Theme: Laundry detergents? No, as the reveal explains:
53A. Subject for a news team ... and a description of 19-, 36- or 42-Across? : CURRENT EVENT (I still think "Breeze" and "Surge" would make great names for laundry detergents!)
19A. Subject for a meteorologist : SUMMER BREEZE. I was going to link the Seals & Crofts song, but I just listened to it and it really hasn't aged well.
36A. Subject for an oceanographer : SPRING TIDE. Nothing to do with the season, it's when the difference between the high and low tide is the greatest; typically twice a month after the full and new moons.
42A. Subject for an electrician : POWER SURGE. Did those slab-like surge protectors ever do any good? I never recall having to reset one.
Three different kinds of currents in three different media - wind, sea and electricity.
Neat theme and a nice grid with a lot of across-wise fill. Those triple-stacked 7's and the 6-7-7 atop/beneath the 12-letter themers are very slick. Nicely done, Mr. Lampkin.
Across:
1. Provoke : INCITE
7. Clichéd currency : RED CENT. The smallest amount possible.
14. Cone site : VOLCANO. You can't get much more classically-conical in the stratovolcano world than Mt. Fuji.
16. Crop duster, e.g. : AVIATOR
17. Unhelpful helper : ENABLER
18. Like garden gnomes : KITSCHY. Took me a moment to remember how to spell this correctly.
21. Respiration point : NOSE
22. It's often twisted : YARN. Apparently not all yarns are twisted, but some are filaments (such as silk).
26. Slangy 21-Across : SNOOT. I thought you could cock a snoot, but when I went to find an example I discovered that you cock a snook. Good to know.
30. Holy recess : APSE
34. Holy jurisdiction : SEE. "The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome". Now you know.
35. Rude dude : LOUT
39. Summed up : IN TOTAL
41. Nullified : NEGATED
44. French sky : CIEL. French 101 - "Le ciel est bleu". (Ou gris, en Angleterre).
45. Cycle starter? : UNI
46. Cry of enlightenment : AH SO
47. Homecoming cry : IT'S ME
48. Kitchenware : POTS
50. Formerly floppy medium : DISC. Funny how these ubiquitous things suddenly disappeared.
61. "Hogwash!" : BALONEY
64. Personal __ : TRAINER
65. Somewhat : A LITTLE
66. Femur or fibula : LEG BONE
67. Butterflies on ankles, say : TATTOOS. People tell me it hurts like hell to get a tattoo on your ankle. I'll take their word for it.
68. Teammate of Duke and Jackie : PEEWEE. Dodgers greats Snider, Robinson and Reese, here with Roy Campanella.
Down:
1. "Concord Sonata" composer : IVES. Charles Ives. Not really a tune you can whistle.
2. Lower-class, to Brits : NON-U. Non-Upper Class. The use of a single word can place you firmly in a particular class. If you say "Pardon?" when you didn't hear something clearly, you're middle class. (The Queen would say "What?", as would working-class Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins".).
3. Chowder bit : CLAM
4. China's DF-31, e.g. : ICBM. Now I'll know what I'm looking at next time I see one whizzing past. Cruise missiles are powered in flight, ballistic ones drop on your head by force of gravity. Both will ruin your day.
5. Gift of the gifted : TALENT
6. Opener for Don Quixote? : ENERO. "January" in Spanish.
7. It has big teeth : RAKE. What about the little ones that come with those desktop Zen gardens?
8. "Gramma" in the comic strip "Stone Soup" : EVIE
9. Chowderhead : DITZ
10. He was on deck when Blake was up : CASEY
11. "And more" letters : ETC.
12. Masked drama : NOH
13. Crack : TRY
15. Space balls : ORBS
20. Raise : REAR
23. The way things stand : AS IT IS
24. Atone for : REDEEM
25. Tease : NEEDLE
26. Wrong move : SLIP-UP
27. "Wrong, wrong, wrong!" : NO! NO! NO!
28. Get the better of : OUTWIT
29. Oklahoma tribe : OTOE. These guys.
31. Sonar pulse : PING
32. "The Mikado" weapon, briefly : SNEE. "Snickersnee", a fighting knife featured in the song "The Criminal Cried as he Dropped him Down".
