Yeah, I’m the dummy who said last week’s Mephisto was too easy – sorry about that. This one had me hunting up and down in Chambers all week, and I still had a few to do earlier today, so I had to sit down and grind them out.
It does appear that my research has paid off, as I am able to explain every answer save one. Yes, obscure words are used as building-blocks to get even more obscure words – what did you expect? I had only heard of about a third of the answers, so presumably this Mephisto ranks right up there.
| Across | |
| 1 | Sadden aged leader of saboteurs during kill (7) |
| ATTRIST – ATTRI(S[aboteurs)T. Attrit as a noun, meaning the act of wearing down the enemy. Aged indicates the answer word is obsolete. | |
| 6 | Masses in Syria dismiss both sides in war talk (5) |
| ARTAL – [w]AR TAL[k]. The artal is also called a roti – a unit of weight in the Middle East. | |
| 10 | Birds eaten initially by those working on boats (8) |
| BARGEESE – BARGEES + E[aten]. | |
| 11 | Local bird Paraguayan shot — alas gone (8) |
| ARAPUNGA – Anagram of PARAGUAYAN less AY. The South American bell-bird. | |
| 12 | Shifting sand areas exist by Gabon’s capital (4) |
| AREG – ARE + G[abon], for a desert phenomenon more usually given as erg. | |
| 13 | Claw broken by new cat (5) |
| MANUL – MA(N)UL, for a cat that is certainly new to me. | |
| 14 | Country reportedly from which pearls come (6) |
| OSTREA – Sounds like Austria, but means oysters. | |
| 15 | Clumsy person passes over hot dish (7, two words) |
| SPAG BOL – LOB GAPS backwards. Spaghetti Bolognese, if you were wondering. | |
| 20 | Hooves pound in Uganda with antelopes returning (7) |
| UNGULAE – EA + L + U + GNU, all backwards. I see the pound, the one-letter abbreviation for Uganda, and the antelope, but I don’t see where the EA comes from. Comments invited! It is EA(L)U + GNU backwards, where EAU is the IVR code for Uganda. | |
| 22 | Confidential change involving atomic base (7, two words) |
| A LATERE – AL(A)TER + E. Atomic = A, and Base = E = Euler’s number. | |
| 25 | Conservative party making a comeback in great film shown online (7) |
| VODCAST – V(C,DO backwards)AST. | |
| 27 | Gju string, perhaps old type used in traditional music originally (6) |
| THAIRM – T[raditional](HAIR)M[usic]. | |
| 28 | Imported horse won race, mostly backed (5) |
| WALER – W + RELA[y] backwards. A horse from New South Wales imported into India. | |
| 30 | Virgil, perhaps brilliant, beginning to end (4) |
| EARP – PEAR with the last letter moved to the back, referring to a gemstone cut. It helps if you know who Wyatt Earp’s brother is, which is how I got the answer. | |
| 31 | A hoax by head of espionage unit (8) |
| ABAMPERE – A + BAMPER + E[spionage], giving a unit of electricity. Actually, A + BAM + PER + E[spionage] – do not blog from memory, check everything! | |
| 32 | Wife’s lover I see is bachelor head of engagement in company (8) |
| CICISBEO – C(I,C + IS + B + E[ngagement])O. | |
| 33 | They regularly notice special stars (5) |
| HYADS – [t]H[e]Y + AD + S, more often called the Hyades. | |
| 34 | Once spotted hare in play round boy (7) |
| BAUSOND – BAU(SON)D. A baud is a hare in Shakespeare, so it appears in a play. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A game of draughts once, one between Washington and Jefferson (5) |
| ADAMS – I was quite embarrassed when I finally saw how simple this was, since I know a lot about the Federal period. Yes, Adams was president following Washington and before Jefferson. NHO the game, which I can’t find in Chambers. Correct parsing is A + DAMS. | |
| 2 | Turkey stuffed with hot fruit — haggis might go into this? (8) |
| THRAPPLE – T(H)R + APPLE. The windpipe – I thought haggis went into a sheep’s stomach, but who knows? | |
| 3 | Lord Wambenger (4) |
| TUAN – Double definition, a Malay honorific and a another name for an Australian marsupial. I knew this from Lord Jim’s actual title. | |
| 4 | Bard’s fight against Ben Johnson’s devil in early run (6) |
| REPUGN – RE(PUG)N. I suspected something tricky was going on because Ben Jonson’s name is not correctly spelt, but that appears to be an error. A pug is a minor devil, and ren is an old form of run. I wanted to use ass, because of Jonson’s play The Devil is an Ass, but not so. | |
| 5 | Hospital round instrument (7) |
| SANTOUR – SAN + TOUR. More often spelt santir, an Asian dulcimer. | |
| 6 | Dip into a short gay adult novel (7, two words) |
| AGA SAGA – A + GA[y] + SAG + A. One many solvers will biff. | |
| 7 | Think highly of introducing eastern aquatic plant (5) |
| REATE – R(E)ATE, where rate is an informal usage – you really rate! | |
| 8 | Explain holding boob to a model that’s attractive (8) |
| TERRELLA – T(ERR)ELL + A. The magnetic model of the earth, so not as exciting as expected. | |
| 9 | One left something on a couple of notes (7) |
| LEGATEE – LEG + A + TE + E, a bunch of cryptic cliches. | |
| 16 | Build-up of water discharge from below a new gravel ridge (8) |
| ANASARCA – A + N + ASAR + CA. Ca is a Scots word meaning push or propel, and asar comes from Swedish. | |
