Mephisto 3287 – Robert Teuton

14 comments on “Mephisto 3287 – Robert Teuton”

1. I don’t think we’re going to see many successful solvers here, George – I struggled all week, and really had to push to finish today. I kept getting the right answer – croon, for example – and erasing it because I was unable to parse it. I was convinced for a long time that ‘at Oxford, for example’ must = UP, which made the SE very difficult.

   I’m definitely taking back everything I said about the two newer setters being easy! I’m certainly glad that this one fell to George, even though I eventually finished.

2. Finally finished it on Thursday. Tough indeed. I’d marked six clues of which I didn’t understand the parsing:3,15,30,7,14 and 17. The last of which I read Peter as stop. Clearly the reference to safe is the correct interpretation. I got 3/4 of this done the was stuck on the right hand side. Not until I stumbled across Os of Advent did I get to the finish. Thank you for your explanations- all very helpful.

3. In 1A, I somehow destroyed an apostrophe in “author’s” – apologies for that.

   In 25D the NJ location George wondered about seems to be Mahwah. Our def is a “butter tree” which apparently produces mahwa/mahua butter.

   I found it a much tougher solve than Robert’s other puzzles so far, but my conclusion from checking was simply that he had found more material from Chambers that I’d not seen before (or forgotten about).

   1. Perhaps you should ask Mr T to throttle back a bit? In my view, a proper Mephisto consists of about 1/3 moderately difficult clues, 1/3 hard clues, and 1/3 very hard clues – spread evenly across the grid. Most of the puzzles in past few years have been like this.

      1. I’m not going to ask someone to worry about difficulty on the basis of one puzzle. Partly because it is practically impossible to measure accurately in the time available. One setter who works for me has sometimes given difficulty ratings on 1 to 10 scale, which are often very different to my assessment. I found it difficult too, but the number of entries I can see sent by email is practically identical to that for two previous difficult Mephistos this year, and so far no-one else has made this kind of suggestion for any of those three puzzles.

4. Yes indeed, extremely tough. This took me over an hour and a half all told, in several grinding sessions. I never did manage to parse ITAR-TASS or SHED so thanks for those explanations George.
   I had MOHWA for ages, which fits the wordplay and is given in other dictionaries but not Chambers. Should have known!

5. Are eyebrows part of the forehead or rather just below the forehead ? I never thought they were part of the forehead myself but investigating sites on anatomy hasn’t helped me find a definite answer.

   1. Chambers defines forehead as “the front of the head above the eyes, the brow”

      1. Thanks, that’s definitive. Some anatomical sites said yes, some no. To say what was or wasn’t part of scalp, face, forehead whatever they mostly went by underlying bone structure. Anyways actual usage and Chambers certainly trump anatomy for our purposes.

6. The Mahwah comment was meant to be a joke, maybe should have been more descriptive. I once dated someone from Hackensack and used to have a ball with the funny (to me) place names around Bergen County such as Ho-Ho-Kus, Teaneck, Cresskill (I explained kill as watercourse in a previous Mephisto blog), and Mahwah. There is a chain of convenience stores in the area called WaWa, so I particularly enjoyed the presence of the Mahwah Wawa.

7. Yes the toughest of Robert’s so far. Don’t continue to make them harder, please! I had all completed correctly, I see from checking, but I failed to parse AIRED, SHED, ECORCHE and O’S OF ADVENT, so thanks for explaining those, George.. and for the strenuous mental workout, Robert.

8. Funnily enough, I didn’t find this too bad, completing in less than a hour in a single session. MITCHING (though without the T) I know from Hamlet “Merry, this is miching mallecho, it means mischief.” I think that hindered, rather than helped!
   I mildly miffed to find that TWIGLOO is not a word created by me and my grandchildren for the spectacular tepees we built in Epping Forest.
   Nice to see the O’s of Advent: might I recommend Choral Evensong at least so that you can answer clues like that with confidence?

9. I had decided in advance last Sunday that I would allocate more time to really get my teeth into the Mephisto.
   So, a lucky week to choose to do this. But that meant I really enjoyed the range of territory covered: from (clever use of) Avid Merrion to Homeric recitation; Advent liturgy to cottaging. I also liked the reference to Betjemen’s poem Slough, the use of scorcher and smartass in wordplay, and the fun clues for rip-rap, tip-top and safe word.

10. I too found this a slog, and not an enjoyable one. I thought ONE = A – cropping up in two clues -was discouraged. (I think it should be outright banned.) Too many clues relying on ‘take the last letter of X and the first letter of Y and dump them in a stripped version of Z’, in the kind of laboured formulaic way that makes me want to take up jigsaws. Too many alphabet trawls, followed by a scramble to decipher the clue. And that was with knowing the likes of SKIO and ECORCHE and SIKAS and BEFANA and GUNDY, which prompted me to remember SALMAGUNDY. The OS OF ADVENT came by luck. I’d guessed ADALTO, presuming he was a pre-Renaissance Italian hymn composer, and found ADVENT after checking. So, no, not for me, though I have enjoyed Robert’s previous puzzles.

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