33. Tube traveler : EGG
36. Ceremonial accessory : SASH
37. And : PLUS
38. Diplomacy : TACT
40. Gay syllable : TRA-
43. Teased : RODE
47. Long cold spell : ICE AGE
49. 2013 Masters champ Adam __ : SCOTT. He subsequently had to change his putting style when the Rules of Golf were thankfully amended to ban the "anchoring" of a long putter.
51. Airport abbr. : INTL.
52. Bad bug : STREP. I had strep throat once, my tonsils were swollen white lumps. It was all I could do to swallow warm water. Awful.
54. Biblical connector : UNTO. Connector?
55. Move, in real estate lingo : RELO
56. Saloon and deli offerings : RYES. Whisky and a sandwich. Lunch of champions!
57. Weird feeling, perhaps : VIBE
58. Plenty of poetry? : ENOW
59. Island goose : NENE
60. Word with farm or house : TREE
61. Stick for 10-Down : BAT
62. In the style of : À LA. "À la mode" means "fashionable" in French. Why is it fashionable to put a scoop of ice cream on your pie?
63. Bombed : LIT. The result of too many ryes in the saloon.
I think I've got all the clues/answers this week, sorry for the missing ones last Thursday; I think the blog gremlins ate them.
Here's the grid!
Steve
53A. Subject for a news team ... and a description of 19-, 36- or 42-Across? : CURRENT EVENT (I still think "Breeze" and "Surge" would make great names for laundry detergents!)
19A. Subject for a meteorologist : SUMMER BREEZE. I was going to link the Seals & Crofts song, but I just listened to it and it really hasn't aged well.
36A. Subject for an oceanographer : SPRING TIDE. Nothing to do with the season, it's when the difference between the high and low tide is the greatest; typically twice a month after the full and new moons.
42A. Subject for an electrician : POWER SURGE. Did those slab-like surge protectors ever do any good? I never recall having to reset one.
Three different kinds of currents in three different media - wind, sea and electricity.
Neat theme and a nice grid with a lot of across-wise fill. Those triple-stacked 7's and the 6-7-7 atop/beneath the 12-letter themers are very slick. Nicely done, Mr. Lampkin.
Across:
1. Provoke : INCITE
7. Clichéd currency : RED CENT. The smallest amount possible.
14. Cone site : VOLCANO. You can't get much more classically-conical in the stratovolcano world than Mt. Fuji.
16. Crop duster, e.g. : AVIATOR
17. Unhelpful helper : ENABLER
18. Like garden gnomes : KITSCHY. Took me a moment to remember how to spell this correctly.
21. Respiration point : NOSE
22. It's often twisted : YARN. Apparently not all yarns are twisted, but some are filaments (such as silk).
26. Slangy 21-Across : SNOOT. I thought you could cock a snoot, but when I went to find an example I discovered that you cock a snook. Good to know.
30. Holy recess : APSE
34. Holy jurisdiction : SEE. "The ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome". Now you know.
35. Rude dude : LOUT
39. Summed up : IN TOTAL
41. Nullified : NEGATED
44. French sky : CIEL. French 101 - "Le ciel est bleu". (Ou gris, en Angleterre).
45. Cycle starter? : UNI
46. Cry of enlightenment : AH SO
47. Homecoming cry : IT'S ME
48. Kitchenware : POTS
50. Formerly floppy medium : DISC. Funny how these ubiquitous things suddenly disappeared.
61. "Hogwash!" : BALONEY
64. Personal __ : TRAINER
65. Somewhat : A LITTLE
66. Femur or fibula : LEG BONE
67. Butterflies on ankles, say : TATTOOS. People tell me it hurts like hell to get a tattoo on your ankle. I'll take their word for it.
68. Teammate of Duke and Jackie : PEEWEE. Dodgers greats Snider, Robinson and Reese, here with Roy Campanella.
Down:
1. "Concord Sonata" composer : IVES. Charles Ives. Not really a tune you can whistle.
2. Lower-class, to Brits : NON-U. Non-Upper Class. The use of a single word can place you firmly in a particular class. If you say "Pardon?" when you didn't hear something clearly, you're middle class. (The Queen would say "What?", as would working-class Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins".).
