So far, so good on the ol' Turn. (That's what we call the trio of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday puzzles here at Horace and Frances and Colum.) Today, Patrick Berry fills a pleasing grid with his usual smoothness. Well, I didn't particularly love ENGRAFTED (31D: Added to a plant) crossing PRATES (43A: Blathers), but aside from that, this thing was pretty damn clean. I love a lot of the fill, too - DESECRATE (33D: Treat with violent disrespect), COINPURSE (29D: Quarters' quarters), ACAPPELLA (14A: With nobody playing, say), ELBOWROOM (6D: It's hard to find in a crowd), OPHELIA (9D: Shakespeare character who coins the term "primrose path")... it's all good.
There were a number of names that I didn't know off the top of my head - HEIGL (18A: Katherine of NBC's "State of Affairs"), EPPIE (20A: Girl adopted by Silas Marner), FOLEY (35A: Sound effects pioneer Jack), WEISS (39A: Ehrich ____ a.k.a. Harry Houdini), ALLEN (25D: Longtime "Voice of the New York Yankees"), and even IVANA (48D: Former Trump Organization member). But I'm not knocking it - the crosses were all fair.
1A: Handle things (COPE) is pretty good. Let's say B. And the first one I put in confidently was... let's say EPEES (4D: Swords, in Sèvres).
I liked it, but I don't have a lot of time for this review, so this will have to do.
- Horace
14:32
ReplyDeleteThe first word I put in confidently was SLOT. I hazarded "herbs" at 1D (wrong), and thought about EPEES but didn't put it in. I love the cluing in this puzzle. I had no idea who Jack FOLEY was, but knowing Mel ALLEN (after a couple of crosses were in) helped. ELBOWROOM is my favorite answer.
28:22
ReplyDeleteThere was quite a lot to love about this puzzle, including OLDBAILEY, KINGJAMES, PHONO, HEIGL, SNORED and CEREALBOX, among the others mentioned by Horace. OPHELIA was entered with no crosses, and even though I, too, had never heard of EPPIE, I like that it's in there with EPEES (even though that's plural). BTW, after reading the review yesterday, I realized that I should have given the Thursday puzzle a little longer. Had I known everyone was having initial trouble, I would have toughed it out for more than the fifty minutes or so that I worked it.