Theme: Double Crosses.
18A. Start of an old news announcement : EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!
32A. Stipulation on le menu : PRIX FIXE. Food! The fixed-price menu in French restaurants; the daily specials. Most restaurants in France offer a prix fixe menu which is usually the the best value - and the best foo (as opposed to ordering à la carte).
41A. Where gas and lodging may be found : NEXT EXIT. The food! choices tend to be pretty limited.
60A. Nachos, e.g. : TEX-MEX DISH. Food! Here's a chicken fajitas, a classic Tex-Mex dish.
3D. Historic Chicago-to-Santa Monica route : SIXTY SIX. Too good to pass up for a music link. Get your kicks with the Rolling Stones before they started writing their own songs.
38D. When translated to English, beer brand that hints at the common feature of the five other longest puzzle answers : DOS EQUIS
What a great journey through 11 (count 'em!) X's and some Z's, W's, Q's and other Scrabble-tastic letters thrown in for good measure.
I loved the concept, the execution and I enjoyed the fill around those pesky X's but ..... CLANG! The reveal says "the five other longest puzzle answers" which rather insults the lovely ARSENALS and UNEARTHS which each sport eight letters - just like PRIX FIXE, NEXT EXIT and SIXTY SIX. Details, details.
Anyway - thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, thank goodness for great crosses for the obscure stuff, and a one-cup-of-coffee time for me.
Let's see what else we've got that jumps out:
Across:
1. Tousle : MUSS. No fuss with this muss.
5. F and G, e.g. : CLEFS
10. Soaks (up) : SOPS. See how you have to wait before deciding between MOPS and SOPS?
14. Bad thing to be caught in : A LIE. Because "a speed trap" or "a rip tide" didn't fit.
15. Spells : HEXES
16. Virginie, par exemple : ÉTAT. French king Louis XIV (great crossword name!) pretty much started the wheels of the revolution turning with his assertion "L'Etat, c'est moi." - "I am the State". It all ended rather badly for the French royal family, and around 40,000 others.
17. "Need You Tonight" band : INXS
20. Frequent Lemmon co-star : MATTHAU
22. Chimney : STACK
23. Dublin-born poet : YEATS
24. AWOL trackers : MPS
26. Tiny : WEE
27. Shine, in Cambridge : LUSTRE. British spelling. For those of you that remember the picture of the crew "Boat Race" passing Chiswick Eyot on the blog a couple of weeks ago, Cambridge University was the boat on the right.
29. Ammunition dumps : ARSENALS
31. Request to Sajak : AN "I"
34. Numerical prefix : HEXA. -decimal. Base 16. I have fond(?) memories of an activity called "dump-cracking". When your IBM-mainframe program aborted, you were presented with a printed "dump" of the computer memory at the time of the error which usually measured at least a foot tall pile of of fan-fold paper, and you were left alone for a while trying to figure out what "Data Exception Error at location 9EF867D81" could possibly mean.
36. Progressive pitcher? : FLO
37. When there's no turning back : D-DAY
46. Tulsa sch. : ORU. Oral Roberts makes an appearance.
47. Brings to light : UNEARTHS
50. Pitcher, for one : VESSEL
52. Cambodia's Lon __ : NOL. Crosses, thank you.
53. Enzyme suffix : -ASE
54. Moisten, in a way : BASTE. Food! A pointless activity to spoon fat from the bottom of the roasting dish to the top of the roast. All you do is lose heat from the oven, probably burn your wrist on the oven shelf and make zero difference to the flavor of the end product.
55. Northeastern octet : IVIES. There's an acronym or mnemonic somewhere in the deepest, darkest regions of my mind to remember Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth and Cornell. I guess HYPPBCDC isn't it.
57. Old but coveted : ANTIQUE
64. Peach __ : FUZZ
65. Landed : ALIT
66. Ken Jenkins's "Scrubs" role : KELSO. It didn't help that I read "Ken Jennings" and was away with the "Jeopardy" thinking. When was Ken Jennings in a Scrubs episode? Crosses and sanity eventually prevailed.
67. CVI halved : LIII
68. Old map divs. : SSRS
69. "Dallas" Miss : ELLIE
70. North-of-the-border gas : ESSO. Also 6,000 miles east of the border in the UK, but it's not quite as much of a snappy clue.
Down:
1. Injure badly : MAIM
2. Radius neighbor : ULNA
4. Largish combo : SESTET. Hand up for "SEXTET" - with all the X's going on today it seemed a natural. Not.
5. Proctor's concern : CHEATER.
6. Infiniti competitor : LEXUS
7. No. after a phone no. : EXT. Are extensions still a thing? It seems an awfully long time since I asked to be put through to one.
8. Not agin : FER
9. Fed. benefits agency : S.S.A.
10. Stimulating message : SEXT.
11. Senators' home : OTTAWA. I tried to fit all kinds of Washington, D.C and other stuff into here. Finally the penny dropped.
