I rated this as 'unknown strength' while searching for a way in, but after I found it with RAMP/ELLE/CALMLY-which also gave me the HER bonus in the middle-it came relatively easily. I’m still stuck on “maybe”, so there I’ll stay.Ĭan't believe no one mentioned the huge ONEHORSE bleedover. WHOCARES if we have to contend with CASTILLO if we have a superb clue for OCCASION?Ĭan CRABAPPLE fully compensate for LUANA? Trade you ONEHORSEPLOW for Abe’s FENCERAIL? So, the flip side of this “maybe” is with the fill, where such as the pushy examples shown above come into play and fairness tells us to look at the rest of the grid for ameliorating entries. All of them are topnotch, exquisite even, with LOBSTERPOT and WHATSOPERADOC prevailing on cleverness points over the more generic AIRPORTSECURITY and anti-NAFTA nattering nabob, HROSSPEROT, but still, winners all. The theme, of course, is revealed with PRESTO CHANGE O which simply, (and cutely), indicates that scrambled spellings of PRESTO appear in the four theme entries.Īnd that’s where the “maybe” arises, primarily because of the strength of the theme clues and answers. Then the question for the solver becomes, “Was it worth it?” and, in this instance, my answer is an unequivocal “maybe”. When a constructor includes such as LUANA, CASTILLO, COSMOS (as clued), TED (as clued) and ICC (when clued as a group from the Hague rather than the US Interstate Commerce Commission), it usually signals the constructor is struggling to preserve the theme, (sorry about that, fill). I liked this a lot, Jeffrey! No EGRETS here. I guess I’ve lost my WHO CARES take on anagrams. ONE HORSE PLOW is ONE letter away from being a themer. I bet somewhere here in WV there are RAMP CREPES during the season. One of the best cars we ever owned was an ugly 1970 IMPALA – 409cc beast.

Lucky guess off the EA.ĭad retired with GMC. Rex - I don't speak compote,either (pannonica - is there not a circumflex on that second o? A cognate of composte? I poked around google and didn't see it spelled that way.), but PEAR went straight in. I think they call pound cake CASTILLa in Japan (at least in Mie-ken’s Ise-shi) because of a picture of a CASTILLO on the package. Terrific words: SAUNTERS, CHAW, WREST, BLABS, GNATS, MISFIT. (Did y’all see that poor ferret on steroids that someone sold as a white poodle?) “Put” in the clues for 11D and 17A – At least I know now to wait to see if I can ferret out (is that the saying?) the tense.

I had several different answers at 1D: Squirrel's nuts, maybe (STORE. This didn't take that long to clear up, but stands out for requiring any struggle at all. My first answer was FEAR, which I loved as an answer, but seemed indisputably wrong (FEAR was the result of my having FORT at 32D: Guarded place ( POST)). Specifically, I had no idea what was in a compote, which I think I was confusing with compost. My biggest trouble with this grid was in the little area underneath H.ROSS. Can't remember ever seeing that initialism in a puzzle before. What is that? International Criminal Courts? Yes, but Court.

Wow, that really stands out against the rest of the fill, which is all ordinary words / concepts / names. I was going to say that there is nothing in this grid that is all obscure or in need of explanation, but then I noticed LUANA (33A: Child actress Patten of 'Song of the South'). Felt much more like a Wednesday than a Thursday, but I'll take a good Wednesday over an awkward, contrived, or weak Thursday any day. Great reveal, and decent-to-great theme answers. Sorry, no time to blog this fully this morning.

Track act x word clue