0:14:52
A fun little anagram theme, yielding some amusing nonsense phrases. YEMENENEMY (18A: Adversary on the Arabian Peninsula?) is fun to say over and over and over, and NEPALPLANE (57A: Part of an air force in south-central Asia?) is just absurd. Do they even have an air force? The big, two-parter, ALGERIA REGALIA (38A: With 40-Across, royal emblems in North Africa?) was very nice as well. It's just a pity that DEMANDS TEENAGE couldn't have been worked out somehow. But that's not really a fair criticism. There were no theme verticals, and the long fill that did run vertically was quite nice. PILGRIMAGE (30D: The fifth of the Five Pillars of Islam) was interesting both word-wise and clue-wise.
The rest of the fill was easy, but really quite clean. Enjoyed the double "Hairspray alternative" clues of MOUSSE and GEL, and it's especially nice since "Hairspray" was an answer in yesterday's grid. FANG (61A: One drawing blood) was fun, as was 36D: They're the pits (SEEDS). And it looks like I'll have to do some Googling after this to see why GOYA might have been called 27D: "The Naked Maja" or "The Clothed Maja." Very interesting.
Frannie sometimes complains about the intra-referencial clues, but today I found them to be fine, especially 21D: Places where people 36-Across (Get married (SAYIDO)) (ALTARS). Once, in a puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley, something was just clued by citing two other clues. Like "35-Down 15-Across" or something like that. I enjoy that kind of thing.
Anywho, I thought this was a fine Tuesday puzzle. I don't believe we've seen Mr. Raymon before as a constructor, but I am now looking forward to seeing his byline again.
- Horace
p.s. Those are just both paintings by Goya, not names for him. Sorry for any confusion.
10:30
ReplyDeleteI figured out the theme almost immediately, so the fill went extremely quickly. I also noticed and enjoyed the MOUSSE-GEL connection. Other than that, and your mentions, there was nothing spectacular about this puzzle. But a good thing about it was that it was not "groan-worthy," like a recent one.
Perhaps there's a poisonous anemone in Yemen. And maybe the only enemy of the anemone is an exterminator who brags about it by saying "Yemen Anemone Enemy" 10 times fast wherever he goes.
ReplyDeleteAnd, http://www.nepalarmy.mil.np/
Nice addition to the tongue-twister. And I suppose everyone needs an army. Everyone except Costa Rica, that is. Good ol' Central America... so peaceful.
ReplyDelete