Wow, that was one of my slowest Fridays in recent memory. I think this was probably one of the tougher Fridays recently ... and I am 100% in favor of more and more puzzles like this. I'm too punchdrunk from being buffeted hither and thither by this puzzle to be specific, but I enjoyed a whole boatload of super-clever clues that kept me guessing for a long time. A very fine Friday experience for me.
@Dan I'm with you! Took me 36 minutes, 12 longer than an average Friday. But I enjoyed it the entire time!
@Dan Amen! 40 minutes for me, but it was the kind of test I enjoy the most. Every answer was completely fair, but many took some working out, 35D being the last.
Yay! That was a Friday puzzle like olden days. Over and over I thought I was not gonna get it. The northwest and the southeast fell, then it filled in through the middle. Then the southwest then the northeast. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Just under 26 minutes and I’m ecstatic.
@Jake G Pretty much my experience exactly with this one too. I was surprised to finish under my Friday average since I never felt like anything was easy during the solve, but had to just steadily beat it into submission. I love a puzzle that keeps fighting until the bitter end!
Some good clues made this one fun. Low volume [TEASPOON], Game [UNAFRAID], It has a light bulb [DAFFODIL], Peace sign [DONOTDISTURB], Acrobat’s display [PDFFILES]. Those and others made for a breezy themeless.
One of these days, the clue will be asking for a musical Brian and the answer will be May.
@Sonja Somebody skated this season to a song of his (not Queen's) in one of the international competitions. I can't remember the title, but it was some of the worst musical dross I have ever heard in my life 😂 Even my wife - who is much more tolerant to bad music than I am - said her ears were bleeding 😢 So there!
@Sonja i decided that "rocker" in the clue was gently nodding me away from Eno so I put in May instead, took me a bit to unwind that mistake!
@Sonja Exactly!! Brian is a rock guitarist (who I had the privilege to meet at a taxi rank in Edinburgh once and I gallantly gave him my cab)… eno is a pioneer but not a ‘rocker’…
@Sonja He's more of a "rocker" than ENO, isn't he? I left those squares blank for a very long time in the hope that today was May's day. Alas.
@Sonja I had May in for a while which made me think 1D was SKIJUMPS
@Sonja Yes! I confidently put in May (before remembering this was the NYT). I also had Ivans instead of TSARS so that north west section took a while.
Trying again, emus: This has been one of the best solving weeks, starting with Sunday, that I can remember, and today’s offering continues the trend. I can hardly forget Mr. Spooner’s first offering, which was New Year’s Day, since he happens to have the same exact name as my crossword loving boss whom I mailed to ask how he could have submitted a puzzle without telling me. I was impressed then and even more impressed today. This was a proper Friday! The only gimmes were trivia that I happened to know—BOGART, VINNIE Barbarino, Anna KARENINA, and THEOLOGY as a stab—and without them I’m not sure what other footholds I would have had—and even with them had to work hard in every crack and crevice. The SE almost did me in since I had HINNY before JENNY (I guess I shouldn’t pull answers out of my α$$ and I couldn’t find a preposition after SNEAK that looked like it would go with an N and D going down (oh, that Acrobat!) Too many sparkling clues to mention and few duds, but I’d call out IN-LAWS, DAFFODILS and DONOTDISTURB for best clues of the week. Nice reminder of yesterday’s puzzle with Secondhand Offerings. Please no pearl clutchers for W*F, it’s not a debut and civilization will not collapse. Finally, ESOPHAGI has the same number of letters as RIGATONI for tubes going down, but luckily I was so sure about BOGART I didn’t swallow it for too long. Thanks Andrew and editors!!!
@SP I had never noticed before that THEOLOGY and religion have the same number of letters.
This felt hard but solved quite quickly, in the end. The trivia-heavy SE corner involved many guesses but was ultimately doable. Some nice misdirection all over the grid. And since I'm not a pearl-clutcher, I have no complaints. Nice.
@Andrzej Thanks for the Lucek photo yesterday. That is a charming picture.
@Andrzej SE corner was brutal.
The otter clue warmed my heart because it reminded me of my cat Jasper, a ragdoll who is no longer with us but when he was, he slept between my wife and I. I sleep on my side with my arm perpendicular to my chest, palm up, and Jasper would place his paw on my palm, and sleep with it there all night. OMG that always felt so good. Miss you, big boy.
@Lewis Oh Lewis I would miss that too. That’s a big show of trust from a Cat.
Loved it. Felt a lot like pre 2020 Friday/Saturday puzzles. I felt like I was going to be stuck forever in multiple places and suddenly everything just seemed to fall into place (which still doesn't happen with pre 2020 puzzles for me sadly). More such Friday puzzles please.
