Today's theme is a clever one, to which many of us can undoubtedly relate. There are four long answers near the periphery, each with a notable man's name:
- Actor who played Oscar Wilde in "Wilde" : STEPHENFRY
- Mouseketeer peer of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake : RYANGOSLING
- Inventor who patented the first revolver : SAMUELCOLT
- English essayist who wrote "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once" : CHARLESLAMB
These all have something in common, aside from being men's names: the surnames are all baby animals, and this is revealed by the central clue "Certain immature adult..." - MANBABY! In fact, the theme clues provide an additional hint, not shown above, indicating the adult form of the animal in question. I thought this extra help was unnecessary, although it did highlight the bonus fact that in three of the four answers, the adult name has a distinct male form (sorry, FISH, not today..).
Ask yourself, if you're a male solving this puzzle - am I a MANBABY? The answer is probably "yes, sometimes" 😄
This was a pretty smooth solve for me, despite not knowing BARBACOA as a Chipotle beef option. My favourite clue was definitely "Wild couples cruise?" (NOAHSARK - excellent!!). A couple of Across answers that stood out were the consecutive HDTV and SGTS - look Ma, no vowels! "One under a birdie" didn't fool me for a second - it's EAGLE, not CHICK - thanks to my multi-hour bingeing of the Masters this past weekend. KISSCAM ("What might catch X's at an O's game?") definitely deserves a shout-out as well.
I didn't love ALE hidden in "Drink aptly found in 'medieval era'". Un peu de trop, methinks. Besides, there's only one medieval drink in crossword-land, and that's MEAD of course.
Gentle fun for a Tuesday!
-philbo
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