| 17 | Family accepts odd airs about Earl Wilhelm’s wife? (8) |
| KAISERIN – K(anagram of AIRS around E)IN, giving a Kaiser’s wife. | |
| 18 | Pi Zeta Chi company’s source of income? (7) |
| ZAITECH – Anagram of ZETA CHI, where PI refers to a mixed jumble of type, more often given as pie or pye. I don’t believe it was intended to be used as a verb, but this is Mephisto. | |
| 19 | Cross vacant zone with effrontery (7) |
| ZEBRASS – Z[on]E + BRASS, for a cross between a zebra and an ass. | |
| 21 | Gone wandering about each tropical part of America (7) |
| NEOGAEA – Anagram of GONE + A + EA. | |
| 23 | Find out about drinking bowl stem (6) |
| SCAPUS – S(CAP)US. Cap is a Scots word for a wooden drinking bowl, also spelt caup. | |
| 24 | Cheek has intradermal fat (5) |
| LIPID – LIP + I/D, one of the easier clues. | |
| 26 | Cornered solid lacks height (5) |
| TREED – T[h]REE-D. | |
| 29 | What was just mostly backing fabric (4) |
| LENO – ONEL[y] upside-down, a Spenserian spelling. | |
I finished in just under 1 1/2 hours, but didn’t really enjoy it. I don’t like to have to find an obscure word to complete the wordplay to make another obscure word. I couldn’t parse my LOI LENO, for instance and I still don’t understand how CA means “discharge” in 16D. Less obfuscatory obscurantism in future, please, John and thanks Vinyl for giving the parsing for the two I couldn’t work out.
The parsing of ANASARCA is ARC (discharge) + A (from), all below A + N (new) + AS (gravel ridge). ASAR is the plural of AS, according to Chambers, but isn’t needed in this case.
I also found this very hard, and was defeated by the SE corner, so thanks Vinyl for the parsing. Can’t help on “ungulae” – knew the word from A-level Latin, but also can’t complete the parsing. The pound and Uganda seem to come in the wrong order if it is all reversed. “dams” as a game is under the 5th definition of “dam” in my 2003 edition of Chambers.
Could UAE somehow cover uganda
It’s one of those annoying IVR codes – EAU for [East Africa] Uganda (and EAZ for Zanzibar, EAK for Kenya, EAT for Tanzania).
That apart, I had never heard of VODCAST. I saw ODC in the middle, and just guessed at PODCAST for 25a.
Aha – you’ve got it! I checked the Wikipedia IVR page, and there it is.
31a: I had A + BAM + PER + E. THRAPPLE to me can mean ‘throat’, so the clue does work. Agree with others that this was not a particularly enjoyable slog.
Does Asar mean gravel ridge ?
Yes it does – as, or asar, is helpfully defined as an esker or kame!
I have made some corrections, thanks all.
Re REPUGN. When I saw that spelling of Ben Johnson and the inclusion of “run” in the clue I wondered if Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was being referenced. He ran the 100 metres in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in 9.80 seconds. His gold medal, however, was taken back due to proof of steroid use.
I got a handful of these before I gave up, realizing what I was up against.
I really wanted to put in LIPID (everyone knows “liposuction”), and I would have, right away, if I had’t thought to check the definition in Chambers, which didn’t seem, though related, to quite match “intradermal fat.” Ha. I was, of course, also unable to account for ID! Looking at Chambers again, I can see “fat” tout court is a definition by example: “any of a group of chemicals found in bodily tissues, including fats, oils and waxes (esters of fatty acids), derivatives of these such as phospholipids (qv under phosphorus), and other substances such as steroids and terpenes”
I enjoyed this week’s. Managed to complete it on Monday evening. The one thing I couldn’t fully explain was where CA came from in 16d. I still find it a bit of a stretch to equate discharge with the Scots ca’, which is what I think one is supposed to do.
Have we had any explanation yet as to why LESSENS is still showing as the correct answer for 21d in Mephisto 3331. If it is indeed correct, which I very much doubt, I look forward to the explanation.
It’s now been corrected.
from the editor:
Dear Richard,
Thank you very much for your email.
You are, of course, quite correct, as are the bloggers. I am surprised no one has drawn this to our attention until more than a week after the solution was published. I have now corrected it online so that the solution is right in Crossword Club for posterity.
Please accept my apologies for this lapse, and my assurance that we will redouble efforts to check such things in future.
Best wishes,
Mick Hodgkin
Puzzles Editor
A few confusions over plurals: AS, not ASAR (the plural), in 16dn, as previously mentioned. 6ac: ARTAL is the plural of rotl (not roti), hence “Masses in Syria”. 12ac: AREG is the plural of erg, hence “Shifting sand areas”. I thought a lot of clues/answers in this were obscure, which is fine if you can get enough crossing letters to work it out, but BAUSOND was impossible unles you knew the word itself or BAUD. 18dn: according to Chambers, Pi(e) can be used as a verb, meaning to reduce to a pi(e).
Notwithstanding these comments, congratulations on solving and explaining this one!