I started this last Saturday night and remember either having a good brain night, or just flying through this one and the Azed in one sitting. A look back and there's a mixture of familiar and non-familiar words, but I think I had seen most of the wordplay elements.
There is a liberal amount of checking across quadrants in the grid too - some grids turn the Mephisto into four mini-puzzles, but this one has longer answers spanning a few parts of the grid.
By the way, if you enjoy Mephisto style grids and want to try an easier (though often American-styled) thematic puzzles, this week is the Wall Street Journal's HEX puzzle - it is usually on the first Saturday of the month. Give it a go.
And away we go...
There is a liberal amount of checking across quadrants in the grid too - some grids turn the Mephisto into four mini-puzzles, but this one has longer answers spanning a few parts of the grid.
By the way, if you enjoy Mephisto style grids and want to try an easier (though often American-styled) thematic puzzles, this week is the Wall Street Journal's HEX puzzle - it is usually on the first Saturday of the month. Give it a go.
And away we go...
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SARS: double definition, plural of the SAR fish and a flu-like disease we all went bonkers about a few years ago |
| 4 | SOPHISTS: P(quiet) and HIST(silence) in SOS |
| 10 | PHIALS: HI in PALS |
| 12 | LEV: remove the end from LEVY |
| 13 | ANNELID: anagram of LAD and NINE |
| 14 | CARMINATIVE: VITA reversed in CARMINE red |
| 15 | TA,LOOK,A |
| 16 | PREIF: or PRE-"IF" |
| 18 | CARLIST: or CAR LIST |
| 23 | TERROIR: TERROR surrounging I |
| 24 | PHAGE: PAGE containing H |
| 25 | YOICKED: shorten YOB and decapitate SICKED |
| 27 | MANNALICHEN: I inside an anagram of CHANNEL with MAN at the front |
| 28 | ENDIRON: anagram of DINNER with O inside |
| 30 | LOB: shorten LOBO |
| 31 | MESAIL: ES(as in "thou art = tu es") inside MAIL(armour) |
| 32 | SUBAHDAR: anagram of BARS,A,HINDU minus IN |
| 33 | TYTE: hidden in naughTY TEmptress |
| Down | |
| 1 | SPLIT CAP: because the phrase paniC APparently has the word CAP split inside it |
| 2 | RIVALRY: anagram of LIAR,VERY missing |
| 3 | SAPROLEGNIA: anagram of REGIONAL,SPA |
| 4 | SLO-MO: LO,M inside SO |
| 5 | PINNATE: PATE(a starter I'll pass on) containing INN |
| 6 | HANAPER: REP,AN,AH all reversed |
| 7 | SOL: SOLD(got rid of) missing the D(LSD penny) |
| 8 | TRIVIA: TRI |
| 9 | SADE: SHADE missing the H |
| 11 | PETRARCHIST: anagram of SCRIPT and HEART |
| 17 | FORDABLE: ORD(point) in FABLE(story, narrative) |
| 19 | INEARTH: hidden in fINE ART Here |
| 20 | STYLOID: anagram of SOLIDITY less I |
| 21 | ROKELAY: OK in RELAY |
| 22 | NHANDU: HAND inside NU(Nunavut) - Nunavut became its own territory in 1999, just before I moved from Canada to the US |
| 26 | ICKER: remove the top from PICKER |
| 27 | MESS: double definition |
| 29 | DAB: BAD reversed |