Sunday, December 10, 2023

Sunday, December 10, 2023, Zachary David and Jeff Chen

POLITICAL PUN-DITRY

Greetings, Dear Reader, Horace here. I've come to discuss the puns. 

There are eight long theme answers today, running from the mildly amusing "The club's bouncer earned a living ..." ALONGPARTYLINES, through the slightly contorted "The sound engineer was obsessed with the ..." SPEAKERSOFTHEHOUSE, to the clever "The carpenter measured twice for the ideal ..." CABINETPOSITION, until finally, we get the excellent "The paid escort was fined for ..." ANACTOFCONGRESS. Hah! If only politics were so exciting.

BRUNO Mars

I had never heard of a MUDCAT (Whiskered bottom-dweller) before, but I looked them up just now, and the largest ever caught was nearly six feet long and almost 140 pounds. Yikes. 

Corporate merger fans will have appreciated the clues "Insurance giant acquired by CVS in 2018" (AETNA) and "Company acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020" (ETRADE). And those drawn to odd constructions and answers featuring two words just jammed together will have enjoyed DROPNAMES ("Just happen to" mention some famous people"), PIANOSEAT (Where one might store sheet music) (I think they mean piano bench), OBOESOLO (Musical feature in "Swan Lake" and "Peter and the Wolf"), and BIODATA (Place of birth, education, work history, etc.). 

On the brighter side, I enjoyed "An eye for an aye, say?" (TYPO) (even though that would be a very odd typo), "Salts" (MARINERS) (tricky), and "Seaside retreat?" (EBB). 

That one last theme answer was quite good, but overall, I found it to be a bit of a slog, albeit a rather speedy one. (15:33)

- Horace

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