Oh. Man. I loved this. Wit, humor, grit, and beauty housed in an elegant grid design. Stellar. Let me flesh this out with an example. The puzzle has six NYT answer debuts, four of which are so lovely – DESERT ISLAND, DO NOT DISTURB, BUSINESSLIKE, and THE LAST STRAW. So, there’s beauty. Three are given excellent wordplay clues – [Where someone might be washed up?], [Peace sign?], and [You just can’t take it]. There’s wit and humor. The fourth, BUSINESSLIKE, is clued toughly, with the could-be-a-noun-or-verb [Professional]. There’s grit. As for skill? Each of these four answers crosses two of the others. What? Really? Wow! Andrew, I was over the moon over your last puzzle, a NYT debut, and called your voice promising. Your creation today fulfilled that promise, and more please. High props and much gratitude for this!
I have to add that I adored [Accounted for] for HERE, [It has a light bulb] for DAFFODIL, and the superbly vague [Game] for UNAFRAID.
Excuse me, I'll have what he's having 🤣
Eating the final plate of shredded leafy greens would be the last slaw. (But maybe you could try to cabbage patch things up.)
@Mike Your puns are like my raw salad: totally of this kale.
[Patron nibbles on a leaf] WTΦ! DO NOT DISTURB the DRYADS!
@Mike There you go again....grasping at straws. Or is that gasping?
@Mike You toss these off and they bowl me over. Enough to make a goddess green with envy.
Good legit Friday puzzle. More like this please
..... anddddd..... I'm done!!! A mere eleven hours later. Phew. Sweat pours from my brow, my typing fingers shake, I'm dehydrated and weak, I've neglected my friends and loved ones, I'm a pale shadow of the man I was when long ago I began solving this puzzle. It woulda gone faster but for some stupid reason I didn't memorize who was Grand Duke of Luxembourg until 2025 and now my regret is keen. I'm so weak right now. Send good wishes and a saline drip. PS. I think the term might be "deserted island," not "desert island." Meaning when one asks "What ten albums would you take with you ..." they mean to live on a deserted island, devoid of others; not on an arid one. But I quibble precisely because I just learned this tidbit a year ago myself. Back when ol' Henri was still Duke. The correct answer, by the way: Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, Quadrophenia, Dark Side of the Moon, Blue, Zep 1, Legend, Astral Weeks, Rumours, CSN debut album.
@Asher B. But did you *like* it? By the way, the BBC programme, as you may know, is called "DESERT ISLAND Discs". <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr</a>
@Asher B. Loved your comments, in their entirety! ‘… when Ol’ Henri was still Duke.” Glad I didn’t have a mouthful of water (oh, wait, it’s after 1 pm here — wine!) Seriously guffawed on that one.
I found this one *HARD* I thought I might never get anything, but then, finally, words started to fill in here and there and I got the momentum i needed. good puzzle!
@Jess i'm reading comments late and in order; i wonder what xwstats has to say? I have yet to sign up.
My kids call me DADO. Maybe they think I'm groovy. Good puzzle today!
@MFSTEVE I’ve got youngsters who call me Bobo (as in Bob-oh). Pretty sure they don’t think I’m groovy, but I hope your kids do (think you’re groovy) Agree, enjoyable puzzle experience!
@MFSTEVE Well, if they call you DADDYO, they’re channeling the 60s. Then, you raised them well!
Great Friday. Great misdirects. Seemed like a Friday from OLDEN days. Plus our boy, Brian ENO, made an appearance. But this is not your father’s NYT. 46A. LOL. I entered it, but was sure I would have to erase. I miss these kind of late week puzzles. After 20 minutes, I’m staring at a bunch of blind guesses. thinking, I’m toast. 10 more minutes, and I’m done. Also. I’m gonna have to look this up. But do we say DESERT ISLAND, because it’s all sand like a desert? Or because of deserted, like left behind / uninhabited. But if the latter, why do we say it like the former. And why is deserted pronounced like dessert-ed. Man, I was born here, and I don’t get American English half the time. Cue the gilligans island theme song.
@Weak Yes, a real Friday today. Let’s hope it continues!
@Weak I thought of the correct answer for 46A but resisted entering until I had a couple of crosses, because I couldn't believe the editors would allow it. :-)
@Weak I didn't think we do say "desert island"--I've not done a search, but I was sure it's a "deserted island."
@Weak Great question! Here is the Google AI answer: "Desert island" uses an archaic form of "desert," meaning deserted, desolate, or uninhabited, rather than referring to a sandy, dry climate. While "deserted" means abandoned, "desert" implies it was never inhabited at all, though both now generally describe an isolated island with no people.
