Beelzebub 1,239

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Beelzebub was excellent company on the slow train back from Sheffield to London last Sunday.

Not having acccess to the usual aids, combined with having time to kill, always seems to give me a lot more patience when it comes to teasing out some of the more complicated wordplay, so I was pleased complete the grid on the train.

I did make an incorrect guess at 13 across, where I hadn’t heard of AYIN, and guessed the Yiddish “oy” for “alas”, which is roughly what it means. Still, this was easily corrected once I had access to Chambers.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Across
1 PEA-TRAINER – (EAT + RAIN) in PER.
11 ABNEGATE – GEN< in ABATE.
12 ETAPE – ET + APE.
13 AYIN – AY + IN. The sixteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which I’m half tempted to learn, as it does crop up fairly regularly in weekend crosswords.
14 ILEXES – LIE* + SEX<.
15 YEASTY – YES + STY.
16 PLANET – APL< + NET.
17 LENTICELLATE – LENT + I + CELL + ATE.
19 AGATHODRIMON – ((HAD TO)* + RIM) in AGON. I was very pleased to work this out from wordplay.
24 LANDAU – LAND + [h]AU[l].
26 IONIST – (0 + SIN<) in IT.
27 ENNEAD – A in [p]ENNED.
28 NUMB – M in NUB.
29 VIOLA – LO< in VIA.
30 IDIOLECT – (TIC OLDIE)*. That MA in Linguistics occasionally comes in useful.
31 CLERESTORY – (REST in LEO) in CRY.
Down
1 PHENYLALANIN – ((H + EN + LAY*) in PLAN) + IN. Another very satisfying one to work out.
2 ENTREE – ENT + RE + E.
3 TAPIST – PI in TAST[e].
4 ABBEY-COUNTER – (BY A BRUTE ONCE)*.
5 INEXPEDIENCE – I + NEX[t] + (DIE in PENCE).
6 NEWELL – NEWEL + L.
7 RAYON – RAY + ON.
8 STILET – TILE in ST.
9 PENITENTIARY – PEN + I + (ENTIA in TRY).
10 KATANA – KA + TAN + A.
18 AMIDOL – DO in LIMA<. Used as a photographic developer.
20 GARUDA – U in GARDA.
21 HANDLE – [myt]H AND LE[gend].
22 INDICT – I + DIN* + CT.
23 OSTLER – [j]OSTLE + R.
25 NOMIC – NO + [wisdo]M + IC.

 

2 comments on “Beelzebub 1,239”

  1. Thanks for that. There were a couple I couldn’t understand.

    Even with Chambers to hand, I managed to write in 19ac wrongly – AGATHADAIMON – and it was only when I got 4dn I noticed my mistake.

    2dn I couldn’t parse. Really should remember that EN = nut. As it said “concerned with amino acid” I assumed there was a form PHENYLALANIC, which is what I entered.

    5dn: obvious now you point out the parsing.

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