3. Chowder bit : CLAM
4. China's DF-31, e.g. : ICBM. Now I'll know what I'm looking at next time I see one whizzing past. Cruise missiles are powered in flight, ballistic ones drop on your head by force of gravity. Both will ruin your day.
5. Gift of the gifted : TALENT
6. Opener for Don Quixote? : ENERO. "January" in Spanish.
7. It has big teeth : RAKE. What about the little ones that come with those desktop Zen gardens?
8. "Gramma" in the comic strip "Stone Soup" : EVIE
9. Chowderhead : DITZ
10. He was on deck when Blake was up : CASEY
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
From "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
11. "And more" letters : ETC.
12. Masked drama : NOH
13. Crack : TRY
15. Space balls : ORBS
20. Raise : REAR
23. The way things stand : AS IT IS
24. Atone for : REDEEM
25. Tease : NEEDLE
26. Wrong move : SLIP-UP
27. "Wrong, wrong, wrong!" : NO! NO! NO!
28. Get the better of : OUTWIT
29. Oklahoma tribe : OTOE. These guys.
31. Sonar pulse : PING
32. "The Mikado" weapon, briefly : SNEE. "Snickersnee", a fighting knife featured in the song "The Criminal Cried as he Dropped him Down".
33. Tube traveler : EGG
36. Ceremonial accessory : SASH
37. And : PLUS
38. Diplomacy : TACT
40. Gay syllable : TRA-
43. Teased : RODE
47. Long cold spell : ICE AGE
49. 2013 Masters champ Adam __ : SCOTT. He subsequently had to change his putting style when the Rules of Golf were thankfully amended to ban the "anchoring" of a long putter.
51. Airport abbr. : INTL.
52. Bad bug : STREP. I had strep throat once, my tonsils were swollen white lumps. It was all I could do to swallow warm water. Awful.
54. Biblical connector : UNTO. Connector?
55. Move, in real estate lingo : RELO
56. Saloon and deli offerings : RYES. Whisky and a sandwich. Lunch of champions!
57. Weird feeling, perhaps : VIBE
58. Plenty of poetry? : ENOW
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
From "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam" translated by Edward Fitzgerald
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
From "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam" translated by Edward Fitzgerald
59. Island goose : NENE
60. Word with farm or house : TREE
61. Stick for 10-Down : BAT
62. In the style of : À LA. "À la mode" means "fashionable" in French. Why is it fashionable to put a scoop of ice cream on your pie?
63. Bombed : LIT. The result of too many ryes in the saloon.
I think I've got all the clues/answers this week, sorry for the missing ones last Thursday; I think the blog gremlins ate them.
Here's the grid!
Steve
FIW. Misspelt NOe + KITSCeY. Didn't realize either error on rechecking the entire puzzle, so had to turn on the red to find it.
ReplyDelete{A, C, B.}
There once was a Ute
With a sensitive SNOOT,
A snout that pheromonally knows!
He could smell a lie,
Though liars would TRY,
He could tell the yeses from NOES!
But his beezer not only
Could root out BALONEY,
Theaters sent a VIBE to his NOSE;
A TALENTED player
To his schnozz had a flavor --
In any type plays except NOHS!
CASEY was a queer NENE of a brat.
For pets he had a CLAM and a BAT.
The CLAM was content
To watch CURRENT EVENTS,
While the BAT had a blog and would chat!
SCOTT was a near-failed DIPLOMAT
Until his hearing was no longer intact.
He found an advantage
In using sign language --
His success was secured by thumb TACT!
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteCouldn't get this to work on the Mensa site, but fortunately it was available at merriam-webster.com.
Had a lot of trouble getting started with this one. I had NONU and CLAM (which I worried might actually be CORN) and that was it for the NW corner. The NE Corner was completely blank after my first pass through it. But then things started to slowly come together. I got SUMMER BREEZE and SPRING TIDE (which I first thought was SPRINGTIME) and was sure we were going for all four seasons. So I was rather confused to see POWER SURGE emerge until I finally got the the reveal.
Adam SCOTT was unknown to me and I barely remembered EVIE, but everything else was just a matter of figuring out the clues.
How fun to have John Lampkin setting the day.
