A fun puzzle with a surprising theme AND a number! What more can one ask for on a Friday morning? And how fun was it finding the full OREOCOOKIE (Snack item from Nabisco) in there?
I had a little trouble up in the North. I kept thinking they wanted "Class of 'one's own'" or something like that for 5A: Person in a "Class of ..." (ALUM), but it's really just "Class of" anything, because that means they graduated. And 5D: Bills no more (ACTS), refers to bills that become ACTS in the government! Sheesh. Anyway, I thought of bills, once paid, becoming receipts, so I entered RCTS, even though A. that isn't really an abbreviation for receipts, and B. rLUM isn't anything. And C. the clue didn't call for an abbreviation! Ah well...
I was a little worried when things started up with ANIL (Blue dye), but things got better. INCOGNITO (Undercover), HARDNOSED (Unsentimental), DOSIDO (Barn dance call), CORIOLIS (Kind of force generated by the earth's rotation), BROCADE (Kimono fabric), and MARDI (French day named after the Roman god of war) were all good. And C3PO (Sci-fi character who claims fluency in more than six million forms of communication) was fun, and helped a lot with the number. ESSES (Trouble for Sylvester the Cat), while not exactly a desirable entry, was justified and then some by the clue. Hah!
Thumbs up from this quarter.
- Horace
p.s. Did we ever come up with a name for the kind of clue used for WIRETAP (Listen here!)?
34:46 (FWTE)
ReplyDeleteAcross Lite claimed I had three errors, but I refuse to take one for the 3 in C3PO, where, once I hit "Reveal" on that square, it gave me a "T." I even tried entering [THREE] and still got an error message. My two legitimate errors were at the USGA/SOLARIS cross, where I confidently entered a "p," and at the IZAAK/RAKES cross, where I thought that, maybe, RAcES could have gear teeth or something. The rest was smooth and challenging, just the way a Friday should be. I even got the cross of MARDI/MAITRE without any trouble. I did try Era where EON goes, but once OREOCOOKIE came in, I quickly changed it, giving me EDNA as the only reasonable guess for 58A Actress Best of old Hollywood. Should I be watching more old movies? I should get familiar with some of these names.
9:48 (FWOE)
ReplyDeleteMy error was at SUZYQCAKES and IZAAK. I should have known better, but put an S there. I think that NW corner has too many compromises to make the puzzle as a whole a complete success (c.f. ASPER, IZAAK, LYNDE) but the rest of the puzzle is very good. I got ONES, but 32A: Back on board? (DEE) escaped me for quite some time. I don't have a good idea for what to call those kinds of clues, Horace. Literal self-referrers? That's terrible.