12. Part of UPS : PARCEL
13. Betting specifications : STAKES
19. County bordering Suffolk : ESSEX. Easy for me. Tough for you. I lived in Essex - 60 miles from London, and a 2 1/2 hour commute from the office. When Warner Bros. offered me a transfer to Los Angeles it didn't take a whole lot to convince me! Here's a snippet of the old map now hanging on my wall - my house was the little black dot in the yellow highlight beneath the "B1053" road designation. It was very quiet out there! The house was more than 400 years old.
21. Dwell annoyingly (on) : HARP
24. "Fantastic" Dahl character : MR. FOX
25. Initials on a radial : P.S.I. Pounds per Square Inch. Where's the "per"?
27. "Well, __-di-dah!" : LAH
28. Lyon article : UNE. One Feminine Article en France. I pitched a tent on a roundabout in Lyon once - I was hitch-hiking and dropped off at midnight by a truck driver. It was very dark and I had no idea I was standing on a traffic circle. When I woke up in the morning at rush hour, I was startled to find three lanes of traffic circling my campsite. The gendarmes who arrived shortly after were nice, but bemused.
29. Weigh station counts : AXLES
30. Composer Rorem : NED
33. "__ shoe fits ... " : IF THE. Cinderelly?
35. Literary assortment : -ANA. Very much in the "crosswordese" field. Shakespeareiana, Grishomiana. You get the idea.
39. "We __ Marshall": 2006 film : ARE. I cried. I cry in a lot of movies, but this one was a bawler.
40. Brynner of filmdom : YUL. Completely missed this during the solve, crosses filled him in for me.
42. Wipe off : ERASE
43. Some Cadillacs : XT'S. Not sure they'd give the XKE's a run for their money.
44. Scott classic : IVANHOE. Great book. Robin Hood's modern-day reputation owes much to this novel.
45. Try : TEST
47. Hall of Fame Colts quarterback : UNITAS. Peyton Manning? Not yet, be patient.
48. Grisham output : NOVELS.
49. Potion : ELIXIR. Lovely word.
51. Suppress : STIFLE
54. Low voices : BASSI
56. First responders, initially : EMTS
58. Israeli arms : UZIS
59. Opera star Pinza : EZIO. Along with the previous entry, a couple of Z's are thrown into the scrabble-fest today.
61. Classic Jag : XKE. The E-Type. Jaguar announced recently that they are going to complete the production run of the "Lightweight" low-drag coupe. There were plans to make 18 of these cars, only 12 were built between 1963 and 1964. Don't expect to see the missing six available for purchase on the open market. Here's one of the originals.
.jpg/1280px-Jaguar_E-type_Lightweight_Low_Drag_Coupe_-_Flickr_-_exfordy_(2).jpg)
62. "Small Wonder" state: Abbr. : DEL. aware.
63. In need of treatment : ILL
And ... here's the grid.
Steve
18A. Start of an old news announcement : EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!
32A. Stipulation on le menu : PRIX FIXE. Food! The fixed-price menu in French restaurants; the daily specials. Most restaurants in France offer a prix fixe menu which is usually the the best value - and the best foo (as opposed to ordering à la carte).
41A. Where gas and lodging may be found : NEXT EXIT. The food! choices tend to be pretty limited.
60A. Nachos, e.g. : TEX-MEX DISH. Food! Here's a chicken fajitas, a classic Tex-Mex dish.
3D. Historic Chicago-to-Santa Monica route : SIXTY SIX. Too good to pass up for a music link. Get your kicks with the Rolling Stones before they started writing their own songs.
38D. When translated to English, beer brand that hints at the common feature of the five other longest puzzle answers : DOS EQUIS
What a great journey through 11 (count 'em!) X's and some Z's, W's, Q's and other Scrabble-tastic letters thrown in for good measure.
I loved the concept, the execution and I enjoyed the fill around those pesky X's but ..... CLANG! The reveal says "the five other longest puzzle answers" which rather insults the lovely ARSENALS and UNEARTHS which each sport eight letters - just like PRIX FIXE, NEXT EXIT and SIXTY SIX. Details, details.
Anyway - thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, thank goodness for great crosses for the obscure stuff, and a one-cup-of-coffee time for me.
Let's see what else we've got that jumps out:
Across:
1. Tousle : MUSS. No fuss with this muss.
5. F and G, e.g. : CLEFS
10. Soaks (up) : SOPS. See how you have to wait before deciding between MOPS and SOPS?
14. Bad thing to be caught in : A LIE. Because "a speed trap" or "a rip tide" didn't fit.
15. Spells : HEXES
16. Virginie, par exemple : ÉTAT. French king Louis XIV (great crossword name!) pretty much started the wheels of the revolution turning with his assertion "L'Etat, c'est moi." - "I am the State". It all ended rather badly for the French royal family, and around 40,000 others.
17. "Need You Tonight" band : INXS
20. Frequent Lemmon co-star : MATTHAU
22. Chimney : STACK
23. Dublin-born poet : YEATS
24. AWOL trackers : MPS
26. Tiny : WEE
27. Shine, in Cambridge : LUSTRE. British spelling. For those of you that remember the picture of the crew "Boat Race" passing Chiswick Eyot on the blog a couple of weeks ago, Cambridge University was the boat on the right.