ReplyDeleteNONU NOH NONONO and NENE; never heard of non-upper class and EVIE and Stone Soup were also unknowns. Particularly enjoyed JL trying to trick us with a Bug clue not related to insects.
For those who like word origins CIEL is an interesting one and with CEILING also above us and CELESTIAL and CELESTE meaning sky blue...well I like words
Thanks for the ride
Good Morning!
ReplyDeleteWhere were the bugs? No pupae, no luna, no lowly worms. I was so ready for some holometabolus critter. Not to be. When I entered CASEY, I was picturing RUTH. When PEEWEE showed up, I was picturing Steve anchoring his long putter. Tough outing, but the perps were kind this morning. Plus, you've gotta love a puzzle with KITSCHY and BALONEY in it. Thanks, John.
PING -- "One ping only, Vasily"
STREP -- Only once, Steve? Lucky guy.
Greetings Happy Solvers!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the entertaining review, Steve.
OwenKL, I always enjoy your insane stretches--don't ever stop!
Lemon and Desper, I'll try to do better next time. To make up for my lapse, I'll rewrite the clue for:
EGG - Future pupa, luna moth or lowly worm.
Yes, much better.
Well that North East was a Bear with claws. I was thinking of the plane not the guy in it. I tried spaz, find, douz ETC. I didn't know EVIE and NOH.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should have put it down for later but I just had to see what Owen cooked up. All A's here. I actually really liked no. 2.
Fun puzzle. I liked the theme with its four kinds of currents. The top stripe was really crunchy, especially the NE, but I got it. I knew KITSCHY, and after I spelled it correctly the rest fell into place. I had trouble fitting KITSCHY with CASEY at first. Great review, Steve. Beautiful Mt. Fuji picture.
ReplyDeleteMy DIL and grandson are in Japan right now.
Many storytellers' (and politicians') YARNs are also twisted.
French CIEL: I always ponder IE or EI.
Neat poems, Owen KL, especially the first one.
NON U was completely unknown. Sounds snobby.
I know Stone Soup, but didn't remember EVIE.
Steve: Good Job on the write-up & links.
ReplyDeleteJohn: Thank You for a FUN Thursday puzzle with a nice theme.
D-N-F ... living in Tarpon Springs, and a NEAT Scotch drinker ...
"_ _ _AGE" just wasn't going to be entered. LOL
Faves today, of course, were RYES & LIT ... go figure.
Well "Its 5 O'clock Somewhere" ...
Cheers!
Ummm. First I couldn't get Mensa to work, then I couldn't get my brain to work. Somehow I felt I must have slept for two days and awakened on Saturday. Alas, no! A DNF for me today. Usually, I try to stick it out, but I am too busy here. We are putting in new asphalt drives and driveways through our townhome development. It looks and sounds like I-90 here. (If you live in Chicagoland or have to pass through, you know what I mean.) I keep taking photos for my grandsons who love BIG trucks!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, John. Steve, I did read my way through your account of the puzzle since I couldn't do it myself. Thank you.
Have a good day!
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteI certainly struggled on this one. The NW corner was last to fall, because Nonu didn't look plausible (actually, it still doesn't, but then, I'm neither British nor upper class...). Paused at crack=try because of brain fogginess. Got there eventually.
Morning, Steve, I'm glad you knew about Non U.
Thank you, John Lampkin! This required a lot of mental gymnastics but it came together. It started slowly with only CLAM and ORBS in place. Then bit by bit the SE filled but PEEWEE took a while until the light bulb LIT.
ReplyDeleteIt took some time to recall EVIE and DITZ helped to spell KITSCHY then BREEZE emerged. I knew CIEL but spelled it CEIL first, ASITIS set that right. APSE or nave always require a waiting period to see which will prevail. REAR confirmed APSE.
Great fun from JL PLUS good entertainment from Steve.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
“He was on deck when Blake was up” was my favorite by a nose in John’s wonderful puzzle where cleverness abounded.
