Friday, September 11, 2015

Friday, September 11, 2015, Peter A. Collins

8:49

My thanks to Horace for filling in yesterday. I was planning on putting my entry in late tonight, but this is way better! I wish it had something to do with life and death, but instead it was resident education followed by opening night in the NFL...

In any case, today I'm back with a very pleasant Friday themeless. Did it skew too easy? For me, yes. There were two 15-letter answers I filled in with either no crosses or only two or three. After I put in LSAT and PREPS, STEPPEDONTHEGAS (20A: Gunned it) slipped into place. Let me take a moment here to enjoy 1A: Recharged, in a way (SLEPT). In our house, we call that "taking a snoozle," and it is a time-honored way to get ready for dinner. I give the clue-answer pair a B+.

There were a number of very fun clues in here. 17A: Objects within spitting distance? (WATERMELONSEEDS) was great. See, the seeds have to be that close, because that's how far they got spit. 37A: Twisted here this is (SYNTAX) is a beautiful self-referential clue-answer pair. And I loved 53A: Bobby with a low rank (POLICECONSTABLE). How great is it to have a Bobby clue which is not Mr. Orr?

Funny to have the two "cassette" answers: MEMOREX and PASSE. 42D: How narcs might act (ONATIP) was nicely misdirecting. And STPAT, if you're going to have it in the grid, is well clued with 44D: One prompting people to go green, for short?

Of course 48A: Film featuring the fictional album "Smell the Glove" (THISISSPINALTAP) was a very welcome sight. I needed no crosses for this answer. There were a few odd answers, like URE, or ETTE, but really, it's no catastrophe. Big thumbs up from me.

- Colum

2 comments:

  1. 0:23:18

    Geez, I thought I was moving right along on this one, but 8:49?! I really hope you are able to attend the ACPT next year.

    I agree that this was a fun one. The fifteens were, indeed, good, (if a little on the easy side), but the vertical tens were also quite nice, all of them. Love that CHEGUEVARA gets his whole name in, but my favorite of those is the nicely clued STUNTPILOT (25D: High Roller).

    Like you, loved SYNTAX and THISISSPINALTAP ("It's a complete catastrophe!"), love the pair of Latin answers (AMOR & OCTO) (well... love might be too strong...), and what about ASS being clued with the Nativity. Excellent. Lastly, Did you notice that Mr. Collins got his last name into the grid? Very nice, Sir!

    - Horace

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  2. 20:19
    I also moved right along, but that often happens on a Friday (not so far on today's (Saturday's) puzzle; I'm already over 1/2-hour in with only slightly under half of the grid filled). The fifteens were quite easy, although I filled in only ___CONSTABLE off of having only the "BLE," and needed the crosses to get the "POLICE" part. ASS was great, both the answer and the clue, and ATOM (40A Bond part) was also nice. Lots of great stuff in here, but I'm not too happy with WAL; it leads to WALPOLE on the down, and that's two "WAL"s. I mean, is that allowed? I always want USSR where CCCP goes in these things, but as you can see, it didn't slow me down too much. Thumbs up from this corner, too.

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