Greetings, barred-grid fans.
Another Saturday night for me doing the puzzle during commercial breaks in the classic horror movie (Dracula’s Daughter – a failure at the time, but a rather fun, very campy sequel to the original). I got to this before the movie began so I was done a few breaks in. I thought the wordplay was really generous here, good puzzle to trust the wordplay and let the answers fall, especially if you are a fan of long charades. There’s some science, some literature, a little for everyone.
It ended up an amusing end to the evening as I downed a bottle of cheap wine (I do not drink… wine) and had some snacks during the movie and then got a message from our fearless leader that there was a puzzle from 1935 that I should solve and blog. Exactly the condition for that task!
A reminder that in Mephisto puzzles, we bow down to the Chambers Dictionary as being the authority on all things definitional, take a peek if you disagree with a definition.
Away we go…
Across | |
1 | Characters on the internet quick to cancel fellow (4) |
1337 – FLEET(quick) minus F(fellow). When I was in University in the 80s and had an indecipherably long email address and access to usenet groups this was all the rage! | |
4 | Obstinate Scots frustrate grasping Royal and Ancient? (8) |
THRAWART – THWART(frustrate) containing RA(Royal and Ancient, usually applied to the golf course at St Andrews) | |
10 | Topless seaside gear reported all over the place once (9) |
EACHWHERE – remove the first letter from BEACH(seaside), then sounds like WEAR(gear) | |
12 | What does for locks having cut out bits of rust? (5) |
AECIA – ALOPECIA(hair loss, what does for locks) minus LOP(cut) | |
13 | Fag on the Ganges bringing back one fish (4) |
BIDI – I(one), DIB(a way of fishing) all reversed | |
15 | Millions like hot starter of lentils in mixed grains (7) |
MASHLIN – M(millions), AS(like), H(hot), the first letter of Lentils and IN | |
16 | New in Glaswegian shelter — English scrounger (6) |
SCUNGE – N(new) inside SCUG(Glaswegian shelter, found under SKUG in cahmbers), then E(English) | |
17 | Cross about near endangered armadillo (5) |
TATOU – TAU(cross) surrounding TO(near) | |
19 | His bar crony getting drunk? This could clean him out (11) |
CHRYSAROBIN – anagram of HIS,BAR,CRONY | |
21 | Substance found in fruits, mild in cacao when processed (11, two words) |
MALONIC ACID – anagram of MILD,IN,CACO | |
23 | One finding value in corporate raider (5) |
RATER – hidden inside corpoRATE Raider | |
25 | Once too outstanding area of France (6) |
ALSACE – ALS(obsolete form of ALSO, too), then ACE(outstanding) | |
27 | Flutter, gaining nothing in club? This got through pounds quickly (7) |
FLYBOAT – FLY(flutter) then O(Nothing) inside BAT(club). A pound is a part of a canal. | |
29 | What’s quickly put back in the ear (4) |
OTIC – CITO(quickly) reversed | |
30 | Climbing plant, one seen in wood (5) |
LIANA – I(one) inside LANA(genipap wood) | |
31 | Granules coming with standard dolomite (9) |
PEARLSPAR – PEARLS(granules) and PAR(standard) | |
32 | Error reported over year with my list of potential definitions (8) |
SYNONYMY – sounds like SIN(error), ON(over), Y(year) and MY | |
33 | Troop losing fuel in commotion (4) |
TURM – remove OIL(fuel) from TURMOIL(commotion) |
Down | |
1 | Mark of fall left on earth a foot in front of cliff (8) |
LEAF-SCAR – L(left), E(earth), A, F(foot) in front of SCAR(cliff) | |
2 | Here is City company (4) |
ECCO – EC(city), CO(company) | |
3 | What’s with SO? This mostly only showing Special Order (7) |
THIONYL – most of THIs, then an anagram of ONLY. I liked this clue (my chemistry background helps). Thionyls contain a sulfur attached to an oxygen atom and usually smell really bad. | |
4 | Local suggestion which needs pluck? (5) |
TWANG – double definition | |
5 | Rare patriot, misguided one reversing immigration? (11) |
REPATRIATOR – anagram of RARE,PATRIOT | |
6 | A gentleman going up against toff (6) |
ARISTO – A, then SIR(gentleman) reversed, TO(against) | |
7 | Accepted tent on a slope (5) |
ATILT – A(accepted), TILT(tent) | |
8 | Excellent Greek philosopher on special pseudoscience (9) |
RADIONICS – RAD(excellent), IONIC(Greek philosopher), S(special). Show this clue to your chiropractor at your own risk. | |
9 | Very like another part of Scotland (4) |
TWIN – double definition | |
11 | Like football match season seat with a position (11) |
HOME-AND-AWAY – HOME(seat), AND(with), A, WAY(position) | |
14 | Old-style school confused in places about Latin tense (9) |
SCHMALTZY – SCH(school), then MAZY(dialect term for confused) surrounding L(Latin) and T(tense) | |
18 | Perhaps Milan room missing first deliveries could be like this (8) |
UNDERARM – This one I got from the definition, and the wordplay took a bit of searching, as I was not familiar with the novelist KUNDERA Milan, though I have seen the movie version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Remove the first letter and add RM(room) | |
20 | Initially brought on stage to accompany musician (7) |
BASSIST – the first letter of Brought, then ASSIST(on stage to accompany musician). You could read this as musician being the definition, but I’ll give JG the benefit of the doubt on this being an all-in-one. | |
22 | Gold type of melon? There’s usually a range here (6) |
OROGEN – OR(gold), and an OGEN melon | |
24 | Currency unit, tiny, modelled around yen (5) |
TYIYN – anagram of TINY surrounding Y(yen) | |
26 | Scorer omitting alto and bass from cradle-song (5) |
LULLY – remove A(alto) and B(bass) from LULLABY(cradle-song) for the composer Jean-Baptiste, best known for allegedly killing himself with his own baton. | |
27 | Canal length away from river where mill was (4) |
FOSS – remove L(length) from the George Eliot novel The Mill on the FLOSS | |
28 | Chance having united division within tribe (4) |
HAPU – HAP(chance) and U(united) |
Thanks GHC especially for 12ac, for which I could not see the word play. 1ac is of course LEET not 1337. This time I managed not to make a typo when submitting online.
1337 is the LEET term for LEET. It’s a numerical representation of the letters. (I didn’t know this before googling it just now, needless to say).
Oh very clever. I must admit that Leet is not in my repertoire. When I was an undergraduate (74-77) not only did we not use leet but all notes and homework was done using pen a paper. Something my US friends regarded as unimaginable.
Fairly gentle stuff, with 5d being Quickie level.
I started this on a Saturday night, but events forced me to take up the 1975 puzzle and blog it while George did the 1935 – well, he could have turned it down, but he’s usually up to help out the blog. I then proceeded to forget about Mephisto until yesterday, when I decided to finish. Unfortunately, I had biffed leaf-fall, and I didn’t see that it could be right for a while, which messed up my solve. As usual the unchecked bidi and aecia gave trouble – I thought aecia had something to do with that disease I couldn’t remember. All good, eventually.
I liked this one, mercifully accessible for a John Grimshaw but by no means easy.
Didn’t manage to parse aecia and never thought of Kundera—only Italy, of course—thanks!
In my Chambers app, EACH WHERE is two words.