ReplyDeleteMusings
-My friend told me the biggest single POWER SURGE at our power plant here was 6 am on Thanksgiving Day
-Should you say “NICE TRY” to you child even when it isn’t? Hmmm…
-If you look closely at this crop-duster plane, you can see a wire from the cockpit to the tail to prevent the loss of the tail if it comes up too fast under power lines
-My sister was an ENABLER, so her 24 year-old son still lives at home and works at a fast food place
-I found a 6 min. video of “It is Me vs It is I” and got bored in 15 seconds
-An interesting take on the phrase AH SO
-A lovely young waitress we had had two TATTOS. One for her friend who died was lovely. She explained the other one as being “young and dumb!”
-Programs for “TALENTED and gifted” kids never impressed me. It seemed to be sop for parents
-I play golf with a huge man I hardly know and he used to NEEDLE me. I told him one-on-one it upset me and he quit.
-Miss USA of 2013’s SASH seems to have more material than her apparel
-New Zealand caddy Steve Williams went to work for Aussie Adam SCOTT after Tiger Woods fired him
Help me, please. How does crack = TRY??
ReplyDeleteI stumbled out of the blocks this morning, not knowing NON-U, IVES, or ICBM. Then it got worse because EVIE was an unknown, DITZ is usually reserved for blond(e)s, I filled TRACTOR for 15A, and didn't know who was at bat before CASEY stepped up to the plate. The rest of the puzzle filled easily but even thought I aced four Geology courses and one Meteorology class in college, I have never heard of SPRING TIDE.
ReplyDeleteSo I went on a bike ride, picked up the puzzle an hour later, and every fill fell into place.
Speaking of Adam SCOTT, about 6 years ago. I had to show him where his ball was on the 13th hole at TPC because he tried to drive the green on a short par 4 and it landed on the side of a pot bunker buried in heavy rough about 50 feet from the hole. He hit a flop shot that landed on the fly about 6" from the hole and stopped. Easy tap in birdie for him.
Take a crack at I think he meant. Right next to NOH made the NE tough.
ReplyDeleteAnon@9:47
ReplyDeleteC'mon, have a crack at it!
CRACK = TRY.
ReplyDeleteCommon usages are: I'll have a crack at it. Why don't you give it a crack? She took at crack at playing the difficult sonata.
Williams actually worked three tournaments with Adam Scott before his public firing. Sadly for Adam, Williams cannot keep Scott's putting as consistent as his ball striking.
ReplyDeleteI always thought the tension and fall out during the 2009 PGA where Tiger and Stevie were obviously not on the same page was the crack in Tiger's invincible armor that kept him out of the winners' circle in majors.
ReplyDeleteA truly challenging puzzle by John Lampkin today. An official DNF because I had to use Red Letters, some alphabet runs and one lookup in ITranslate for CEIL. Steve did a great job of clearing up some of the confusion I had with the clues. Great job by both John and Steve.
For Tube Traveler I wanted BRIT, but it didn't fit, both literally and figuratively. Londoner wouldn't work either.
SCHNOZ would have been my choice for Slangy nose, but again it didn't fit.
VOLCANO and ENABLER were tough to fill in especially since I didn't know IVES or NONU.
If it wasn't for perps I never would have gotten ENOW. I guess poetry is not my bag.
I worked for Grumman Aerospace for most of my career, so I first tried Ag Cat (crop duster made by Grumman), then I tried Pawnee (crop duster built by Piper) but they were both too short. I was looking at it all wrong.
HG's picture of a crop duster is the Piper Pawnee.
Have a great day.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr. Lampkin gave me agita with this offering but I eventually slew (is that correct?) the devilish dragon. It took a while to gain any traction but, eventually, everything clicked and I got my tada! As Misty would say, Yay me! Before Steve's explanation of Non U, I was thinking that it meant Non-University.
Thanks, JL, for a tough but fun Thursday treat and thanks, Steve, for the icing on the cake and the ice cream on the pie! BTW, if the upper class say What?, and the middle class say Pardon?, what does the lower class say?
YR from yesterday: That is wonderful news about Alan. May he continue to enjoy good health. Your trip to the Falls sounds exciting; I've never been there.
I finally saw "Spotlight" last night. I highly recommend it.
Have a great day
BIPLANE for AVIATOR; RISINGTIDE for SPRINGTIDE; UTES for OTOE. These errors gave me fits with this CW. Favorite clue "Tube traveler". Nice CW, John, thanx for the fits!! Terrific write-up, Steve, thanx!! Liked all your stuff today, Owen, A, B+, B+.
