Mephisito 2671 – Tim Moorey

Author   glhPosted on Categories Mephisto
If you read the half-post, that was weird, I had a pop-up attack while I was writing the blog up, sorry there was only half a post originally.

I’m afraid I didn’t give this the attention it deserves when it came out on Sunday – when there’s an Azed competition puzzle I try to get it out of the way so I can get a clue in the mail. I found the right hand side of this one considerably easier than the left, and as I come to write the blog there’s still one I’m not 100% on (15 across), so there’s a chance I might not have a complete solution here.

As usual, some excellent wordplay and a few good &lit (or all-in-one, as Tim Moorey calls them in his book) clues that made me smile.

Away we go

Across
3 MUTESSARIF: MUTES(silences), then (FAIRS)* – I thought fairs was going to be the definition for a long time
9 URINAL: double def – office is slang for bathroom
10 COL,ON(towards): port in Panama
12 RONG: sounds like “wrong”
13 BOO,K,M,ATE: nice surface
15 NGONIS: things come to you while you’re writing analysis – it’s G,ON in NIS(old form of “is not”)
17 GROSERT: anagram of T,ROGER’S
19 ARED: PREPARED without PREP
20 CASCHROM: SCH in CAROM(a term I see a lot in pool over here)
22 BILANDER: I in BLANDER
24 L,ITE(m)
25 LAOTIAN: interesting &lit clue – the clue tells you to anagram (NATIONAL) without the N(term of Eastern)
30 Y,AMENS
31 ‘S,PUDDING: PUDDING is one of my father’s favorite terms for fat kids – to position machinery to begin to drill
32 ANOA: NO(not) in AA(volcanic rock). Not sure what “vitrually” is doing in the clue
33 SABOT: (BOAST)*
34 GORING: GOING(accepted) around R(from eaR)
35 KETTLEDRUM: I think this is KETTLED,RUM but I can’t seem to find that definition in Chambers?
 
Down
1 TURN(performance),TAB,LIST
2 PROGERIA: (PRIOR,AGE)*
3 MINOS: DOMINOS(raincoats) without the DO
4 TABID: RABID with the R(rule) swapped for a T(time)
5 SCOURSE: exchange – COURSE holding up S(tock)
6 SOKE: SPOKE without P
7 ROARER: A in (ERROR)*
8 INTO: I then (NOT)*
11 TEXT MESSAGE: T’,EXT, then S(special) in M(orecamb)E and SAGE
14 MASH,LAM(b)
16 N,O,DATED
18 ROTENONE: NONE after something that sounds like ROTI – I’ve not used the word, but the phoneticization in Chambers backs it up
21 ADAMITE: another crafty &lit – A DAME in (c)IT(y)
23 LOQUAT: QU,A in LOT
26 NAGOR: ROGAN reversed – laughed a lot when I got this – of course ROGAN JOSH is an ease Indian curry dish
27 DENIM: MINED reversed
28 (l)APSE
29 IDOL: LIDO with the L moved to the bottom

5 comments on “Mephisito 2671 – Tim Moorey”

  1. Thanks for the blog George, several I couldn’t fully parse.
    In 32 isn’t “virtually not” just not quite “not”, hence NO?
    I solved this while travelling with a mixture of googling and Bradford’s. Strangely googling feels less like cheating, because you can use Bradford’s to find obscure synonyms you might not have thought of directly from words in the clue. With google you have to be wondering whether “nis” is a word to start with, which makes it a direct substitute for Chambers.
    Anyway, whatever the method, it feels good just to finish, and I’m on a bit of a roll because I think this is my fourth in a row.
    I like it when they use words like TURNTABLIST that are obscure because they’re new-fangled rather than the opposite.
  2. My personal rules: Bradford and Chambers are allowed. If I have to use google or word wizard I count it as a DNF. Brewer and ODQ occasionally used.

    BW

    Andrew K

    1. For me the legitimate way of solving these clues is to come up with a potential solution from the wordplay, and then verify it by looking it up in Chambers. This is what I try to to when I’m at home (not always with the greatest success).
      I solved some of these clues by looking up a word in the clue in Bradford’s. So I think I may have looked up “ox” and found ANOA, for instance. For me this is definitely cheating because I didn’t come up with ANOA on my own: I got it from a (long) list of synonyms for “ox”.
      I solved CASCHROM by figuring it out from wordplay and then googling the word to check. If I’d had Chambers with me I’d have achieved exactly the same result.
      So in other words I’m in the opposite camp from you: Bradford’s is cheating but googling (if you don’t have Chambers) isn’t!
      In any event a “travelling solve” is always going to be a technical DNF for me because Chambers is a bit too heavy for the bag, but it’s still fun.
  3. A very enjoyable puzzle I thought with 26D “Josh’s parner” making me laugh out loud – It’s an oroginal construction I think, don’t recall it before.

    There’s no such thing as cheating folks – how you choose to solve the puzzle is entirely your own affair, so long as you have fun and get a sense of achievement when you finish.

  4. I’m still on a learning curve with the Mephisto (or Mepshito as George calls it – a Freudian slip perhaps?).

    I got just over half of this, mostly to the left of a diagonal running from top left to bottom right. And re the cheating argument: at this stage of my development, anything goes apart from using one of those crossword-helper/word wizard sites.

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