A Mephisto from John Grimshaw that was not that difficult, and for once many of the answer words were words I knew. For an old IT hand, Usenet is a write-in, and there are a lot of stock cryptic clues like fleshiness, umbles, harassingly, videlicet, oppos, and El Greco. With all the crossing letters, the more obscure answers were not so terrible – just let your brain rove across all the etymological knowledge you’ve built up over the years,
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Anger after cardinal’s wild laughter (7, two words) |
| FOU RIRE – FOUR + IRE, a French phrase that is not hard to guess from the cryptic. | |
| 7 | Range of Indian digging sticks and spades (4) |
| KOSS – KOS + S. The digging sticks are Maori – Indian goes with the literal. | |
| 11 | Little bag — note mostly elaborately decorated with Fijian cloth backing (9) |
| UTRICULUS – UT + RIC[h] + SULU backwards. | |
| 13 | Once explain luminous appearances on the air (5) |
| GLOZE – Sounds like GLOWS. | |
| 14 | Governor sent back leather by cargo ship (7) |
| CATAPAN – CAT + NAPA backwards. Cat apparently has nothing to do with catamaran. | |
| 16 | Dress spring with no end of gold (4) |
| BOUN – BOUN[d], where the D is the last letter of GOLD. | |
| 17 | Corrupt Len’s selfish carnality (11) |
| FLESHLINESS – Anagram of LEN’S SELFISH. | |
| 18 | Scales fence outside of airbase (6) |
| PALEAE – PALE + A[irbas]E. | |
| 19 | Dominee badgers heretic (6) |
| DOCETE – DO + CETE. A cete is a group of badgers. Docetism was typical of the Greek Neo-Platonic heresies. | |
| 21 | Vertical stone ringing a shaft in places (6) |
| STEALE – STE(A)LE. | |
| 23 | Innards fall out of Tesla seconds (6) |
| UMBLES – [t]UMBLE + S. Tesla the unit in physics, abbreviated T. | |
| 24 | So as to pester girl coming back alone (11) |
| HARASSINGLY – SARAH backwards + SINGLY. | |
| 26 | Half squashing lower leg (4) |
| CRUS – CRUS[hing]. | |
| 29 | Coarse linen nationalist put round past skull of Macbeth? (7, two words) |
| HARN PAN – HARN (PA) N. Yes, pa. is a valid abbreviation for past and N is a valid abbreviation for nationalist. | |
| 30 | American president returned to Washington, being always changeable (5) |
| AMEBA – AM + ABE backwards, with Washington indicating the US spelling of amoeba. | |
| 31 | Specifically see Thailand importing fish with parasites (9) |
| VIDELICET – V(IDE,LICE)T, where T is the valid IVR code for Thailand. | |
| 32 | Hammer nail round base (4) |
| PEIN – P(E)IN, a variant spelling of peen. | |
| 33 | In a fashion initially said with feeling? (7, two words) |
| A TATONS – AT A TON + S[aid]. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fish reek’s universal (4) |
| FUGU – FUG + U, a starter clue. | |
| 2 | Annoyed when breaking rubber newt? (7) |
| URODELE – U(RODE)LE. | |
| 3 | American came up with a guard for Ukrainian church? (4) |
| RIZA – RIZ + A. Not in any US dialect I’ve ever heard! | |
| 4 | In the Highlands rattle deer with dog when climbing (6) |
| RUCKLE – ELK CUR, all upside-down. | |
| 5 | I blanch turning up dead snake (6) |
| ELAPID – I PALE upside-down + D. | |
| 6 | Self-driving car — claim that is running around New Orleans (11) |
| AUTONOMICAL – AUTO (N.O) anagram of CLAIM. | |
| 8 | Jerry’s placed under work mates (5) |
| OPPOS – OP + PO’S. | |
| 9 | Tons in employment in stable clay mining town (9, two words) |
| ST AUSTELL – STA(US(T)E)LL. | |
| 10 | Muslims entertaining European protectors in the desert? (7) |
| SUNNIES – SUNNI(E)S, i.e. sunglasses. | |
| 12 | Fossil fish papa chisels out (11) |
| CEPHALASPIS – Anagram of PAPA CHISELS. | |
| 15 | Netty keeping wooden strip in case (9) |
| CLATHRATE – C(LATH)RATE. | |
| 18 | Cushy arrangement accepted by parish priest which gives a real boost (7, two words) |
| PSYCH UP – P(anagram of CUSHY)P. Yes, PP is a valid abbreviation for parish priest. | |
| 20 | Composer’s not accepted English Chamber Orchestra artist (7, two words) |
| EL GRECO – ELG[a]R + E.C.O. | |
| 22 | Eastern species, female swordfish (6) |
| ESPADA – E + SP + ADA. Both a sword and a swordfish. | |
| 23 | Was not accustomed to accept English newsgroup network (6) |
| USENET – USEN(E)’T. | |
| 25 | Old European coins, gold ones from Portugal mostly (5) |
| AUREI – AU + REI[s]. | |
| 27 | Primarily, Scots mark’s this thing (4) |
| SMIT – S[cots] + M + IT. | |
| 28 | In history hares used to be seen around Troy (4) |
| WATS – WA(T)S. In the history of obscure words, that is; well, everyone knows the Cambodian temples. | |
Well, it’s been several days since I finished this, sooner than I’d expected. I was pleased to guess ST AUSTELL, along with other previously unknowns of course. As for previously knowns, I always like it when some French invades. My LOI was the hares from history.
