There was a crooked man, and he made a crooked grid,
He found a crooked theme running DOWNTHEPIPE.
I think of the pipe's natural state as being straight (and the revealer uses this imagery too), but I have done enough puzzles to know that pipes can have ell joints, so this bent pipe idea is fine with me. In fact, in the online version the "pipe" answers are shaded in gray, so the whole path looks a lot like the LEAD "Weapon in Clue."
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SPIRITED (Feisty), AIRSHIPS (I tried the sneaky plural AIRcraft first, but that didn't fly), and WATERTOWER (Tall landmark in many a town) were all quite good. And I like the pairing of CLUBSODA (Popular mixer) and CHASERS (They may follow shots) in the South. Is OILPLATFORM and GASSTATION another pairing? It almost seems like the beginning of a theme... "wheat stalk" and "bread" ... "oak tree" and "lumber"... seems like it would be difficult, as none of those things have the same number of letters. But then, I'm not a constructor (Yet!), so I can easily leave it to the pros (For now.).... But wait, it IS more theme. Those other three, symmetrical, long answers all involve quite a bit of piping (WATERTOWER, OILPLATFORM, GASSTATION). I was ready to call it a good theme with just the middle part, but now it's extra good.
I liked HOHUM ("Bor-r-ring") as an opener, SHORES gets a good clue in "Props (up)," the pair of "Tony" clues was fun (OBIE (Tony's counterpart) and AWARD (Tony, e.g.), and even though we didn't see them on our recent visit to Italy, I liked being reminded of the Spanish STEPS. Even if they do remind me of poor old Keats...
Anywho... I'll leave you now till it be morrow. Good Wednesday. And Good Wednesday to you, as well.
- Horace
6:19
ReplyDeleteWell, I flew through this one for some reason. Pipes are up my alley, so to speak, and I figured the theme out pretty quickly, which helped. ODIUM is a nice word that I've seen quite a bit lately in crosswords. And nice to be reminded of the SPLEEN, played, of course, by the great Paul Reubens.