Times 28195 – Along the shores of Mephistoland

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Mephisto

Time: 40 minutes
Music: Mahler Symphony 6, Solti/CSO.

I have to say, this is the first time ever in a Monday puzzle where I had to construct unknown words from the cryptics.   In the real Mephisto, of course, you are allowed to look them up in Chambers to see if  they really exist, but the daily puzzle offers no such privileges.   So I did the best I could under the circumstances, and was rewarded with an all-correct grid after a little hard thinking.   All things considered, I am pretty well pleased with my time.    I also suspect that the SNITCH will be a bit off today, as some of the usual punters will be unable to finish, or decide to submit without leaderboard.   Or maybe I am wrong, and everyone else found this one a walk in the park.

Across
1 Singer initially helping worker in Anglican Church ritual (9)
CHANTEUSE –  C(H[elping],ANT)E + USE, with a specialized sense of use.
6 Upbeat aircraftman in borders of Paraguay (5)
PERKY – P(ERK)Y.
9 A northern girl at university in old French province (5)
ANJOU – A + N + JO + U.   A region of France I have heard of.
10 Dandy inspiring neatness in business statement (9)
BORDEREAU – B(ORDER)EAU.    OK, it probably exists, at least the cryptic is fairly simple.
11 Being dull, I celebrate converting road to precinct (15)
PEDESTRIANISING – PEDESTRIAN + I SING.
13 Aggressive salesperson? Spooner’s fixed her (8)
HUCKSTER –  Spooner’s version is STUCK HER, where lift and separate is required.
14 Milk supplier crossing river leaves container, perhaps (6)
TEAPOT – TEA(PO)T.   You should not actual leave your tea in the teapot after the two-minute brewing period, or bitter oils will emerge.  I have ruined pots of expensive single-estate teas through carelessness.
16 Comeback concerning civil wrong (6)
RETORT – RE TORT, a starter clue.
18 One hangs about French department, ready at first to pen note (8)
LOITERER – LOI(TE)RE + R[eady] – another French department I have heard of!  I was confused thinking re was the note, but then I saw it.
21 Phlegmatic master in Devon, extremely upset when disturbed (15)
UNDEMONSTRATIVE – Anagram of MASTER IN DEVON + U[pse]T.
23 Girl with capacity to contain anger about such mischief (9)
DIABLERIE – DI ABL(IRE backwards)E.  I would have thought deviltry or diabolerie, but apparently this is a thing.
25 Family strife involving Republican psychoanalyst (5)
FREUD – F(R)EUD, another starter clue.
26 17’s brother originally rearing flightless birds (5)
REMUS – R[earing] + EMUS, and you won’t even read the cryptic if you solve 17 first.
27 Motel site sporting evergreen shrub (9)
MISTLETOE – Anagram of MOTEL SITE, for once not an obscure bush.
Down
1 Church member keeping a prize boxer, perhaps (5)
CHAMP – CH (A) MP, either a world heavyweight champion or the best in show at Crufts, take your choice.
2 Poster girls (two, we hear) ultimately tried and judged (11)
ADJUDICATED –  AD + sounds like JUDY and KATE + [trie]D.
3 Supporters mostly rely on directions (7)
TRUSSES – TRUS[t] + S + E + S.
4 Remove load from hanger-on in a Parisian retreat (8)
UNBURDEN –  UN (BUR) DEN, where the alternate spelling of burr is required.
5 Listener’s problem demanding attention with chopper, briefly (6)
EARWAX –  EAR + W/AX[e].   It would not be brief in the US.
6 Exact force, capturing City area (7)
PRECISE – PR(EC)ISE.
7 Twisted-sounding grass (3)
RYE – Sounds like WRY, another starter clue.
8 Kid’s toy guns distributed with hesitation (9)
YOUNGSTER – Anagram of TOY GUNS + ER.
12 Cheeky brat in hospital department, inspiring regret regularly (11)
IMPERTINENT –  IMP ([r]E[g]R[e]T) IN ENT.
13 Drover outside Brussels taking last of oxen beneath this (9)
HEREUNDER – HER(EU + [oxe]N)DER.
15 Unavailing product of Merseyside port’s Society (8)
BOOTLESS –  BOOTLE’S + S.   I was stuck a bit, until I remembered we’ve had this one before.   Experience is useful!
17 Legendary twin’s memory, extremely useful over in America (7)
ROMULUS – ROM + U[sefu]L + US.
19 Weeping after end of strict dressing-down (7)
TEARFUL – [stric]T + EARFUL.
20 A new dock in part of Northern Ireland (6)
ANTRIM –  A + N + TRIM.
22 Last financier finally leaving to invest (5)
ENDUE – ENDU[r]E.   Invest in its root sense, not in the specialized meaning implied by the surface.
24 Initially achieving this writer’s goal (3)
AIM –  A[chieving] + I’M.

