Beelzebub 1,227

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A tough puzzle even by Beelzebub standards, which has taken me until now to finish, let alone explain. Still, I think I’ve managed to cover everything off.

Mentions of Twitter and (perhaps) Lady Gaga briefly made me wonder whether Beelzebub has been hanging out with younger folks this week, but it’s probably all a coincidence. Likewise the surname of Mephisto setter Tim Moorey appearing in the bottom row in a slightly Nina-ish fashion.

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

Across
1 SCRIMP – M in SCRIP.
6 ABIES – ABI[d]ES.
10 PANORAMIC – (O + RAM) in PANIC. Both “ram” meaning “stem” and “panic” as a type of grass were new to me.
11 TWITTERBONED – TWIT + (BREED NOT).
14 GAGA – GAG + A.
15 SUBER – SUB + E[a]R.
16 INTEGER – E.G. in [w]INTER.
17 EMETIC – M in (CITE + [gees]E)<.
21 HORRID – HO + R + RID.
23 OPEN AIR – (ON A PIER)*.
24 NIECE – E in NICE.
25 TIKA – IT< + KA.
27 TANGLE-PICKER – (ANGLE + P) in PICKER.
28 TELLUROUS – L in (RULES OUT)*.
29 MOORE – M.O. + ORE. Sir Henry, of course.
30 SUPPLY – SUP + PLY.
Down
1 SETOSE – SET + [m]O[n]S[t]E[r].
2 RAILBED – D in (RAI + LED).
3 INTO – [pr]INT O[ne].
4 PREDICTIVELY – (RED in PIC) + LEVITY*.
5 PARANTHROPUS – (RAN in PATH) + R + OPUS.
6 AMBITIONS – BIT in [c]AMIONS.
7 BIOGEN – 0 in BEING*. Clue was Quantity of protoplasm from alien being stopped by nothing.
8 EXEGETICS – (GET + I + C) in EXES. Exes seems to be derived from “expenses”.
9 SUDARY – D in [os]SUARY.
12 DUMB PIANO – (IN PUB AMID)*.
13 GRISAILLE – SAI in GRILLE.
18 BREAKUP – (RE in BAKU) + P.
19 BOTTOM – TT in BOOM. I spent quite a while trying to make BOTTLE work.
20 ONAGER – ON + AGE + R.
22 DEFRAY – DEF + RAY.
26 SCOP – S + COP.

3 comments on “Beelzebub 1,227”

  1. You seem to have a blank for parsing 7dn, and so did I. 🙁

    I scrawled several exclamation marks on my paper when I finally parsed 9dn.

  2. Well spotted, DM. I had indeed failed to parse that one, and intended and subsequently neglected to come back to it having typed up the rest.

    Still, on seeing your note I updated the post to say “dunno about this one” and add the clue, and lo and behold, it came to me. “Alien” is an unusual anagrind but no doubt acceptable.

    9dn was my last one in and took me a good while to parse too, if that helps at all.

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