Sunday, December 6, 2020

Monday, December 7, 2020, Barbara Lin

 6:16

Cheerio, dear readers! Frannie here, taking over from Colum and Horace after two weeks of great reviews that have kept them OCTOPI'd and you entertained, but today is the day we PASSTHETORCH. No, my friends, Horace did not "'Hand me a flashlight,'" but he did hand over the figurative keyboard and say to me, "it's your week to write the review, Frannie." As always, I've got some big brogans to fill, literally and figuratively, but I'm going to try to ACEIT. My first step in that direction is starting early. It's only Sunday evening and I've completed Monday's puzzle and I'm writing the review. EPIC

Today's theme clue/answer pairs feature words that have different meanings in British and American English. The clues contain the American version of the word and the answers are common phrases that contain the corresponding British TERM. Clear as cling film? Perhaps an example will help. At 17A, "Traveled by subway?" is WENTDOWNTHETUBE. Or how about the comical "Use French fries as legal tender"? CASHINONESCHIPS. Ha. 

60A: IGLOO
It crossed my mind that this is just the kind of theme an EXPAT might come up with. Dare I POSIT an American flying from OHARE - or sailing by BOAT - to the Cayman Islands for some much needed TAXRELIEF, asking a hotel concierge, "CANIGETALIFT?" and being directed to a bank of elevators as the genesis of the idea? IDO dare. And I salute that person. She's one smart biscuit. 

~Frannie.

3 comments:

  1. 3:55

    Hah! Very nice review, Frannie. I thought it was a fun puzzle, too. It's always nice to be reminded of the phrase "Two countries separated by a common language."

    Most surprising clue today for me: "Jargon" (CANT).

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  2. 5:36
    I, like Horace, was surprised (pleasantly) by CANT. Good puzzle, with amusing clues. Even with the QM, I liked 40A Pet peeves? (FLEAS), but didn't know this Chrissy METZ person. We were told by our Russian River Valley friends to avoid NAPA since the vineyard people there are full of themselves and overpriced. We'll return to the RRV when we next visit CA for some pleasant and reasonable tastings. We quite enjoy the Merry Edwards and Emeritus vineyards.

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  3. Definitely some nice wineries in Anderson Valley and probably plenty of other parts of California. Although Napa was a home of a (small) crossword tournament some years back, so it does have that going for it.

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