A steady solve last Monday evening. Much the same comments as vinyl1’s. The only time I’ve recall hearing riz is in “the spring has sprung the grass is riz”, which I always assumed was of American origin. Google says anonymous, so who knows?
3D what does the word RIZ mean ?
‘Came up’. See Chambers: ‘(US dialect) pat and pap of rise’.
I don’t have a time for this because I left the timer running while I did something else, but I found it relatively gentle for a Grimshaw, which is to say difficult.
I had a confident HUMU at 1dn for a while: it seemed a very plausible abbreviation for the humuhumunukunukuapuaa, familiar to anyone who had small kids in the age of the Octonauts.
Thanks John and Vinyl. Unlike others I found this one quite difficult- but all very fairly clued. I need to remember N for nationalist- had always associated nationalist with NAT- should have thought of the SNP of course.
Unlike vinyl1, there were several words I didn’t know – Koss, Utriculus, Gloze and Catapan in just the top three lines. I really dislike clues like 7ac, where an obscure word is clued by another obscure word. I could “solve” it in the sense of parsing the clue, but the only way to get the first letter was to trawl through the dictionary, which is not fun. For me, a properly constructed clue has wordplay that guides the solver to the answer – via lateral thinking, by all means, but not by using words the average solver can’t be expected to know. 29ac was another example – neither Harn nor Harnpan are common words. I think this is lazy clueing – that or vindictive!
That’s surely part of the point of Mephisto – these puzzles are always stuffed full of words I don’t know!
I don’t mean the answers – I’m quite happy with the likes of Catapan, Clathrate and Cephalaspis. And I don’t mind obscure words being used in the wordplay, if the final anwer is familiar or can be worked out from the rest of the wordplay plus crossing letters. I just don’t find it fun to go looking up -OSS.
Yes it’s certainly not the most fun part of the exercise but it happens to me all the time! I confess I sometimes use the search function in the Chambers app: I justify this to myself on the basis that I am certain I could find the answer by trawling so all I’m doing is saving a bit of time, which isn’t important to me in Mephisto solving.
I do that too, and it feels less like cheating when it brings up dozens of words to choose from.
If you’re not into trawling thru a dictionary, Mephisto is not for you!
I disagree. I’ve been doing Mephisto for over 50 years (as well as another well-known barred crossword); for the most part, I can complete a puzzle with no, or minimal, reference to a dictionary. If I have to resort to Chambers because I haven’t “got” the wordplay, that’s down to me. I’m just saying that, for me, there is no fun if I am obliged to search through a dictionary for one letter, because the setter has used an obscure word in the wordplay rather than come up with something more imaginative.
Other opinions are, of course, available!
Yes, I was surprised to see your previous comment, because I thought you were more familiar with Mephisto than that. I can only say that you have an impressive vocabulary and that you are unlike most of us who comment on, or even blog, the puzzle. (When a blogger solves an entire puzzle without recourse to Chambers, they never fail to mention the feat.) I am fairly new to this, and found it a bit unfair early on when a clue referenced a word much more obscure than the answer. But I soon realized that the setters of Mephisto strive to bedevil the solver (as the title implies). You’re just too smart for them.
Thanks – I fear I’m just quite old! And I’ve learned a few words over decades of crosswords…. And I’m too mean to subscribe to the Chambers app!!
I put off buying it for a long time. I’m instinctively thrifty, but the main reason was that it would mean committing myself to working this damn thing. But I haven’t regretted tackling these every week (I’m on a streak!), and the app is actually a lot of fun. Amazing what’s in there!