Well, we know what Wednesday is for. It's for puzzles that don't fit into any other day. Today's is an odd 15 x 14 grid, where the theme is... two word phrases split into separate answers, where the second answer is clued in reference to the first. And it's carried down all 14 rows.
I think I would find this more rewarding if there were a revealer theme somewhere along the way. But there's no real reason for these phrases being chosen in particular. And the very large number of black squares needed to make the grid work means that the puzzle is extremely segmented as well, making the solve not terribly smooth.
I like CARBON / STORAGE and WESTERN / SAHARA. In my book, BOOLEAN usually goes with logic, not ALGEBRA. But it "searches up" better than logic, although that might be due to the large number of searches today for answers to the puzzle.
I would more typically look for INDIANA / HOOSIER(s) in the plural than an individual.
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| ABIE's Irish Rose |
And sadly, the fact that the solver is so reliant on the down answers to figure out the split across answers, the cluing is on a very straightforward level. LON is a cute "apt ____ name" clue. And 56D: Word that becomes its own synonym when "p" is added to the end (GOO) is an amusingly large number of words to clue a 3-letter answer.
I really don't like 50D: Pen letters? (BIC). I was thinking AKA or some other sort of initialism. It would work if the name of the company was an acronym, but in fact it's from Marcel Bich, the entrepreneur who monetized László Biró's design. He dropped the H to make a more pronounceable name for his company.
Ah well, they can't all be designed for my pleasure. What was your mileage?
- Colum
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