Hello Dear Readers, it's Horace, filling in for one day. Our internet was out for most of the morning, and Frannie has too much else going on today, so here I am.
And what a beauty of a Thursday we've got, too! We had a surprise Wednesday rebus yesterday, so I was wondering what Will had up his sleeve for this one. Turns out it's 21 unchecked squares! Unheard of! Fortunately, the crosses were fair enough, and I got many of them along the way, but at the very bottom we find that they are not really unchecked. The revealer, SKIPPING STONES made it clear that they would all be different stones, and then I could finally fill in B L A R N E Y. After that, things like MARE (Moonscape feature) (Tough!), and INNOUT (West Coast burger chain with a "not-so-secret menu") (Also tough, for this East Coaster!) finally came into view.
In addition to the novel theme, I got a good vibe from the fun clueing. "Rule that should be broken?" is a cute QMC for the un-cute TYRANNY, and "Bug collection?" (INTEL) is sneakier than the sneakiest spy! And for once, "What jelly rolls are filled with?" (ELLS) didn't fool me! At least not for that long. :)
"One way to prevent stock losses?" (LASSO) was fun - so fun, in fact, that I couldn't even get angry that it didn't reference my favorite new TV show instead. And for Non-QMCs, we have the unassuming "On the surface it might not look like much" (BERG), and the shakin' "Harmless rattler" (MARACA).
Sure, we've got the jarring EXARCH (Provincial governor in the Byzantine Empire) (if you say so), the old-school TOPE (Imbibe), and a few names I didn't know, but I'll take those all day long if you're going to give me such a strange new theme and such fun clues. Great start to The Turn!
Frannie's back tomorrow. I'll see you again on Sunday.
- Horace
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