BODY LANGUAGE
Don't you hate it when Friday the 13th comes on a Sunday? Especially when it's combined with the stupidity that is Daylight Savings Time. And you're on call and have to be in the hospital early, only it's an hour earlier.
Okay, so I suppose that doesn't happen to many of us, but I blame this concatenation of circumstances for the dull gaze I turned on today's Sunday puzzle. Bleary-eyed and flat-brained, I saw nothing in the NW corner that made sense, so I left it behind to break in with MRT. Ah, Mr. T. Thank you for letting me get into the grid.
The theme became clear shortly thereafter. Phrases and idioms in common parlance which use body parts, interpreted literally within the puzzle. Thus, "pay through the nose" is displayed with PAY at 30A crossing through THENOSE at 12D.
And now I started to understand the NW, where 2D: Fully ready to listen ([EAR][EAR][EAR][EAR]) is in fact the phrase "all ears!" I love it. The other answers made me smile as well:
OONNEESSLLEEGGSS ("stretch one's legs")
[MI][ND][ED] ("small minded")
PAT above THEBACK ("pat on the back")
YLLEB ("Belly up")
CHETONGUEEK ("tongue in cheek")
SIDE next to SIDE ("side by side") - a lovely way to break the rule of not repeating the same answer in the grid.
Can't help but think that SEEWHATIDIDTHERE is the constructors' own 69A/74A.
 |
| BUDDYHOLLY |
Some clue/answer pairs I enjoyed:
59A: Fly around Africa (TSETSE).
79A: What babies do faster than college students (GROW) - hah!
1D: Blues group, for short? (NHL) - nice hidden capital.
82D: It's just not true! (MYTH).
I think ESOTERY and HEDGER are problematic, but ah, well. They can't all be winners.
Fun Sunday!
- Colum
Love it! It made me laugh, which is always a good thing!
ReplyDeleteThis was great. Great and hard, I thought. A really pleasant 20 min of tough sledding. The theme was sort of a "meta-theme", in that the trick was different (but related) for each clue. Loved it! Very clever.
ReplyDeleteHappy Ninth Birthday to this blog! :)
ReplyDeleteThis one was tricky and fun! I got "All ears" pretty much immediately, but "closed minded" and "belly up" (excellent) took me a long, long time.
As Philbo says, tough sledding, but sledding is always fun.
Ooh, close minded... I thought it was small minded, but now I'm not sure!
DeleteNo, I think you're right. I mis-typed. :)
Delete