SALADBAR (Place with dressing options) and SCOW (Trash hauler) seemed pretty straightforward, and the NW was done in no time. Now, I usually leave the "restricted flow" commentary to my esteemed co-blogger Colum, but today I felt the squeeze. Luckily, THRUPLES (Portmanteau for poly relationships) got me out - although at first I mistakenly entered "thrupple," but that was corrected soon enough.
Speaking of THRUPLES, this puzzle had a lot of R-Rated material. GROUPDATES, PASTIES, CAPTOR (Hades vis-à-vis Persephone), ASS ... and I was surprised it took me so long to get PORNO (Film unlikely to have a costume designer). Hah!
And countering that vibe were COMITY (Courteous behavior, formally), PERMITME ("If I could have the honor ..."), LUTHERAN (One subject to a religious ban from the 1521 Edict of Worms), and TITHES (Church gifts).
The clue for DARIN (Singer Bobby with a brave-sounding last name) didn't work for me. I knew what they were going for, but it's one of those regional pronunciation things. I'm a person who pronounces "marry," "merry," and "Mary" all differently. So Bobby DARIN would be closest to "marry," while "daring," would be closest to "Mary." But that's just me. YMMV.
On the other hand, "Crushes that have lost their sparkle?" (FLATSODAS) worked no matter how you pronounce it. Also good - "They're impulsive" (AXONS). Very nice.
Things got a little sad in the SE, with WARTORN (Opposite of peaceful), DISMAL (Bleak), and FATWA (Ruling in Islamic law), but I guess it is Saturday, when the "breakfast test" is weakened slightly.
- Horace
I too took less time today than on Friday's. Agreed on the deceptive FLATSODAS and AXONS. PORNO was new to me in a NYT xword context! I admire grids like these, with wide swaths of lengthy intersecting answers.
ReplyDeleteI took a lot longer than Friday! Almost three times. I'm not sure why, except that I had "ukase" rather than FATWA.
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