90 comments on “Times 28195 – Along the shores of Mephistoland”

  1. 27 minutes. A bit trickier than I expected after a few easy solves. BORDEREAU a complete unknown, though the wordplay was helpful. Stuck for some time on 23, but assumed the girl must be DI, and got DIABLERIE from that. At least it was familiar. The two long answers at 11 and 21 held me up for some time, as well.
    I hate Spooner clues. The Reverend made very few of the linguistic quirks that pepper the Times crossword. I swore ages ago that I wouldn’t set a Spooner clue in one of my own puzzles.
  3. I got off to a flying start in the NW with CHAMP and ANJOU leading quickly to ADJUDICATED and CHANTEUSE, and soon supported by TRUSSES. RYE gave me a flying entry to PERKY, the ERK remembered from previous puzzles. The totally unknown BORDEREAU was assembled per instructions. UNDEMONSTRATIVE went in from definition and the crossers from ROMULUS, ANTRIM and 2d. The SW held out longest, with DIABLERIE constructed eventually, once IRE was reversed in the appropriate place. A postulated UNDER at the bottom of 13d yielded the DI and Cain’s dyslexic brother did the rest. Fortunately a guess at HUCKSTER for aggressive salesperson seemed to fit the bill, although I baulked at the Spoonerism. The H allowed me to get LOI, HEREUNDER. 23:15. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  4. 17:26. NHO BORDEREAU — and neither has my iphone apparently — but generously clued. DIABLERIE and the French departments were all there somewhere. All very Gallic
  5. Hadn’t heard of ERK so I’m another who had PACEY for 6a. That made 7d difficult and I came up with CUE as some sort of rare abbreviation for Fescue. It all seemed to make sense at the time.
  6. 19.20. An enjoyable workout with delays to derive bordereau, to remember the Liverpudlian port and to fail to crack the spoonerism but bung in huckster anyway as I couldn’t see what else it would be.
  7. …come and take a ride with me! Special greetings to Radio Gnome Invisible fans on this board.

    Late to the action today as I had some priority matters to deal with – and in the end very pleased to get a correct completion, given the unknown and uncertainties already discussed above. I found this a very enjoyable – and significantly stretching – start to the week. Thanks V and setter

  8. I somehow remembered ERK and knew or guessed the French words. My problem at the end was wanting 1d to be CHARM which meant I spent ages on LOI 11a where I struggled to see the definition. Once I revised to CHAMP, PEDESTRIANISING came immediately.
    About an hour over lunch.
    David
  9. NHO that definition of BOOTLESS, and no idea about ERKs.

    BORDEREAU and DIABLERIE built from cryptic.

    Last two in — HUCKSTER and HEREUNDER

  10. 45 minutes, quite a few biffed, but very pleased to finish in under the hour. It’s all been said – thanks, V, bloggers and setter.
  11. As others have commented, so say I. DIABLERIE I managed; ERK I knew from my father, who once was one, but I note from the OED that it is ‘dated’, as, indeed, is my father; BORDEREAU beat me and I have to say that, after 45 years in the business world, I have only ever encountered the word once – i.e. today. So, a 45 minute DNF with about 10 minutes staring in vain at that one. Thanks to our blogger as usual.
  12. 28.54 with a lot of huffing and puffing. Diablerie LOI shortly preceded by bootless. Didn’t get the unavailing connotation and despite being reasonably local never considered Bootle a port in its own right- shows how much I know!

    Good puzzle so thanks setter and blogger for the illumination.

  13. Didn’t enjoy this, and had a DNF as needed aids for Huckster and Diablerie. I remember a bordereau was a paying in slip at the bank in France. Never seen it in English.
  14. Yes as above somewhere I also nearly put DIABLIREE, but somehow it didn’t seem right. We’ve had ERK here before, I think.
    Is Monday the new Friday?
  15. ….BORDERAUX were perfectly well known to me. They were much hated by our data entry staff because you had to deal with them in sections due to their extreme breadth making them too big to fit on the desk beside the key station.

    There was nothing totally beyond my knowledge, but some thought was needed for DIABLERIE, and I thought clueing HUCKSTER as a Spoonerism was rather pushing the envelope.

    FOI CHANTEUSE
    LOI HEREUNDER
    COD PEDESTRIANISING
    TIME 8:28

  16. 6m 34s and it was nice to learn some new words – BORDEREAU in particular. The way I attacked the puzzle meant that it was ROMULUS that went in without looking at the clue, as REMUS was already safely entered.

    I’m afraid I echo others’ distaste for the Spoonerism – I dislike them at the best of times, and this was a real stretch. I’m also dead set against partial homophones in clues, and the JUDY/KATE pairing was a little too much for me to take.

    Grumble, grumble.

    TEAPOT was nice, and I was delighted with MISTLETOE being a shrub I’ve actually heard of.

  17. NHO erk or Bordereau – and Diablerie was hardly Monday fare/fair. But I scraped home in 19:27 mins. These were mixed-in with fairly anodyne clues. The long anagrams were the main culprits – as I had to wait for the crossers to arrive. Like Phil, I thought the Spoonerism was a fridge too bar. COD 15dn Bootless. WOD Earwax!
  18. I was incredibly happy with my time of 17:11, right up to the moment I realised that I’d lazily put in RETURN for RETORT, thinking it must be some legal definition of the word “turn”, instead of thinking for a few seconds more to come up with “tort”. vinyl1 described it as a starter clue as well (correctly)!
  19. Felt harder than the 92 or so snitch. Lots of good stuff for us Frechies. The Loire department confuses because it is several hundred kilometres from what most people think of as the Loire – ie the chateau-y bit — lying in fact way south in the Massif Central. Even further south (and higher) is the Haute Loire. The Spoonerism was annoying because it wasn’t based on sound but on the written letters. But Spooner presumably mixed things up sonically rather than looking at the words on paper. Also isn’t having ear as both listener and attention – one in the definition, one in the cryptic — a bit odd? Gripes aside, much enjoyed so thanks.
  20. Decent time if I’d reversed the IRE and spelled MISTLETOE correctly. Don’t ask. Also started with ANGOU (thinking of ANGOULEME) whilst LOITERER went in and out as I tried to shoehorn LOT into the answer. The correct Dept didn’t cross my mind.

    How do I ever solve these correctly I ask myself? 😀

    I rather like Spoonerisms as I find them easier than DDs and cryptics though this one was in bunged without being completely convinced

    Enjoyed the puzzle and blog, thanks

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