This Mephisto did take a while. I was off to a good start on Saturday night, but then didn’t come back until Tuesday, when many of the answers suddenly became obvious. John Grimshaw is one of the more difficult setters whose style I’m still getting used to.
I didn’t have much trouble parsing any of the answers for the blog, except for Navaratra. There’s probably something I’m not seeing.
| Across | |
| 3 | Prestigious person cross in the past about German visit (9) |
| TREGETOUR – TRE(G)E + TOUR. Referring to the cross as a tree is common in Old and Middle English texts. | |
| 10 | Primarily sound unit (4) |
| SONE – S + ONE, a bit of an &lit. | |
| 11 | Question Lear about historic flight? (6) |
| QUARLE – QU + anagram of LEAR. An old spelling of quarrel, i.e. a quarrel of arrows. | |
| 12 | Showing no interest, I had ignored aircraft soon lifting off (4) |
| STOL – STOL[id]. Short Take Off & Landing. | |
| 13 | Making dirty songs is unseemly (7) |
| SOSSING – Anagram of SONGS IS. | |
| 14 | Legal equality once round German world’s unknown (6) |
| OWELTY – O + WELT + Y. | |
| 15 | Row on southern river (4) |
| SOAR – S + OAR. A UK river I’d never heard of, but it exists. | |
| 16 | A victory grasped by boater perhaps over water monster (7) |
| TANIWHA – A + H(WIN)AT, all backwards. | |
| 20 | Like Gorbachev’s policy spread nostalgia around extremes of Soviet Union (11) |
| GLASNOSTIAN – Anagram of NOSTALGIA around S[oviet unio]N. I saw Gorbachev riding by in his limo when he visited the US in the late 1980s. | |
| 24 | Does she receive fureur regularly in field before attack? (11) |
| LEAGUERLASS – LEA + G([f]U[r]E[u]R)LASS. To glass is to whack someone with a bottle. A leaguerlass is a camp follower. | |
| 26 | Very small runt perhaps, reportedly of little value (7) |
| PYGMEAN – Sounds like PIG + MEAN. | |
| 28 | President backed unknown sales company (4) |
| EBAY – ABE backwards + Y. | |
| 29 | Many-oared surf-boat, landing two from the front every time? (6) |
| MASULA – MA[ny-oared] SU[rf-boat], LA[nding]. Another &lit. | |
| 31 | Past Scottish port ship’s captain (7) |
| PATROON – PA + TROON, a port well-know to golf fans. Pa is a valid abbreviation of past. | |
| 32 | Fish acceptable after result of smoking (4) |
| FUGU – FUG + U. | |
| 33 | Like darker films without number having exaggerated character (6) |
| OIRISH – [n]OIRISH. Specifically, a stage Irishman. | |
| 34 | Ireland historically concerned with being led by former British monarch (4) |
| ERIN – E.R. + IN. | |
| 35 | Low associate of Falstaff’s page ripped off? (9) |
| TEARSHEET – Double definition, simple enough if you remember Henry IV, part 2. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Deceive old fool over vehicle test needing money (5) |
| ASSOT – ASS + [m]OT. | |
| 2 | Two of SNP interrupting voter, one that could be seething? (9) |
| POTWALLER – PO(TWA)LLER. A potwaller was a voter who qualified by having a hearth large enough to boil a pot….prior to 1832, that is! | |
| 4 | Musical ornament like as in recital? (7) |
| RELLISH – Sounds like RELISH. | |
| 5 | Bitter vetch, tare formerly (4) |
| ERST – ERS + T. T is a valid abbreviation for tare as used for calculating net weight. | |
| 6 | United States takes time in yielding, which could leave it high and dry (7) |
| EUSTASY – E(U.S,T)ASY. A change in sea level. | |
| 7 | Armour plate, useful thing, tons moved to the front (5) |
| TASSE – ASSET with the T moved to the front. | |
| 8 | Worries at intervals about one rank-smelling American family of birds (9) |
| ORIOLIDAE – [w]O[r]R[i]E[s] around I + OLID + A. This family in fact is found in Europe and Asia only; the so-called orioles in North America are Icteridae. | |
| 9 | Make a finer meal with wine round cooking ring (7) |
| REGRIND – RE(anagram of RING)D. | |
| 17 | Eastern festival from Thailand held in former kingdom (9) |
| NAVARATRA – NAVAR(‘A,T)RA. The obvious answer – better explanations for the cryptic invited. | |
| 18 | Irish party abandoning Liberal nonsense (5) |
| HOOEY – HOO[l]EY. | |
| 19 | Burning pain having an effect, soldier accepted (9) |
| CAUSALGIA – CAUSAL + GI + A. | |
| 21 | Hard place to escape from, resorting to leg-up (7) |
| GLUEPOT – Anagram of TO LEG-UP, a very well-concealed one. | |
| 22 | Compound growth nearly highest in civil service (7, two words) |
| CUP MOSS – C(UP MOS[t])S. | |
| 23 | Female’s strange tribute to Pope (7) |
| ALMSFEE – Anagram of FEMALE’S, another word for Peter’s Pence. | |
| 25 | Bread over in Reykjavik, primarily (5) |
| EYRIR – R(I[n] R[eykjavik])YE, all backwards. | |
| 27 | Superannuated relative, 90, emaciated, lacking general intelligence (5) |
| NAUNT – N + [g]AUNT. | |
| 30 | Barnacles regularly harvested at any time in Scotland (4) |
| ANCE – [b]A[r]N[a]C[l]E[s]. | |
I got a few of these, real Mephisto-style previous unknowns and GLASNOSTIAN, which could have been in a regular 15×15. I guessed SONE, too, from the wordplay, but was not sure because the clue seems odd. “Primarily” is part of the wordplay but contributes nothing to the definition, as SONE is only a unit of loudness. It’s not, say, secondarily another thing too.
Yes, strictly speaking, it’s not necessary as part of the def. But as it allows S+ONE to be indicated by a clue also meaning SONE, and a sole meaning must be the “chief” or “fundamental” meaning, using two defs of “primary” in Chambers, do we really mind? Words like “ultimately” and “initially” are quite often used in &lit clues when the definition reading would be equally good without them.
My reading of NAVARATRA is NAVARRA + À + T. Chambers gives À as FROM.
This time everything parsed, but it would wrong to imply easily so. Again a very enjoyable puzzle.
Strictly speaking, (À + T) inside NAVARRA, but you’re right about a = from – Thomas à Kempis = Thomas from Kempen in the example in Chambers
27A how does the number 90 work in the clue please
It’s a “medieval Roman numeral”. Quite a few letters not used in conventional Roman numerals were apparently used in some medieval documents and inscriptions, and the numeric values are mentioned in Chambers. When I started as ST xwd ed, one of my mildly radical ideas was to discourage their use in Mephisto puzzles, as I saw them as one of the least interesting features of barred grid crosswords (I’ve also discouraged 51 indicating LI in ordinary cryptics for the same kind of reason – “51” never indicates anything else, and in the surface reading there is rarely any reason for it not to be some other number). So this is probably the first Mephisto usage in about 14 years – happy with it this time as “ninety” fits the surface story.
Rather whackier, this one, with far fewer words from the Children’s section of Chambers than usual, requiring heavy reliance of wordplay and confirming use of Electric Chambers. Still managed to complete in less than an hour. And a welcome to Doll TEARSHEET, one of Shakespeare’s finest aptronyms, that I didn’t know as also an actual thing.
I gave up on this. Just too many clues where I couldn’t find a way in.