The trend of easier Mephisto puzzles continues, but I’m sure the trend will reverse itself shortly. I solved this one in one session on a Saturday night while waiting for George’s blog. Nearly all the words, and many of the cryptic elements, are not in any way obscure, and most of the answers were short.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Forestalls vote bias with manipulation (8) |
| OBVIATES – Anagram of VOTE BIAS. | |
| 7 | Fisherman’s basket caught a lot of fish (4) |
| CORF – C + ORF[e]. | |
| 11 | Head waiter’s unconventional retail method (12, two words) |
| MAITRE D’HOTEL – Anagram of RETAIL METHOD. | |
| 12 | Drop bowled ball going high (4) |
| BLOB – B + LOB. | |
| 13 | Old rumour about women? Not at all (6) |
| NOWISE – NO(W)ISE. | |
| 15 | Most of metal bleaching vat letting more through (7) |
| LEAKIER – LEA[d] + KIER. | |
| 16 | Fellow with affected manner, former partner dated women (7, two words) |
| FAIR SEX – F + AIRS + EX. They are dated because women are no longer the fair sex, apparently. | |
| 18 | Rune — Scottish one he sculpted (4) |
| AESC – AE + SC. The sc. is an abbreviation for Latin sculpsit, he sculpted….as well as being an abbreviation for Latin scilicet. | |
| 20 | Be the responsibility of doctor while without it (7, two words) |
| LIE WITH – Anagram of WHILE around IT. | |
| 21 | Author put in late character in Dickens novel (7) |
| SPENLOW – S(PEN)LOW. Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield. | |
| 24 | Climber’s chart round east of summit (4) |
| TOPO – TOP + O, a slangish term. | |
| 25 | Increasingly bungling cataloguer (7) |
| MESSIER – MESSIER. As a boy astronomer, I learned about the Messier catalog of things that look like comets but aren’t. | |
| 28 | Fish struck in flank (7) |
| WHITING – W(HIT)ING. | |
| 30 | Girl popular in acting part making a comeback? (6) |
| ELINOR – IN inside ROLE backwards. Not the most popular spelling in the US, where Eleanor is more common. | |
| 31 | In Shakespeare wonder at Athenian characters and Thisbe’s end (4) |
| MUSE – MUS + [Thisb]E. | |
| 32 | Bacteria deficit reported, current in sick explorer returning (12) |
| LACTOBACILLI – LAC, sounds like LACK + ILL (I) CABOT backwards. | |
| 33 | Being reported annoys aircraftmen (4) |
| ERKS – Sounds like IRKS. | |
| 34 | More than one Balmoral morning venture’s involving Edward (8, two words) |
| FORE DAYS – FOR(ED)AY’S. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Elevating Trump’s core man in US guarding money tree (4) |
| OMBU – [Tr]U[mp] + B(M)O, all upside-down. No one is named Bo in the UK? | |
| 2 | Misguided Arab lops palm tree (12, two words) |
| BALSAM POPLAR – Anagram of ARAB LOPS PALM. | |
| 3 | Fiddle adulterating wine with crude oil (6) |
| VIOLIN – V(anagram of OIL)IN. | |
| 4 | Carriages Israeli native overturned (5) |
| ARBAS – SABRA upside-down. | |
| 5 | Dog thence regularly worried elk (6) |
| TECKEL – T[h]E[n]C[e] + anagram of ELK. | |
| 6 | Sole fixer pronounced “fix a race” with small stake (7, two words) |
| SHOE PEG – Sound like SHOO + PEG. One of the meanings of shoo is to fix a horse race – the winner is a shoo-in. | |
| 8 | Relating to what has a pavilion quickly set up (4) |
| OTIC – CITO upside-down. The pavilion is the visible part of the ear on your head. | |
| 9 | Yells sisters deployed so as not to fight? (12) |
| RESISTLESSLY – Anagram of YELL SISTERS. | |
| 10 | Left flying with dear flight provider? (8) |
| FLETCHER – Anagram of LEFT + CHER for a provider of a flight of arrows. | |
| 14 | Elder shrieks in heat with red and inflamed skin on legs (6) |
| WRAWLS – W/RAW + L[eg]S. | |
| 16 | What gets bowyers’ thumbs up? Elm if set supply (8) |
| FISTMELE – Anagram of ELM IF SET. | |
| 17 | Fame earl gained over entering navy (6) |
| RENOWN – R(E + WON backwards)N. | |
| 19 | Ground ivy with a lot of cover when in flourishing leaf (7) |
| ALEHOOF – Anagram of LEAF around HOO[d]. | |
| 22 | One may see drinkers here tolerate outside consumption? (6, two words) |
| WET BAR – WE(T.B.)AR. The endure meaning of wear is archaic. | |
| 23 | Labial part of worm I’ll cut up (6) |
| LIGULA – A LUG I’L[l] upside-down. | |
| 26 | Past greed perhaps supported by church (5) |
| SINCE – SIN + C.E. | |
| 27 | Rob a group of Teutonic Knights (4) |
| NICK – Hidden in [Teuto]NIC K[knights]. | |
| 29 | Climbing willow dislodges old twigs in places (4) |
| REIS – [o]SIER upside-down. | |
I got most of this last Sunday, but just finished up hours ago.
