0:29:25
It seems there's been a string of decent puzzles lately. This one starts out strong with YAWN (1A: Low interest indicator), and the first two coming off of that word are nice, too. YECCH (1D: Less polite way of saying "no thanks" to offered food) (the proper, MAD Magazine spelling!), and ACHOO (2D: Evidence of an alergic reaction). I like WHAMS (3D: Collides with noisily) slightly less, but I appreciate that those three words are not really normal words, and I like that.
Frannie got CHARLESDEGAULLE (16A: His death prompted Georges Pompidou to say "France is a widow") with no crosses, and soon after that got COMMERCIALBREAK (19A: Show stopper), and after that, the answers just cascaded down the grid. Except for PHARLAP (23: Celebrated racehorse nicknamed "The Red Terror"), that is. It's hilarious to me now that we saw PHA first, and said, "Oh, it must be Phantom," and then when we got LABORS (15D: Exerts oneself) and saw PHAR we said, "Oh, right, it must be Pharaoh." HAH! After we got LAUREL (9D: Daphne, after her mythical transformation), we just left the final two letters to be filled in by crosses.
Lots of fun ones: SLANG (35A: Bad, for good); DEW (25D: Ground water?); BEE (30D: Wax worker); and CAGES (42D: Bar rooms?), among others. We got DENEB (36D: Summer triangle star) this time with only a few crosses, and learned the word "caravel" from PINTA (41D: Historic caravel) (Nice, specific clue).
Lots of proper names we didn't know, and lots of product names, it seems, (AUDI, ZALES, GLAD), but really, nothing really objectionable. Nice clean fill, and a fun solving experience. Now we've got to get back to our "bottled poetry." Happy weekend, all!
- Horace
~50 mins.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of PHARLAP either, though I'm sure someone celebrated him. I'm glad to hear you're getting familiar with Deneb. I'll have to point it out to you some time you're at the YBH. I, like Frannie, filled in CHARLESDEGAULLE with no crosses. Having enjoyed a martini (or two) in a replica of RLS's library while on Kaua'i, I wasn't thinking WINE and required a couple of crosses to get it. Anyway, I'm working on Saturday and just printed out Sunday, so I'll get back to this blog in the next day or two.