ReplyDeleteHI Y'll! Theme was cute, John. But I was not in your ballpark no matter who was at bat. First pass through I had only CLAM & ORBS in the top third. Try as I might red-letters showed up screaming NONONO! This bad VIBE was ENOW to INCITE a return to bed not giving a RED CENT for the rest of the puzzle. But I persisted and the rest was a little better.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Steve, for your explanations.
Hand up for not knowing "Stone Soup". But Adam SCOTT is one of my favorites. NOH finally dawned on me from conversation on this blog some time ago.
YR: I'm glad Alan is better.
Lemonade714, the 2nd paragraph in your 1005a post has me flummoxed. Do you mean Tiger would have won more majors without Williams. Or Williams kept him out of the winners' circles? Or he hasn't won since Williams was fired because of the strained relationship? Any which way, I would emphatically disagree with you.
ReplyDeleteWilliams aided Tiger's unprecedented run at winnning majors and physical ailments have limited him since.
Crop dusting is great for some things. However, the last two years I tried to have a garden, some idiot AVIATOR was using my house up on the hill as a turn-around point of reference. He was leaving just enough spray drift to kill my tomatoes and beans.
ReplyDeleteI called the first year and nicely asked them not to do it. The next year I called and threatened too late to do any good. The third year I didn't plant a garden. ENOW is ENOW! My husband was not happy with me, but it was his @#$% brother ordering the spraying.
Thanks, John, for a smooth solve today. altho the NE was a tad touchy! Nice theme, which I picked up early and that helped.
ReplyDeleteNice write-up, Steve. Thanks again for all the work ya'll do!
Excellent puzzle and excellent write-up. Thanks John and Steve.
ReplyDeleteWell, this Thursday puzzle looked totally impossible to me on my first run-through, when all I had was NOH, CIEL, RELO, and NENE. But slowly the bottom and the middle filled in, and after some effort, the top NW. Only the NE required some cheating, even though I had KITSCHY. Didn't remember EVIE even though I used to love "Stone Soup." Still, very fun puzzle, John Lampkin, and thanks too for checking in with us. And thank you, Steve as always.
ReplyDeleteOwen, I thought your CASEY poem was cute.
Am down with my first cold in about 8 years--at a time when we have 90 degree temperatures. Makes no sense at all, especially after surviving rainy weather in London last week. But can't complain, for goodness sake, about a minor thing like that.
I am so out of it when it comes to America's past time, the "boys of summer." I am more familiar with CASEY than with real players, so I suppose that's why my very last fill was the "W" in PEEWEE.
ReplyDeleteYup - there I was with everything in place, waiting to give a (mental) Ta-DAH! shout, but facing PEE_EE at 68A. Could "Duke" and "Jackie" be some kind of video avatars? Part of a legendary con-game trio? PEEVEE or PEEDEE sounded reasonable.
The answer didn't come until I solved the cross to get ENOW, a word that, incidentally, comes from more familiar (to me) territory, good ol' English lit.
Otherwise, a fine pzl from Mr. Lampkin, and solid response by Steve.
Hello Everyone, This was a puzzle that looked like it was not going to come together at all, but bit by bit it was finished. However, I had to look up several items and change others until I finally filled in the last letters.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said before , It is always a learning experience. I was surprised that I knew some obscure items and couldn't get others that were evident upon completion.
We have perfect weather here right now, but triple digits forecast for next week. I want to get some of my cooking and freezing done so I don't have to heat up the kitchen next week.
Have a wonderful rest of the day, everyone.
Wow, a tough Thursday puzzle. Some tough clueing as well. Finally finished but again, wow, tough.
ReplyDelete"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteThe NW Corner took far too long to reveal itself, so I finally googled the answer to 1d and was able to limp home. I couldn't get a foothold there, even with SUMMER BREEZE filled in. Speaking of SUMMER BREEZE, we've been getting our fair share of overly hot ones the past few days - not as tropical and humid, but a bit drier and just plain old hot! Oh well, I still prefer these to the cold ones up north
What others have said, the NO NO NO, NOH, NON-U (didn't realize when I put it in that there was a hyphen), NENE chain was kinda cool. Just missing Mork's NANU NANU, and one of my all time favorites from Steam, NA NA NA NA (Hey, Hey, Goodbye). Enjoy having this tune in your head for the rest of the evening!!
