I like to think of this puzzle as a sendoff to a certain individual. YOUREFIRED being applied to him with a modicum of dramatic irony.
The theme is a set of synonyms for letting an employee go, all hidden at the end of more standard phrases. Thus, GARBAGECAN and BATTLEAXE. These are nicely hidden, in my opinion, although the marquee phrase QUARTERBACKSACK may get its word from a similar etymology. Okay, so maybe not! Instead it seems to come from the sense of sacking a city. Nice!
I'm going to apologize for the brevity of this review. It's been a crazy day and night for various reasons. Suffice it to say that I liked much about this puzzle. Very smooth and straightforward, with a couple of fun clues like 69A: Dealer in futures? (SEER) and 70A: It's a plot! (ACRE).
Also, 4D acts as an antidote to this company that's laying off people left and right. NOCUTS!
- Colum
I liked the revealer but sort of wanted the answers to be "pottery out of the kiln", "bullet from a gun", etc. Although I suppose it is hard to argue with the direct approach.
ReplyDeleteFavorite answer? SPIRO AGNEW just because it gave me reason to ask myself "who was the other one?" (John C Calhoun if you must know).
This was a pleasing enough Monday; not too hard, but not especially easy. My time was one second longer than last Monday's, and two seconds longer than two Mondays ago: 5:02, 5:01 and 5:00. Of course, I may be misremembering, but I don't think so. I liked seeing the full SPIRO/AGNEW in there for a change. I didn't know about the Calhoun trivia (thanks Mr. Kingdon!). Funny how BEEB can refer to the British channels and to Bieber.
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