The absence of anything cluing the A in LIGULA bothered me.
(Still does.)
Well, if you look carefully in Chambers, ‘a’ can mean of or from, a shortening of Latin ab.
I remembered something like that, and I did look in Chambers, in the phone app.
I looked under A and A’.
Just now did again.
It’s not there!
Looked under Ab too…
But A can mean About.
That worried me too. In the end I wondered whether there had been a mistake with I’ll meant to be ill=ail. That wouldn’t work with the wording as is. Or perhaps the setter was being rather loose with punctuation. But actually having read vinyl1’s comment the ‘a’ he refers to is under à as in Thomas à Kempis, which is in the app.
Aha, so it is! I knew I’d seen it somewhere. And à is indeed from ab-.
25a is of course a double definition. Also in 8d the definition needs underlining i.e. relating to what has a pavilion.
1d bo is definitely not a uk idiom. Among the colourful words and phrases we use are: bloke, geezer, git or old git depending on how derogatory you wanted to be.
The clue that took me the longest to sort out was SHOE PEG. I didn’t know shoo or that shoo-in was spelt that way – always assumed it was shoe-in.
I was taking Bo as a proper name (Americanized spelling of Beau? Bo Derek?), as I don’t know it as a slang term equivalent to “bro,” “bud,” “mac,” etc.
According to google bo is a friendly shortening of boy, which is prevalent in the southern US.
It’s in Chambers of course: ‘a familiar term of address for a man’.
I hesitate to say it (given what we could get in response especially from this setter!) but I found this a little too easy.
I was surprised by ‘dated’ in 16ac. Chambers doesn’t say so: it just says ‘often patronizing’.
According to the OED ‘shoo’ in this sense is only ever used with ‘in’: to ‘shoo a horse in’ is to fix the race, and the more familiar nounal version derives from that. In everyday speech it has now lost the sense of fixing/cheating of course and just means ‘a sure thing’ (the last definition in Chambers).
I thught this was pretty easy, too – lots of write-ins. One or two I had to check in the dictionary, like FISTMELE (although, with all the crossing letters, it couldn’t have been anything else) and WRAWLS.
I think BO is quite common in crosswords as an American term for a man.
Well, I think we’re back to the usual standard, so as I said, let’s not get complacent. An easy one now and then is good for new solvers, which Mephisto certainly needs.
22D what does the TB in brackets mean
Tuberculosis – used to be known as “consumption”.
Thank you Munromaiden
Yes. Quite gentle for a Mephisto, but no complaints from me. It took me about 37 minutes which is pretty fast for me. Plenty of tree (and other plant) references in the clues. Is it enough to constitute a theme?
Thanks John Grimshaw and Vinyl. Unlike others I didnt find this any easier than normal- although having looked at the parsing all makes perfect sense and think I should have found it easier. I was also a bit unsure of the theme- but like Johninterred, I take it that it’s trees/plants- the tree/plant references only seem to be in the down clues.
Sorry about the wait for last week’s blog, I had a last minute invite to a glow disc golf tournament on Saturday night and didn’t get to the blog until a few hours after I usually do. I highly recommend glow disc golf as a Saturday night drinking activity.
Agree this was on the easier but fun end of the spectrum. Let’s see what happens next week.
Seeing the ‘easy’ preamble when looking at the site today, I thought I’d give a Mephisto a shot again. (Might try the week before’s later.) I filled the grid in 48:00, obviously with errors:
TOTO for TOPO
LEIS for REIS
SHOE PEN for SHOE PEG
ARMAS for ARBAS
AIGULA for LIGULA
Also, very strange trying to think of words that fit WR-W–! Overall, very happy to have just those 5 pink squares. I know experts here advise using guides while doing Mephisto, but after getting into crosswording via the Cracking the Cryptic channel, I can’t really see the fun in solving with a dictionary open.
Aside from the errors above, there were a good 10 clues whose definitions or wordplay I didn’t understand, so thank you very kindly for the blog!
I find the detective work in trawling through a well-thumbed Chambers and alighting upon the correct obscurity to solve Mephisto incredibly satisfying. I particularly enjoy it when the first entry refers you to a second entry prolonging the Eureka moment. It’s not often necessary for every clue and each Mephisto solver’s level of experience and need to resort to Chambers will vary but I do find it enjoyable when it is required.
Thank you for the useful take!