Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Tuesday, January 14, 2020, Jim Peredo

3:47

It’s irate animal day! Furious fauna! ... Peeved pets?

Bet (semi) seriously, folks, Mr. Peredo has offered us a puzzle whose theme consists of a set of creatures with mean attitudes. I think we’d all agree that ANGRYBIRDS, RAGINGBULL, and even GRUMPYCAT are well accepted and widely known examples of this particular set.

But I’d argue, as much as I truly love Eric Carle’s work, The GROUCHY LADYBUG is a much more obscure piece of work than, say, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Or even The Quiet Cricket. That last one was my daughter’s favorite. She used to be able to say the whole book by heart, even before she was able to read. The fact that the name of this particular piece of “kid lit” had to be split into two parts in the puzzle made it less impactful.

But only a nitpicking simian would note such small details. In other news, TRASHY RUNNY SNOT. That’s an odd collection of words to be found right next to each other. I am impressed by the chunky corners of this Tuesday grid, with such lovely answers as CABARET, SIBERIA, CARAMEL, and TOUCANS.
Dutch ALES. I’ll have to remember to ask Horace and Frannie about them
I had no idea the word PEON came from Spanish. So there’s a nice piece of trivia. On a completely unconnected note, MASHABLE made me think (incorrectly) of T.H. White’s “Mistress Masham’s Repose.” Perhaps I’ll go read that.

- Colum

2 comments:

  1. 3:57
    We're coming up a lot this week in the reviews! I like it. :)
    And I don't think I've ever heard of Dutch ALES as a particular category of beer, and a lot of the best beer I've had in the Netherlands has actually been Belgian... but they do make some good ones in the orange kingdom too. One of my favorites is made up north in Texel. Mmmm.... Texels.

    I loved seeing EARTHDAY in here. And I second your criticism by admitting that I've never heard of the GROUCHY LADYBUG.

    Tried StoatS before getting SABLES. Other than that, no real UHOH moments.

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  2. 7:01
    Easier for me than yesterday's puzzle. I too noticed the RUNNY/SNOT cross, which is no good. And add me to the list of never hearing of a GROUCHY/LADYBUG, but I'm not much on kid lit these days. ATANYRATE, I hope to visit SIBERIA some day, and should re-watch RAGINGBULL. I don't really remember it too well, and I understand it's a passable movie.

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