Mephisto 3295 – Robert Teuton

29 comments on “Mephisto 3295 – Robert Teuton”

1. The “heel” is the last letter of “rival,” actually.
   (Didn’t finish this, but very interesting.)

2. I found this a bit more of a struggle so completed in two sessions. A couple of things held me up in particular: NHO gun as in ‘gun an engine’ (28ac) – spent far too long trying to confirm that REV was an accepted abbreviation of REVOLVER. In the end I settled for that, which got me the answer but not the right way.
   The other thing that troubled me was why I should ignore the U in GRU (20ac). The signal for that seems to be ‘hampered’. Is that a recognised indicator in crosswording circles? It seemed to me that we had two anagrinds but I couldn’t see how they were functioning. In the end I took ‘hampered’ as the anagrind and ‘criminal’ as a suggestion that U had been inexplicably stolen.

   1. I figured it either had to mean the U at the end of “Gru” was elided or the E at the end of “wise”; found EARWIGS as an anagram, but still haven’t gotten around to obtaining Chambers, so couldn’t check the definition.
      (I’m wondering what language KGOTLA is from now!)

      1. According to Chambers KGOTLA is Bantu.
         By the way, if you use a tablet then the App version of Chambers is very cheap – less than a third the book cost, unlike Collins. The Chambers app is unabridged and comes with the thesaurus (can’t remember whether that an additional charge or not). I have to say I like to own the physical book as well).

         1. I use an iMac, a MacBook Pro or an iPhone. No tablet, though!

            1. You can get the app for the iPhone.

3. Is JAP supposed to be OK because the P is deleted?

   1. In Collins, it is given under British English as an abbreviation for Japanese, with no indication of it being offensive; that is reserved for American English.
      I must say I have never been able to work out why Brit is OK but Jap is apparently not…

      1. I think you have an old edition of Collins – the 13th/2018 edition does have “Jap” indicated as offensive. But as others have said, the definition is simply “snack”, with jak as the truncated word.

         There’s no logic to what’s offensive or not. All you can really do is follow the information in dictionaries, and use judgment where the description is “sometimes offensive”.

         1. It was Collins online .. I have a treeware Chambers, but not Collins

            1. It’s there in the first part of https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jap

               It’s not always easy to find the Collins English Dictionary on the site which has about four English (language) dictionaries plus some other content, but you can’t really moan when they’re all free.

               1. When you look up a word there’s always a little red drop-down menu at the top that gives you the various options. Just select ‘Collins English Dictionary’. Easy peasy!

         2. In record catalogs, they had to change the abbreviation for a Japanese pressing from JAP to JPN. I don’t think anyone really cared, as it was just an abbreviation indicating where the record was mastered and pressed.

   2. It’s JAK – breadfruit – abbreviated. JAP would be considered non-PC these days. Jalebi is made with dough.

4. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
   1 d seld = rarely.
   Like Richard, I wasn’t sure how the U had to disappear and my “logic” was the opposite of his. In fact now that I look it up, I see that hamper = curtail!

   1. Thanks. That explains it. I should have looked it up. Ditto gun.

5. I found this quite tricky, and made life more difficult for myself by putting in a confident SARAPE, assuming (wrongly) that SARI might also be a word for embroidery.
   I was initially shocked by JAP but then I thought there was no way they would use a word like that and reconsidered.

6. I like the modern references in the surface readings: Despicable Me film series (20ac, as mentioned in the blog), Pep Guardiola manager of Manchester City FC (33ac). And 5d possibly brought someone contemporary to my mind.

   But I did wonder about 6d. Is LOL really “lots of love”, or has it ever been?

   “[…] my favourite text mishap, which came from David Cameron’s famous belief that LOL meant lots of love rather than laugh out loud. As a result he sent me a message that read: ‘So sorry to hear about the death of your Dad. LOL.'”
   Daniel Finkelstein, The Times, Monday May 25 2020

   1. It is in Chambers, and I seem to recall letters and notes in the 70s and 80s ending in LOL.

      1. Oh right, thank you! (And also for the background info -if it’s in Chambers that’s enough of course, but nice to hear about how it was used).

         Seeing other comments, I ought to get the Chambers app. It seems good value (and probably the future), I just don’t really have an ideal device to install it on. And I do quite enjoy flicking through the pages of my (old) edition!

         I’ve also enjoyed hearing about the horror film accompaniments to your solves. Sometimes the TV is on when I’m tackling crosswords – but I’m not yet at the stage where I could do it during the commercials!

         1. Chambers is pretty nifty on a mobile: I often prefer it to using the PC version.

7. I did manage to finish this, after falling into the sarape trap. The long ones around the edges were at least logical – what could bumble-puppy be but a game, and a windlestraw sounds thin to me.

   The setter did miss one chance – the Tennessee Vols are a football team, that would have thrown the UK solvers for a loop!.

   1. I don’t think Vols would make it past an editor, as it is a nickname for the Volunteers.

   2. I knew bumble-puppy from Forster (Room With a View), and always thought it was his invention; but it would seem not. The Collins definition sounds like tetherball.

      1. There seems to be three definitions for bumble-puppy:
         1. Non -scientific bridge or whist
         2. Tetherball
         3. Nine holes – an early form of skittles that appears to have tied the gaming laws in knots.
         A wonderful word. And thanks for reminding us it is in Room With a View. I don’t remember it – shame on me.

         1. I’ve just remembered that 1940s BBC radio comedy “Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh” used to call broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, “Richard Bumblepuppy”.

            (Dimbleby, who at the time presented “Down Your Way”, appeared on one episode as Richard Bumblepuppy, presenter of “Up Your Alley”).

   3. I’ve been trying to remember yet another source for BUMBLE-PUPPY inone of the more literate Sci-Fi works, Brave New World or some such, but it won’t come down to earth

      1. Brave New World – centrifugal bumble-puppy

         1. Thanks! I couldn’t find it on Google, and I think I’ve lost the book.

Comments are closed.