I remember early on in my blogging days when we had a run on these sorts of puzzles, where an unusual letter was repeated along a diagonal. I'm pretty sure David Steinberg did a puzzle like this with a whole slew of Zs. Today Mr. Charlson takes on the letter Q... mostly. For a while I was wondering whether qUICE was a word.
The NW was my nemesis once again today, and due to my own guesses tripping me up. I had a pretty good start with MILA / MESONS, and 6D: Like Wile E. Coyote (INEPT) was perfect! Then I put Lulu in at 7D: Incredible person (LIAR), which looked like a possibility because 14A could end with ...up. Instead I was stuck and had to work the rest of the puzzle to get back there at the end.
It didn't help that I had "icon" at 24D (LOGO). But by then I had the first of my Qs in place, and was off and running. What a great set of Q words! I love QUAGMIRES crossing QUIDDITCH, and QBSNEAK is a wonderful non-QU entry. COMEQUICK is a bit of an ad hoc answer, but ANTIQUARK is great.
Two excellent 15-letter answers as well in BYZANTINEEMPIRE and TAKENOPRISONERS.
In the fine cluing section of the review, let's acknowledge 9D: It stands for something (ACRONYM), which falls into the same category as the "Step on it!" clue from the other day. I also liked 40D: Does some course prep? (TEESUP) - it could have been about a college course, something to do with cooking, or golf, as here. But the best of all is 15D: Perfect and then some? (TENSES). That's brilliant.
1D: Clock (SWAT) is prefectly cromulent, and there's not much I'd complain about today, so I end my week of blogging as I started, on a high note. Maybe I should sing an ARIA while I'm at it.
- Colum
15:10
ReplyDeleteAnother great one to cap off a very strong Turn this week. That J was so unexpected! Like you, I kept trying to jam another Q in there - especially with the U of ANTIQUARK just sitting there teasing me!
So many good clues... I'll just mention one more - "Not likely to be upset" (TOPSEEDED)... ok, two "Front covers" (BIBS)... Nice. And who else fell for the "lock" trap in "Feature of many a diary" (HASP).
Also, no threes! Strong Saturday.
31:46
ReplyDeleteI had a few moments where I thought that I might not finish, but the SW slowly came in. Shocking that there are no threes; I hadn't noticed that. I loved THATSO much mathy-sciency stuff is in there: MESONS, ANTIQUARK and TORI. And did anyone else write in HORUS, CLINT and HOSEA off of the clues?
None of those three went in off the clues for me, Huygens! Definitely needed a couple of crosses at least.
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