Pride goeth before a fall, or so they say. Or if you're Shakespeare, you say "Pride went before, ambition follows him." Which, come to think of it, has nothing to do with my point.
My point? Oh, right. After slamming Friday to the ground, I found myself much less in tune with Mr. Walden's Saturday offering. I had to work a good deal harder today. Which is good. I like a challenge!
I broke in with a couple of gimmes in the NW corner, EDU and SOUS. But no luck from there. Even putting ARETE, that classic bit of crosswordese and then guessing 8D: Ones hoping for prior approval? (ABBOTS) wasn't enough to get things going.
It took 16D: Childlike personality? (CELEBRITYCHEF), a simply excellent bit of cluing, to open up the southern half of the puzzle. The 15-letter answers in this puzzle are also very good. I particularly like RADICALFEMINIST, although I don't think you have to be all that radical to be a "fierce opponent of patriarchy".
Other excellent clues today include:
42A: They're answered once and for all (FAQS) - brilliant! Everybody gets the single answers in one of these.
25A: One "whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be," per Ambrose Bierce (CYNIC). Pithy.
23A: Be down with (HAVE). I think this is referring to being ill?
26D: Express carefully (COUCH).
Very nice Saturday.
- Colum
Sure thought a lot about "credit limit", but upon looking it up, it seems that people really do talk about a LOANCAP, at least in the context of student loans.
ReplyDeleteThis was one where I had ECONOMIC well before BOYCOTT and LANGUAGE well before BARRIER.
Oh, and I also learned that OCANADA is older than i thought, although it didn't become the national anthem until later.
I still enjoy early week puzzles more, but I did make it to the end of this one in 33:39 (with some googling)
23:54
ReplyDeleteWow, Colum, I guess you DID have some trouble. I figured with my time, you'd be in the single digits. This one clicked for me, and I went right along. I wonder how many solvers don't get the CELEBRITYCHEF answer because, let's face it, Julia's a bit dated. I tried cairo instead of TUNIS at 28D, but quickly changed it, mostly because of the LASTYEAR and ALANIS crosses. Excellent long answers. I especially enjoyed ECONOMICBOYCOTT and the kinda-gimme LANGUAGEBARRIER. MONKEYED crossing DUCKS is a nice touch.
20:46
ReplyDeleteI agree that this was a fight the whole way through, but a fun one! I liked the two "Depart unceremoniously" clues, and yes, FAQS is beautiful. "Renaissance symbol" was also nice.
I'm with Huygens on this one. My time was 33:52, which is a fast Saturday for me. I got held up a little with the aforementioned clue "Be down with" (HAVE), but otherwise, it went right along. I loved CELEBRITYCHEF. It has just combination of aptness and twist that I GOAPE for.
ReplyDelete