A fun theme today of LADIESFIRST (59A: Chivalrous rule obeyed in this puzzle) - four familiar couples have their usual order reversed. For instance, 37A: Grimm fairy tale (hint: 59-Across) is answered by GRETELANDHANSEL. We also get JULIETANDROMEO, JANEANDDICK, and MARYANDWILLIAM (23A: Virginia university).
The fill is pretty clean overall, with some nice bits. I like the word TOUSLE (32A: Mess up, as the hair) for instance, and 12D: Tall Paul (BUNYON) had me stumped for a while. I'm not too familiar with the name OJIBWA (45D: Tribe traditionally living around Lake Superior), but I do know their more common name - Chippewa. DOWNTON (26D: "____ Abbey") is current, OHFUN (55D: Sarcastic comment about the task ahead) is fun, and nobody minds being reminded of the great OTOOLE (44A: Peter who played Lawrence of Arabia).
There were lots of threes, but the worst was probably MTG (29D: Business appt., often), and that isn't even all that bad. Except that it reminds me that I've got a lot of them coming up this week! I never used to have meetings before I took this new job, and now I have them all the time! Ugh.
A fun theme, decent fill, solid Monday.
- Horace
6:01
ReplyDeleteI'm back. I agree that this was a nicely themed Monday and a very enjoyable puzzle. I figured out the trick pretty quickly. Did anyone notice that fairly close to each other were OREO, OBOE and OMEO (as part of ...ROMEO)? If we only had an oleo in there, too. Well, TSKTSK. I never heard of OJIBWA, either, but the crosses were all Monday-ish. It would have been nice to get the "Congratulations" two seconds earlier, but alas...maybe next week.
3:40
ReplyDeleteI like the theme, but the rest of the puzzle went by so fast, I didn't even have time to think up comments.
Honestly, I had not noticed this blistering time. Is this a personal best?
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