Despite the rather high number above, I filled in the grid with relative EASE for a Saturday, until I hit the south east. I spent at least half the time struggling with my CORSELET and ALTEREGO. And, while I obviously found this corner challenging, it was, ulitmately, when solved, a little DAYTODAYesque.
There was some NEET fill. I love the expression on the DOLE, though the condition it describes is less appealing. AMBLE is a nice word, but the clue (Many a nature walk) left me hearing crickets. 8D. Company with striking footware (TAPDANCERS) had a little twist to it, but nothing to write home about. Often, clues seemded to lack payoff, e.g. 36D. Like tailgates and trapdoors (HINGED) and 2D. Some whipped creams (AEROSOLS). Meh. Maybe it's just me. At 19A, there's a clue with a question mark, usually indicating a little twist (Bean in a pod?). I got it (ALAN) but I don't get it.
I thought it was odd that the puzzle included both ALAN (as mentioned above),= and ALAR (Now-regulated growth regulator) as well as LAALAA (One of the Teletubbies) and LALA (Karaoke stand-in?).
I realized with some disappointment that New Age retreats is another category of things I'm going to have to brush up on.
I HOPETOGOD that's the last one. :)
Overall, I wanted to get my YAYAS out, but I couldn't.
~Frannie
36:16
ReplyDeleteThe NE is what added to my time quite a bit. I never heard of this ODILE person, and it crossed Steve OVETT, which is fair, I guess, for a Saturday. I also never heard of LAALAA or ERNEST Cline. I had to think for a little while on the spelling of NOXZEMA, too. I tried, at one time in my life, to find a way to extract the glycerin from the substance so that I could manufacture some nitroglycerin, but luckily I never succeeded.
31:32
ReplyDeleteI'll raise Colum's old complaint about closed-off regions, because the SE killed me, too. I bet it took half the time for me to break that open. I resorted to guessing that 46A would probably end with "ED," and then finally thought of NOLA and BOXSET, and things slowly sorted themselves out. BOLES? Tough. But hey, it's Saturday, and all's fair. Nice challenge.