You know a puzzle is going to be all right when you hit CANOODLE and CAVORT right off the bat. The clue "Frisk" for CAVORT is a bit uncommon, and NONES (The religiously unaffiliated) is not an expression that I'm familiar with, even though it is, apparently, a group I am a member of, but "Handy item in the kitchen?" (OVENMITT) was cute, and it was interesting to learn of the NOME Nugget.
In the NE, HAVARTI (Cheese sometimes flavored with dill) and BAREARMS (What short sleeves leave) seemed almost too blatant, but BEREA (Greek city visited by Paul before Athens), on the other hand, needed every cross.
"Demesne" (ESTATE), for me, exists only in Keats (Oft of one wide expanse had I been told / That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne / Yet did I never breathe its pure serene / Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold), but that was enough (with a cross or two) to finish up the top in very short order.
The bottom played a little more slowly, and a naive guess of glITTERATI for "Some social media celebrities" (TWITTERATI) made for a little snag in the SW. Eventually, I got TROLLS (Some social media commenters), and everything worked out in the end.
Overall, many fun answers (SNORKEL (Do a school visit, in a way?), HOTMIC (Capturer of an unguarded remark), only a little awkwardnes (EMBAR, OHME), and on balance, a decent Friday.
- Horace
25:47
ReplyDeleteHOWRUDE is fantastic, as is DEATHSTARE. SCANDIUM, oddly, went right in with just two crosses (SCONCE and ANEMIA); DWL would probably have gotten it in one or zero. I loved 47A Pair (BRACE), which is tricky, and everyone ABHORS a MORON, PREFER[ing] a LOGICIAN. I entered DMINOR off of the clue (12D Key of Mozart's "Requiem"), and probably Colum did, too. CANOODLE is great, and Sue often calls for METIME. Thumbs way up on this one.