Greetings out there in Crossword-Land, from sunny, wintry Toronto! Today's theme is a humourous narrative about a series of failed ventures, spread over the puzzle in the form of six punny business-related expressions. All you parents out there will appreciate the level of Dad Humour herein - groaners abound! I could enumerate them here, but I won't - you'll discover them for yourselves - it won't be hard, as the substrate is relatively mild. Perhaps the fictional author of the narrative could have benefited from a stint at 16D ("Sloan or Wharton" = BUSINESSSCHOOL)!! I like the diagonal line of black squares that almost bisects the grid, for aesthetic reasons at least.
As noted, there was little trouble encountered. I just left the theme clues until the end, at which point they were pretty much filled in - it was fun to go backwards from answer to clue. Along the way ... "Common resolutions" gave me pause until DIETS revealed itself - makes sense, especially this close to New Year's - both temporarily and spatially, as "New Year's Day" appears just below and to the left (ONEONE - an unusual way to say NYD, but a nice change from "Final score in a soccer game", or some such).
I liked the arithmetic of TEASPOONS (1/768 of a gallon) and also a few learnings: Hyperion is a 380-foot tall REDWOOD - impossibly huge! TSURIS is Yiddish for "woe" - I thought this one might be something like KVETCH, but no... "Tobiko or masago" refers to types of ROE ... Oh and I loved that "Swiss cheese" appears in two side-by-side Down answers - GRUYERE and FRANCS. I don't think I've ever heard of money being referred to as "cheese" before, so chalk that up as another learning! STRAUSS was clever as a "Big name in jeans", instead of the more common LEVI.
You know what would have been cool? ONEG clued as "Global force" instead of "Universal donor's designation". I really must think harder about getting into the setting business, but I expect I'll quickly discover it's harder than it looks (and it already looks hard).
Sayonara until tomorrow, all!
-phil
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