This was a moderate Mephisto, and I mostly did pretty well with it, but I ended up struggling in the NE. It’s pretty easy to get stuck when you know how a clue must work, but can’t manage to get all the right pieces in the right place. It didn’t help that I had sirdar instead of sardar, but eventually I just erased the whole thing and tried again – bingo!
There were some clever clues here, and I did like the cipher clue – that’s almost as good as taking the prime-number positions from a phrase. The vocabulary was quite moderate considering, although of course if I had known elaeagnus I would have just biffed it.
| Across | |
| 1 | Tree very much planted in more than one area (5) |
| AFARA – A (FAR) A. | |
| 5 | Returning north I take second grade antimalarial (7) |
| ATEBRIN – N + I + R + BETA backwards, where R = recipe. | |
| 10 | Revolutionary in aluminium, my old trumpet (7) |
| ALCHEMY – AL (CHE) MY, with a deceptive literal – you could look it up. | |
| 11 | Cipher Joby made to shift alphabetically (4) |
| ZERO – Take JOBY and shift each letter forward 16 letters, wrapping around the alphabet. This is the principle of simple ciphers, and yields a different sort of cipher. | |
| 12 | Regular features of green conservation survey (5) |
| RECON – [g]R[e]E[n] + CON. I nearly biffed recce, but couldn’t parse it. | |
| 13 | Radical head backed Indian leader (6) |
| SARDAR – RAD RAS backwards, where ras is either a headland or an Ethiopian prince. | |
| 15 | Pacific theological system is nicer somehow (7) |
| IRENICS – Anagram of IS NICER, obvious to students of Greek. | |
| 16 | Like natural logs not available from area of Mount Olympus (9) |
| NAPIERIAN – N/A + PIERIAN, where the springs that inspire the Muses are located. | |
| 18 | Currency Turkish chief’s introduced following backing at home (7) |
| AFGHANI – A(F)GHA+ IN backwards. | |
| 22 | I’m adult taken in by Christian Union — look who suffers (7, two words) |
| CUI MALO – C.U. (I’M A) LO. An easy jump from cui bono. | |
| 26 | What might Cupar host serve up? (9) |
| STROUPACH – Anagram of CUPAR HOST, an &lit. A pot of tea, and not a disgusting dish as some might expect. | |
| 27 | Pagan poet embracing northern independence (7) |
| ODINIST – OD(N.I)IST, not the generalized term I was expecting. | |
| 29 | Way of viewing warped space and time (6) |
| ASPECT – Anagram of SPACE + T. | |
| 30 | Courts of record formerly backed trustworthiness (5) |
| STEEL – LEETS backwards. | |
| 31 | What holds swimming pike? (4) |
| KIPE – Anagram of PIKE, another &lit clue. | |
| 32 | Glazed pottery thrown out in English café (7) |
| FAIENCE – Anagram of IN E CAFE. | |
| 33 | Some eating nothing, concerned with variable former lack of appetite (7) |
| ANOREXY – AN(O, RE, X)Y. | |
| 34 | Prayer Dalradians regularly expressed (5) |
| ARDAS – [d]A[l]R[a]D[a]A[n}S. The Dalradians were Scotsmen, not Sikhs, so they’re only here for the cryptic. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | On air broadcast has split account of the priesthood (7) |
| AARONIC – A(anagram of ON AIR)C. | |
| 2 | Ran away from local flat (4) |
| FLEW – Double definition; flue or flew can mean flat. | |
| 3 | Understand a Catholic church point (6) |
| ACCEPT – A + C + C.E. + PT, where each word must be interpreted separately. | |
| 4 | Pewterer’s blowpipe, one in strange metal (7) |
| RHODIUM – R(HOD, I)UM. | |
| 5 | Absurd alarm about Military Intelligence officer in the past (7) |
| AMMIRAL – Anagram of ALARM around M.I. – a 16th-century spelling. | |
| 6 | Eastern open country antelopes eating a small tree (9) |
| ELAEAGNUS – E + L(A)EA + GNUS, where the main trick is where to put the A. It does go in an unlikely place. | |
| 7 | One giving help over a form of parasite (5) |
| REDIA – AIDER backwards, where more elaborate cryptics may tempt the unwary solver. | |
| 8 | Badly tempered copper put in current gold coin (7) |
| IRACUND – I + RA(CU)ND. | |
| 9 | Tongue rook kept inside beak (5) |
| NORSE – NO(R)SE. | |
| 14 | Liverworts pa planted apart during warmth and coldness (9) |
| HEPATICAE – HE(P)AT + IC(A)E. How far apart is for you to figure out. | |
| 17 | Substance offence in a good place (7, two words) |
| QUIDS IN – QUID + SIN, where we have quid as in quiddity. | |
| 19 | Walk round in Faeroe Islands with old couple (7) |
| FOOTWAY – FO + O + TWAY. | |
| 20 | Beatnik, he trips out (7) |
| HIPSTER – Anagram of HE TRIPS, a very appropriate one. | |
| 21 | Gets a whiff of uncovered language of Sri Lanka (7) |
| INHALES – [s]INHALES[e], easy if you know the two languages spoken there – it’s not Tamil! | |
| 23 | What may terminate thread? Hit transmit soundly (6, two words) |
| WAX END – Sounds like WHACK SEND. | |
| 24 | Pole — also known as stilt in NZ (5) |
| POAKA – PO + AKA. Is po a valid abbreviation for a pole? Yes, it is! | |
| 25 | Lighter aquatic mammal lacking height, unknown previously (5) |
| ZIPPO – Z + [h]IPPO. | |
| 28 | Caught hole in one on going over pouches from abroad (4) |
| CECA – C + ACE backwards. An ace in golf is a hole in one. | |
This week’s was one of my fastest solves (personal best, not fast by expert standards). I was ready and primed for ZERO having just completed the GCHQ Christmas puzzle. But it was the SE corner that caused me most trouble, particularly the parsing of CECA. Thankfully I eventually arrived at C+ACE backwards.
Very enjoyable puzzle. COD 11ac ZERO.
I found this pretty easy, but had PANDAR at 13ac. I see now that I was confusing ‘nap’ with ‘napper’ and mixing up SIRDAR/SARDAR (familiar from past Mephistos) with PANDIT.
I actually can’t look up ALCHEMY = “trumpet” in any dictionary at hand. Is the former another word for the latter, or is it other way round?