It is always a pleasure here at HAFDTNYTCPFCFA when we can honestly say that the Turn has been both not NOTGOOD as well as not CRAPPY. Is my blog not not well written? At least I can say ITRY.
Getting CHAITEA and WIT right off the bat was not as helpful as I thought it would be. Instead I moved into the middle of the puzzle with SELFIE and MAILBox. Wrong, but enough right to open up the SW corner. Great clue for that last one ("This clue's answer might contain more than seven letters" - hah!).
I had no idea what "Ochlocracy" would mean, but fortunately getting the first three letters from crosses made MOBRULE pretty clear. I should have known that FETAS are brined. They are pretty darned salty, after all. Speaking of which, I just now got why "Unsalted, perhaps" is ICY. Talking about roads...
It took me a long time to get 14D: Game where It always counts (HIDEANDGOSEEK). Partly because I had that X still in there, but also because I was stuck thinking about Tag. I'm not even sure if you count in Tag. And why did we used to count by 5 to 100?
 |
| KAVAKAVA |
I liked 45A: Met for a few hours in the evening? (OPERA). That's a nice hidden capital. I can't say why the fact that 9D referred to 45A led me to immediately see the trick in the latter's clue. But I jumped very quickly to entering ARIA. The NE corner was pretty straightforward, with MAGNETO and UNOCARD. I did not know that a pineapple farm is known as a PINERY, but that's one of the reasons we keep coming back to the crossword: it teaches us as well as entertains us!
Speaking of entertaining, I like 20A: Raise people's spirits? (HOLDASEANCE). That's chuckle worthy. And any time we acknowledge J.S. BACH's brilliance and foundational nature for Western Art music, we're in a good place. You'll forgive me if I doubt that RAPGOD is quite on the same level.
I enjoyed this week very much, and I hope you did as well. Tomorrow, I turn it back over to Horace. Have a great rest of the weekend!
- Colum
This was a great Saturday puzzle. Took me almost half an hour, and much of it was spent in the SE corner. Not familiar with KAVAKAVA, and PRSAVVY took me fuh-evah. Favorite C/AP might have been "A bad one is your fault" (SERVE), but there were several good ones. Really nice extended Turn, if we count the rebus Wednesday! :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent to have such a great mention of BACH in there. I always forget the "go" part of HIDEANDGOSEEK, so I started entering that, but had to come back to it after I corrected my own confidently-entered MAILBox and replaced it with MAILBAG. We never said "go" when I was a youth and played the game. PINERY is a new one on me, too.
ReplyDelete