Happy weekend everybody! Rounding out my blogging week is a fun, tricky puzzle with a neat, bilaterally symmetric grid, whose layout reminds me of Space Invaders. Juicy long entries abound in both directions. A little pinch point midway down turns it into almost two separate solves.
I was fortunate to hit a "gimme" early on in the top middle section, as I know who quantum physicist Wolfgang PAULI was. His Exclusion Principle is essentially what makes matter what it is. (Why doesn't my coffee cup just fall through my desk? The Pauli Exclusion Principle, is why) That didn't immediately pay off, though, and a few erroneous guesses (e.g. "Unimportant workers, metaphorically" = COGS not BEES, and "Natural jewelry material" = CORAL not PEARL) led to some backtracking. But "Words after grace, perhaps" (LETSEAT) opened up the middle section. A couple of other Across entries of note, midway down: "Item that can be described by changing its last letter to a P" - an unguessable 5-letter answer that needs its crossers to reveal itself (SHARD) - I like those! and the very next clue "Many a Mauritanian" (ARAB) provides one of those welcome "well, I did not know that!" moments.
Looking back and trying to remember how my progress continued, I'm a bit hazy (did it 12 hrs ago). French pastry MILLE-feuille was easy, as was "Hustler" (CONMAN) and "Headliner" (MAINEVENT). Many others in the lower section were not obvious at all. "'Would you look at the time!'" was IBETTERGO, not ITSSOLATE as I originally thought. "Title abroad" was SAO, not SRI. "Question that suggests 'That's crazy!'" was WHA, not HOW. This is all good misleading stuff!! Eventually, with enough of this hunting and pecking, the longer answers revealed themselves and it all fell into place.
Favourites were the silly groaner "What might be said by successful bettors...or sesame seeds?" (WEREONAROLL); and the other physics-y answer MESON, which is one of the many particles spewed out by an accelerator; and "English class largely unconcerned with the English?" (AMERICANLIT), which was amusing but a bit foreign to us folks north of the border.
Overall a really entertaining puzzle - thanks, Mr. Chen! And thank you all for having me for the week - tomorrow you're back in Colum's capable hands. A la prochaine!
-philbo
Thanks for the week, Philbo!
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