Stuttering into the new week, we get a fun progression of "baa baa," "boo boo," and "bye bye," all starting triple-B phrases. They all seem a tad old-fashioned, and I'm guessing BOOBOOBEAR is the most obscure. But Mr. Agard is a young person, and if he thinks it's ok, then so do I.
This is the second 15x16 grid we've seen in the past week or so, and it uses the less-common horizontal symmetry. The open corners are pleasing, and the flow was good. Of course, it's a Monday, so the flow, even if a bit squeezed, shouldn't be too bad.
I like the simple beauty of "Snaky scarf" for BOA, and it echoes 1D: Fearsome snake (COBRA). There's also a nice "nonsense/nonsensical" pairing with BILGE and INANE, a Latin pair (LAUDE & BONA), and a couple of Spanish entries COMOESTAS ("How goes it?," in Spanish) and SUR (Spanish for "south"). I didn't know that second one, and I find it strange that it means "south" in Spanish and "above" in French.
There's some nice bonus material in SPARROW, BLEARYEYED, BILGE, DROOL, and LESBIAN. And there's only a little OREO, IAGO, OLDE-type crosswordese.
Overall, a fun Monday.
- Horace
3:13
ReplyDeleteSuper fun crossword. But I will pass on the NECKBONES.
Also Jeff Chen pointed out that each of the entries is B__B__[animal]. Pretty cool!
Delete5:03
ReplyDeletePretty fast, but couldn't it have been just four seconds faster? Interesting theme, which I figured out with BOOBOOBEAR (with which, of course, I am very familiar, although I never particularly loved the cartoon). Nice that YOGIS is also in the grid, even though the clue makes it unrelated. BOOTLICKER is excellent, but I'm with Colum on NECKBONES, which is new to me, and is something that I'll DEEMS BILGE without ever trying it.