Another fun Saturday with some challenging, convoluted clues. I particularly enjoyed "Scamper" (DART), "Pain in the ass?" (BRAND) (poor donkey), "Subjective evaluation" (ESSAYEXAM), and "Not permanent" (ACTING). And in the lower right corner, the desire to mislead is almost palpable in both "Start running off?" (GOTOPRESS) and "Fail to come to?" (OVERSLEEP).
We get two fully-named Britons today, with JOHNCLEESE and NEILGAIMAN, and two references to an older Briton in "If thou DOST marry, I'll give thee this plague for they dowry": Hamlet," and ALLISTRUE (Original title of Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" (the latter not used until the First Folio in 1623)). Both are boring titles, but at least "Henry VIII" insists less upon itself.
Interesting that both TNT and DYNAMITES are included today. DITKA is always fun to think about, and he and KNELT (Protested, in a way) remind us that the start of football season is still several months away.
Remember the ATKINSDIET craze? Heh. Almost as irrational, in its way, as the TULIPMANIA. Silly humans.
A couple of specialty terms today in ROLF (Massage deeply) and TAMPS (Presses down), and speaking of that last one, it's time for me to go make myself another espresso. Ahh, Saturday mornings, when I have the LUXURYOFTIME.
- Horace
11:10
ReplyDeleteGood morning! It must be still early, because I could not understand LEAFPEEPER. I was stuck on the idea of a invasive species, and had ___crEEPER in place for a while. But the "invaders" are human tourists, looking for fall foliage. Very nice. The clue for NEILGAIMAN was too much of a gimme. Any one of those three titles would have been enough, even though it left out his three best books, "Coraline," "Neverwhere," and "The Sandman."
22:19
ReplyDeleteAlmost exactly twice the time that it took for Colum, but still kind of fast for me for a Saturday. Nothing slowed me down too much in this one. We once had a BONSAI here at the YBH, which I purchased for Sue for our "wood" anniversary (the seventh), but they're difficult to keep alive, and after a few years it just, sadly, petered out.
Nice review!
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