I had better tighten my ASTEROIDBELT and get this puzzle reviewed before midnight. ONEDAY I'll get it done earlier.
Mr. Berry entertains, as ever, with several clever clues. I especially enjoyed 11D. Has everything? OVEREATS and 13A. Heady stuff (ALE).
And how about the nice pair of clues in 10A. Hold up (ROB) and 49D. Pull down (EARN)? I also noticed the 5D/39D combo BEE HIVE, which may have been a fluke (or an EEL), but also possibly not. Another amusing clue was 28A. Sir in the Ruhr (HERR). I enjoyed BONEDRY as well (12D). 52A. Dachshund, colloquially (SAUSAGEDOG) is funny, although in my colloquy one more often hears them called wiener dogs.
We have MEDUSA back for the second time this week. Perseus had better get bizzay. I didn't recognize the names of either of Medusa's two sisters, so which one is really immortal after all, eh? Take that Stheno and Euryale.
I don't usually take note of the grid itself, unlike some of my esteemed colleagues, but today I did notice the one answer running top to bottom down the middle (SUMMERTIMEBLUES), which I thought was nifty. I tried to invest it with some significance relative to the rest of the puzzle, but I couldn't. Anyone else?
I don't want to be the QUEENOFMEAN, but there are a couple of clues I am critical of. The clue/answer pair 41D. Flickering light (STROBE) for one. Although, accurate, in a way, flickering is not quite how I would describe a strobe light. Also, AUTORACE for 33D. (Talladega event) seemed a bit obvi for a Friday puzzle, but perhaps I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Although my time for today's puzzle wasn't fast, I did complete it with no FWOEs - always a nice FEAT for me on a Friday.
~ Frannie
13:50
ReplyDeleteExcellent Berry puzzle, as always, although this one lacks his usual nice flow from one are of the puzzle to another. I liked 22A: Take a wheel? (UNICYCLE).
20:40
ReplyDeleteThe "U" of UNICYCLE was my final entry, oddly, because I couldn't decide on the correct spelling of WAMPUM and didn't look too closely at the cross until the end. I've heard "hot dog" for SAUSAGEDOG (a term which I've never heard). I loved the three long middle answers, especially the first two. MARRIEDMAN was a bit obvious for a Friday, too. Even though it was three letters, I thought 1A Entanglement (WEB) to be quite good, and deserving of a high-ish grade, at least a B+, if not an A-. DECIMAL was OK. At least it crosses DEVO. I agree with Frannie on STROBE. Nice to see QATARIS in there, having been to Qatar and flown on Qatar Air. Fun puzzle, if a bit fast.
12:15
ReplyDeleteSAILED through it, but loved every minute. "Global support?" (ATLAS) was cute. BLEW INTO (Visted unexpectedly, as a town) and ARCH (Prefix meaning "extreme"), as well as the aforementioned STROBE, made me think about the clues, and whether or not they were really perfect. I understand ARCH/Extreme, but it's not an equivalence that I would have chosen.
Interesting to learn that a YEN is 100% aluminum.
That is interesting regarding the YEN, however who ever actually sees one? I don't think that we ever had such piddling change when we were over there. They're worth less than a cent and none of the cab drivers or merchants seem to deal in them, always rounding up to a larger denomination. We used mostly bills where credit wasn't accepted.
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