0:12:49
I enjoyed this one. It was trickier than Mondays often are, and had some nice stuff like SWAIN (29A: One who goes a-courting) (I wanted "Froggy," but it didn't fit!), and VOLTA, clued much differently from the way it was yesterday, which was kind of cool. Things like ENOL (16A: Carbon compound) still trip me up, but there wasn't too much of that.
The theme was simple and clean, although I kept reading the first Across clue as "... and a homophobic hint..." which threw me off for a bit. I liked the "four Is" theme, and I also liked that none of the theme answers had any other vowels at all. Also, could you think of four more disparate pieces of fill than INHIGHSPIRITS, NIHILISTIC, GINGIVITIS and STRINGBIKINI? I doubt it.
- Horace
I'm glad that you thought that this was trickier than the average Monday. It took me over 15 minutes, but I didn't officially time it. In addition to your likes, I enjoyed 51D Women's hybrid tennis garment (SKORT), which is a word that I don't often hear (nice that it crossed with STRINGBIKINIS). I also quite liked the original clue for AFRO (19A Hairstyle that's rarely seen on blonds and redheads), though I'm not sure we're supposed to say that....
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind if this became the standard level of difficulty for a Monday. Racing through puzzles in less than ten minutes (and once in a while less than five!) is not all that satisfying. I prefer a little more of a struggle. But I guess they've got to give the non-puzzle-fanatics something to do too...
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