Some people love themes in crosswords. Me, I could usually take them or leave them. There, I said it.
Today the theme is fine. You've got GIFT (Something that can be wrapped using the starts of...") and then you look at the associated answers and you see:
Fine. The first words are all associated with wrapping presents, and sure, it's gift-giving time, so that's appropriate, but TAPEDELAY is a little dated, I've never heard anyone pluralize the first word when talking about a scissor kick, and BOWSTRING is a rare word. I mean, there's nothing actually wrong with any of them ... oh, maybe I'm just being a crank.
On the brighter side, each of the longer Down answers is great. SKYROCKET (Soar) is uncommonly good, EXECRABLE (Unspeakably awful) is beautifully bad. Here's a little story, when we were in Paris recently, I bought a really expensive bottle of Calvados at a little boutique near the Marché Maubert on Boulevard Saint-Germain. I asked the guy working there if it was worth it to get the 25-year instead of the 12-year, and he said that before he started working there, he wouldn't have known, but ever since he started trying all these expensive bottles, he had become execrable. So now that's me, I guess. Enjoy!
ICEFLOE and SLACKER are also lovely fill, and DENSER makes me think of The Raven ("Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer...").
The clue for IMAC (Something in an office that's not PC?) is cute, and "Sink attachment" for PIPE is very odd. Especially on a Monday.
Would I get tired of crosswords if they didn't have themes? I doubt it. Would everyone else? How should I know? I'm not the boss of them.
See what I mean? Execrable.
- Horace
And that's just how we like you, Horace.
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