Saturday, October 5, 2019

Saturday, October 5, 2019, Trenton Charlson

9:46

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

3 comments:

  1. 15:10

    Another 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.

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  2. 31:46
    I 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?

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    Replies
    1. None of those three went in off the clues for me, Huygens! Definitely needed a couple of crosses at least.

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