In today's solve, the South fell first, rather easily, too. Getting the theme reveal at 53a helped some, but as I said, by the time I worked North and got to Wash, Oregon and Idaho/Mont, I was solve-less. Not a criticism of J Lampkin's overall effort today, but even with a Thursday puzzle I like to have either 1 across or 1 down be relatively easy to solve.
Thanks for the write up, Steve. With regard to Adam SCOTT and his long putter ... the actual use of the long putter is not banned; it's the anchoring (as you pointed out) that is illegal. I was surprised that Scott didn't keep the long putter and just extend is arms out from his body. I've been using a long putter for years, and once the USGA/PGA proposed the rule change back in 2013-2014, I began using it without anchoring. My putting didn't suffer one bit. I still think that Bernard Langer uses the long putter on the Champions Tour ...
PEE WEE Reese was anything but a pee wee, as he stood 5' 10" tall which for his era was above average. I think it had to do with his marble-playing talents, according to Wikipedia
Arnie
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant was the 2009 PGA showed there was obvious tension between the best golfer and the best caddie that was so extreme the tournament was lost. It may have been a product of the strain Tiger had placed on himself. They were an awesome team while it worked
@Irish Miss - the working class, oddly enough (in the context of U and Non-U) generally use the same words as the upper class. The Queen would say "What?", the working-class counterpart much the same word, maybe pronounced "Wha'?" or "Wot?" depending on regional dialect.
ReplyDeleteThe middle classes, wanting to distance themselves from the working class, would use what they thought were more "refined" words, but in actual fact succeeded only in attracting the scorn of both the lower and the upper classes for their efforts.
The class culture is still alive and thriving in England. It's complicated - just like cricket, it's hard to explain to someone who hasn't played the game!
NO, NO, NO! Huge SLIP UPs resulting in JL doing UNTO me today. OUT WIT'd, I never REDEEM'd myself. DNF.
ReplyDeleteThanks John L. For the fun, but too many missteps and not enough know made this impossible for me. I finally had to turn to the Google for 3 c/a's to get going and make som of my wrongs right.
Thanks Steve - I cribbed a bit so I could play some more. Enjoyed the writeup.
WOs: (some after a glance at Steve's grid) - Also b/f PLUS, HRE b/f SEE. Repent b/f REDEEM, ETC.
Unknowns: 1d, 2d, 4d, 6d, (as clued [hard-D was right-out], 8d, 12d, SNEE, & SEE. 14a had nothing to do with roads, heads, nor ice-cream parlors.
OTOH: The bottom 1/3 was a treat :-). Finished it in 5 min w/o WOs
Fav: I'm w/ Tin on RYES. After this puzzle, I need to get LIT.
I liked CASEY at the BAT too.
{A,B+,B}
PK - LOL crop dusting story.
C.Moe, thanks for the ear worm.
Cheers, -T
This was such a challenge that I didn't finish it before work and ended up heading back to it after dinner. Slowly it came together- I kept thinking "is it Friday?"
ReplyDeleteThanks John for the challenge and Steve for the write-up!
Sorry, I just don't buy "crack" as a clue for TRY. All the explanations that have been suggested are idioms, where the entire phrase ("have a crack at," e.g.) is required to convey the meaning of TRY. I can't think of a single instance where "crack" by itself can replace TRY in a sentence. "I don't know if I can do it, but I'll crack?" Just doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteAnon@10:35 - While I kind of agree, what about "Crack a joke" ? Oft mine don't work, but I cracked, er, TRY'd it. Not that that example leapt to mind at 13d.
ReplyDeleteC, -T
Anyone still up watching the Brexit results? Leave won. The Pound is down 9.5% against $US.
ReplyDeleteAH SO - Confucious curse say: "May you live in interesting times."
From what I read, UK will have 2 years to hammer out the EU exit agreement. Maybe there will be another vote by then? My buddies in Scotland are not amused.
How's that for a CURRENT EVENT? -T