For me, normalcy was restored this week, with a Saturday puzzle that took me longer to solve than its Friday predecessor. Today's grid flows from the NE to the SW, with a nice three-high stack in the middle, connected with eight (!) long-ish Down answers, and the the NW and SE corners off doing their own thing.
I didn't find any area overly sticky - the whole grid required the same level of thought. Some really inventive cluing today.. in no particular order - ANDY was great, as 'AND' followed by its Spanish equivalent. "Collect, collect, collect" I thought was AMASS, but that didn't work (but HOARD did). "Take" was nicely misleading for ANGLE. Also, interesting way to clue ELON - "The Phoenix of the N.C.A.A." I feel like there might have been another way to clue this one. Can't quite put my finger on it ... :)
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(399x0:401x2)/rocky-horror-01-800-f7d3710af1544d18a214adb198599960.jpg "CULT CLASSIC")
I think most of us are familiar with the word MANDALORIAN, even if we've not seen the TV series, and so it was easy to infer after just a few cross letters. Aside from the write-in JAUNDICE ("Affliction treated in newborns with phototherapy"), none of the rest of the long clues were easy, but they all succumbed in the end.
The one beef I did have today was with NARRATOR, a "character who's heard but not seen". May I introduce as evidence The Shawshank Redemption? Highly recommended, for the three or four of you on the planet who haven't yet seen it. On the other hand, I didn't really have a beef with MANHOLE as "Way down below?" - I am not quite sufficiently PC, I suppose - and I also do have a weakness for QMCs
Note to self : I did the crossword last night and left the blogging till the morning. Bad idea.
It's been a fun week. The esteemed Colum takes the reins tomorrow. Ciao till next month!
-philbo
It took me longer to solve today’s puzzle than yesterday’s, too. I got bogged down in a couple places (I don’t BOSSBATTLE much), but nowhere for very long. I wasn’t too sure about NARRATOR, either, or CONFIDANT for “Secret lover?” but I enjoyed HOGSHEAD, and the CA/P “Hit on the noggin”/BEAN.
ReplyDeleteFor CONFIDANT, I read "Secret lover" as "Lover of Secrets" and as such, gave it a passing grade. I think BOSSBATTLE is more commonly referred to as BOSSFIGHT, by the way. Almost mentioned that in my post but didn't want to get TOO bogged down in pedantry (hasn't stopped me before, mind you)..
DeleteI did think of the “lover of secrets” interpretation of the clue, but that’s not really what a confidant is, is it? It’s a person you tell secrets to because you trust them, not because they love secrets. But, perhaps there’s a hidden twist that would reveal the mystery, if only someone would tell it to me. :)
DeleteI keep on doing Saturday faster than Friday. Don't know what's going on.
ReplyDeleteSame! This week the Saturday solve was slower for me, but only just barely.
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