Hello hello! Today's offering is tailored for those of us who live and die by our mental checklists - as enumerated here, it's the list of what you need when you're leaving the house, hidden in the four theme answers:
- TAXIDRIVER - One hailed on city streets
- VOLCANICASH - Output from an eruption
- WHISKEYSOUR - Cocktail garnished with orange slice + cherry
- KEEPHONEST (my favourite) - Hold to a moral code
All revealed by the central Across clue "Got everything before we leave?" (READYTOGO). See how neatly the hidden words span across the words in the answers - even the minimally-sized "ID". I will note, though, that CASH is on its way to being an anachronistic prerequisite for an outing.. maybe VISA or CARD instead - e.g. "NASCARDRIVER" - Athlete going around in circles - something like that 🙂
Along the way, lots of fun clues with the odd bit of trickiness. The only real mess was in the SE corner, repairing the damage done by entering MUSTNT instead of MAYNOT for "Is forbidden to". Fortunately, I knew that an aardvark is also an ANTBEAR, which helped straighten things out. And speaking of OOPSYs, I misspelled the adjacent MUCHOS as MUCHAS, but then BASSO came to the rescue as the "Lowest opera voice." I had never heard of ELSTON Howard as a Yankee great, but the crossers came to the rescue there. My favourite QMC was the very first clue - "Airdrops?" - which I didn't get until the end (MIST) - a pleasant "aha"!
4:26 today. Could have been faster but I was doing it amid the distracting background noise of my office.
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