + P + I[mpute] A[ny], one which most solvers will biff. | |
| 7 | Abandon agreement on damned lies (6) |
| RESILE – RE + anagram of LIES. | |
| 8 | Bacchante’s ultimate bay and bawl? (4) |
| EVOE – [bacchant]E + VOE, a sort of semi &lit, since the Bacchante is needed for the literal. | |
| 9 | Linguistic feature of addition is no longer top hell for Americans (9) |
| NUNNATION – NUN, a spinning top + ‘NATION, rural US dialect for damnation. | |
| 10 | Focus of sentence slightly altering the force? (5) |
| TEETH – [sen]TE[nce] + slight anagram of THE. | |
| 14 | Clear up limits of tanky pile providing weapon (9, two words) |
| DIRTY BOMB – RID upside-down + T[ank]Y + BOMB, in the sense of a pile of money. | |
| 18 | Note level from appropriate upland (8, two words) |
| TAKE DOWN – TAKE + DOWN in entirely different senses. I don’t quite follow what level is doing here. | |
| 20 | Blasted heavy industry, you’ll possibly find it used this brass (7) |
| HRYVNYA – Anagram of HEAVY INDUSTRY – IT USED. Brass in the sense of money in general, the currency of Ukraine. | |
| 21 | Keep talking about consuming ordinary grains (7) |
| HARPOON – HARP (O) ON. A grain is a pronged harpoon – the clue should probably have used the singular. | |
| 22 | Rumpole’s pending information that is on King, aye (7, two words) |
| IN FIERI – INF + IE + R + I. | |
| 23 | The ear’s been bent by reason of this in the past (6) |
| HEREAT – Anagram of THE EAR. | |
| 25 | Jack’s usual response raised every expression of surprise, say (5) |
| HOLLA – ALL + OH upside-down. The usual reply to ahoy! | |
| 27 | In the manner of a bad egg pastor dodged row (5) |
| ADDLE – [p]ADDLE. Of course, paddling and rowing are two different things, but they’re close enough. | |
| 29 | African savings scheme succeeded, usually (4) |
| SUSU – S + USU – yes, usu. is a valid abbreviation for usually. | |
Well, I had everything filled in here, but only just as of this afternoon, so have been looking forward to the blog for explanations… if not to find out that I had one four-letter word, one longer one, and a few letters elsewhere wrong!
“Focus” as the central letters of a word is something I’d not seen before; was wondering where the TE came from.
I’m not getting how HRYVNYA can be construed as an “anagram” of (some part of) HEAVY INDUSTRY – IT USED (many of which 14 letters are not found in HRYVNYA).
If WRIST TORRENT is meant as a pun, it is excruciating. But now I can’t unhear it.
Vinyl, the artist in 15 must be the rather well-known (visual) artist Tracey EMIN. She’s British.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Emin
She appeared in one of the first puzzles I blogged, if memory serves.
It’s a compound, or subtractive anagram, depending on how you look at it. HEAVY INDUSTRY is an anagram of IT + USED + HRYVNYA. I notated it as subtractive – if you take the letters for IT USED out of HEAVY INDUSTRY, you are left with the letters for HRYVNYA.
This device is pretty common in Mephisto.
A subtraction indicator is hard to detect in the clue, though your hyphen does suffice in the explanation. “Blasting” seems to do double duty as anagrind and indicating that “IT USED” is imbedded as if shrapnel in the anagrist.
I overlooked who the setter was. It is, as usual, a pun, though it is even more excruciating than usual!
18D: “level” is another definition- a verb meaning of “take down” is “flatten / raze”.
Indeed. I saw that!
Many thanks to both setter and blogger.
I quite like subtractive anagrams and didn’t have a problem (on this occasion) interpreting 20d.
Re 21d – Chambers does say “(in pl, used as sing)”
RE 22d – to find aye = I, I had to look up both words. I do wonder why only one of the entries in Chambers has both words. I3 refers to aye1 but not vice versa.
Vinyl – you have underlined two too many words for the definition.
21d. The harpoon definition of GRAIN specifies the plural.
In Chambers, it’s quite often necessary to look up both when deciding whether A can mean B. Some fiendish cases have been eased up over the years – not quite the same thing, but look up “emalangeni” and imagine what it was like when you could only find its meaning by looking up “lilangeni”.(Unforgotten example which once felled me in a Listener or similar)
Didn’t attempt this one; I am just looking in to say how wonderful that truly excruciating top row pun is..
I found this one moderately tricky, and had to spend some time rooting around in Chambers to satisfy myself that things like singular HARPOON/plural grains or ‘surge’ for SWEEP were justified.
Love the absolutely awful pun!
Fun one, though I had a silly typo and put in MMINENT for some reason.
By the way, Vinyl—who wrote this one?
…
Never mind. It’s on my copy, of course. I’m reviewing the last month, and have finally realized that you don’t as a rule give the setter’s name…