A fairly fast Friday. I had a faster time today than yesterday and my Tuesday time was only three minutes faster than today's time. Maybe Friday is the new Wednesday?
The only place I had any real trouble was where CELEB crosses BEBE. I was not aware of Ms. Rexha (my apologies for missing her #2 hit last year), and the clue "Inspiration for some fake social media accounts, informally" didn't (and I may say, still doesn't really) make any sense to me. I was faced with CELE_ and since B was the only letter that made anything close to an actual word, I put it in to great success. I had another slight slowdown when I entered "ref" instead of UMP in the north west. On the other hand, I dropped in TEA straight off the clue, "Break during a cricket match." Does that count as a sports reference? :)
I liked seeing DRACHMA in the puzzle. It reminded me of my trip to Greece when I was in high school. There was a guy at a souvenir stall who kept showing our group various gimcracks and saying, "free for 50 drachma." Oh, the ironing.
I thought the clue "A chorus line?" (TRALALA) was good. I also liked SEEDIER, WASSAIL, and GEORG. SELENIC seems like good Friday-level fill, at least for this solver. I thought it was funny that DONUTHOLE and SNOCAPS have a layer of SLIMEMOLD between them - an EOCENE, of sorts, if pronounced a certain way. :)
I normally enjoy French fill, but France is in the doghouse with me today. We got a speeding ticket in the mail this afternoon from la gendarmerie. They allege that at one point during our trip back in May I said something like, STEPONIT, and Horace complied. Six months later, they tell us we have two weeks to send them multiple euros via wire transfer. Sacre bleu!
I also have something of an ax to grind against AXE, and other highly scented health &beauty aids and home cleaning products. They give me sinusITIS.
~Frannie.
6:07
ReplyDeleteA very speedy Friday indeed! But on the other hand, they did tell us to STEPONIT!