29. Ammunition dumps : ARSENALS
31. Request to Sajak : AN "I"
34. Numerical prefix : HEXA. -decimal. Base 16. I have fond(?) memories of an activity called "dump-cracking". When your IBM-mainframe program aborted, you were presented with a printed "dump" of the computer memory at the time of the error which usually measured at least a foot tall pile of of fan-fold paper, and you were left alone for a while trying to figure out what "Data Exception Error at location 9EF867D81" could possibly mean.
36. Progressive pitcher? : FLO
37. When there's no turning back : D-DAY
46. Tulsa sch. : ORU. Oral Roberts makes an appearance.
47. Brings to light : UNEARTHS
50. Pitcher, for one : VESSEL
52. Cambodia's Lon __ : NOL. Crosses, thank you.
53. Enzyme suffix : -ASE
54. Moisten, in a way : BASTE. Food! A pointless activity to spoon fat from the bottom of the roasting dish to the top of the roast. All you do is lose heat from the oven, probably burn your wrist on the oven shelf and make zero difference to the flavor of the end product.
55. Northeastern octet : IVIES. There's an acronym or mnemonic somewhere in the deepest, darkest regions of my mind to remember Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth and Cornell. I guess HYPPBCDC isn't it.
57. Old but coveted : ANTIQUE
64. Peach __ : FUZZ
65. Landed : ALIT
66. Ken Jenkins's "Scrubs" role : KELSO. It didn't help that I read "Ken Jennings" and was away with the "Jeopardy" thinking. When was Ken Jennings in a Scrubs episode? Crosses and sanity eventually prevailed.
67. CVI halved : LIII
68. Old map divs. : SSRS
69. "Dallas" Miss : ELLIE
70. North-of-the-border gas : ESSO. Also 6,000 miles east of the border in the UK, but it's not quite as much of a snappy clue.
Down:
1. Injure badly : MAIM
2. Radius neighbor : ULNA
4. Largish combo : SESTET. Hand up for "SEXTET" - with all the X's going on today it seemed a natural. Not.
5. Proctor's concern : CHEATER.
6. Infiniti competitor : LEXUS
7. No. after a phone no. : EXT. Are extensions still a thing? It seems an awfully long time since I asked to be put through to one.
8. Not agin : FER
9. Fed. benefits agency : S.S.A.
10. Stimulating message : SEXT.
11. Senators' home : OTTAWA. I tried to fit all kinds of Washington, D.C and other stuff into here. Finally the penny dropped.
12. Part of UPS : PARCEL
13. Betting specifications : STAKES
19. County bordering Suffolk : ESSEX. Easy for me. Tough for you. I lived in Essex - 60 miles from London, and a 2 1/2 hour commute from the office. When Warner Bros. offered me a transfer to Los Angeles it didn't take a whole lot to convince me! Here's a snippet of the old map now hanging on my wall - my house was the little black dot in the yellow highlight beneath the "B1053" road designation. It was very quiet out there! The house was more than 400 years old.
21. Dwell annoyingly (on) : HARP
24. "Fantastic" Dahl character : MR. FOX
25. Initials on a radial : P.S.I. Pounds per Square Inch. Where's the "per"?
27. "Well, __-di-dah!" : LAH
28. Lyon article : UNE. One Feminine Article en France. I pitched a tent on a roundabout in Lyon once - I was hitch-hiking and dropped off at midnight by a truck driver. It was very dark and I had no idea I was standing on a traffic circle. When I woke up in the morning at rush hour, I was startled to find three lanes of traffic circling my campsite. The gendarmes who arrived shortly after were nice, but bemused.
29. Weigh station counts : AXLES
30. Composer Rorem : NED
33. "__ shoe fits ... " : IF THE. Cinderelly?
35. Literary assortment : -ANA. Very much in the "crosswordese" field. Shakespeareiana, Grishomiana. You get the idea.
39. "We __ Marshall": 2006 film : ARE. I cried. I cry in a lot of movies, but this one was a bawler.
40. Brynner of filmdom : YUL. Completely missed this during the solve, crosses filled him in for me.
42. Wipe off : ERASE
43. Some Cadillacs : XT'S. Not sure they'd give the XKE's a run for their money.
44. Scott classic : IVANHOE. Great book. Robin Hood's modern-day reputation owes much to this novel.
45. Try : TEST
47. Hall of Fame Colts quarterback : UNITAS. Peyton Manning? Not yet, be patient.
48. Grisham output : NOVELS.
49. Potion : ELIXIR. Lovely word.
51. Suppress : STIFLE
54. Low voices : BASSI
56. First responders, initially : EMTS
58. Israeli arms : UZIS
59. Opera star Pinza : EZIO. Along with the previous entry, a couple of Z's are thrown into the scrabble-fest today.
61. Classic Jag : XKE. The E-Type. Jaguar announced recently that they are going to complete the production run of the "Lightweight" low-drag coupe. There were plans to make 18 of these cars, only 12 were built between 1963 and 1964. Don't expect to see the missing six available for purchase on the open market. Here's one of the originals.
62. "Small Wonder" state: Abbr. : DEL. aware.
63. In need of treatment : ILL
And ... here's the grid.
Steve
