Thursday, May 9, 2024, Joe DiPietro

Fun puzzle today, with a tricky theme - at least for this solver. Ab initio, I thought the trick was to replace a W with two VVs "old Rome style" - as I thought - but that was an erratum. The trick was much cleverer than a simple letter substitution. Each of the theme answers contained a spelled-out number. It was the solver's job to replace the word for the number with the equivalent Roman numeral, for example, the letters ONE were replaced with the Roman numeral I. The corresponding Down answers used each Roman numeral as a letter. The theme answers ended up looking a little ad hoc (WALKEDIGGSHELLS (I for [one]), DONIIRRYABOUTIT (II for [two]), THESKINOIVTEETH (IV for [four], and my favorite, WVIIIHEEVIDENCE (VIII for [eight])), but that added to the charm of the trick, IMHO.

The theme wasn't the only clever part of the puzzle. Inter alia, I enjoyed "What a piece of work!" (ERG), "Always ready to order?" (BOSSY), and "Body part where a sock might go?" (CHIN) - ha! I also liked the crossing of the clues "Dunking obstacle" (RIM) and "Dunkable treats" (OREOS). 

I had a little trouble with a couple of the C/APs. I couldn't figure out what kind of bugs were involved in "Stage often filled with bugs" until I got the answer (BETA). And I had to go a ways before I realized why CAR was the answer to "Where F comes before E?" But per ardua ad astra, right?

Pax vobiscum, dear Readers!

~Frannie.