This one made me feel like I was solving with the upperclassmen at a top notch school. No nonsense, long on thinking, short on esoterica and a blast of entertainment all the way. I liked all of it. Beautiful cluing. Thank you Andrew.
Here I am.... in the PNW, and therefore comparatively *Late to the Party* ...well, it took me a bit to break into this puzzle, which was plainly full of misdirection, trickery, etc. I am sure I'm not alone in entering IVANS at 4D. Plus I have been known to "get TEARY" at a wedding; haven't you? My one Nit: FAV instead of FAVE. Now, I *know* that DAFFODIL was worth it, but still.... And then a semi-nit: 47D "Where the Red Delicious apple originated"-- the one, true four-letter answer is indisputably: HELL.
@Mean Old Lady Ha! I'm only just reading the comments now, but I made a comment a few hours ago... A very similar sentiment to your comment about the red delicious. 😏
I enjoyed Sean McGowan's column, very interesting to learn about these "cheater squares". I don't usually read the column because I find that often it's just written from the POV of a regular solver: friendly and sympathetic, but ultimately not very illuminating. I'd much rather some expert or technical insights about things like grid design and other aspects of construction that I don't even know exist. I wouldn't have appreciated today's marvellously clean grid - quite a beauty in its elegant simplicity, even just aesthetically - if I hadn't read the column. Thanks Andrew and Sean!
Brutal, I loved it. I had next to nothing after my first pass through the crosses and downs, and only a guess for !?!?!? unlocked the lower left which opened up the puzzle. 50% over my average time for Friday, but lots of fun.
WT ϕ !?!?!?! [Are we allowed to write "WT ϕ"?] That was a puzzle! So many misdirects! So few gimmes! More than once I was unsure if I'd be able to finish on my own. More than once I thought I'd need to rely on Google for help. More than once I cursed at the puzzle in frustration and confusion. I mean, "It has a light bulb"?!? What am I supposed to do with that? "Game"? How many meanings does it have? Which one is being referenced here? And, in case I haven't been clear, I loved it. Favorite clue: "Peace sign?"; followed closely by "Acrobat's display". Thanks for a proper Friday puzzler, Andrew Spooner! (Spooner? Huh? Is that how that crazy TEASPOON made its way into the puzzle?)
@The X-Phile I love the "What am I supposed to do with *that*" for clues like "It has a light bulb". That's the feeling, like trying to walk on a floor covered with ball bearings, which I often get with a difficult weekend puzzle. Very satisfying if I come out on top. Grumbled Suppressor on MAX when I don't.
Tolstoy would have used KAtarINA too if he had thought of it, probably.
I believe @CLM's comment on this constructor's last puzzle -- his NYT debut -- is worth a reprise: "At last! A puzzle in which *every single entry* is a Spoonerism!"
What a great Friday puzzle! And how adorable was that clue about holding paws while asleep? Those cute animals are always good to see in the crossword. Vinnie and I would both like to say “Welcome back, otter!” (Did you know otters sometimes choose to sleep floating on their backs rather than return to land? If the water is rough, though, they may toss and turn, thinking as they lie awake: “Why a lake?”)
“Acrobat's display” was a misdirection I couldn't overcome. Bravo to the constructor. A worthy Friday puzzle.
@Jon Onstot, yeah, that one kept me out of the SE corner for quite a while. Had to (finally) get the RAF to come in for some assistance— the F making it PDF, and the ensuing head-slap.
@Jon Onstot Yes that was funny!
Today’s clueing can only be described as outrageous, in a good way. I am gobsmacked by some of those misdirects. PS Yesterday i found out about the etymology of “clue”. It was originally “clew”, which means a ball of thread, after the ball of thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus to help him escape the labyrinth. (Who knew? I hadn’t a clue!) What’s more, clew derives from a root meaning to ball up or clump together, from which we also get glue, gluteus maximus, and clay!
@Petrol I really hope you're making that stuff up. I'll not fact-check so I can keep living the dream!
@Petrol It's also where we get agglutinative, as in languages in which suffixes are stuck onto the end. It's often amazing how words are related to other words!
Always thinking, "I want a harder puzzle". Then I get one.
@Pamela keep up the thinking!
This was so absoLUTELY worth the 53ish minutes it took to get there! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZOj-3W8GGAk" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZOj-3W8GGAk</a> Enjoyed every circuitous minute of it
@Leapfinger Ha! Thanks for posting this! It was already playing in my head, since encountering it earlier, but it's fun to actually watch it again.
Well, I'll be! I honestly, 100%, thought the answer to a Red Delicious apple's origin was hell. Today I learned. Very fun, tough puzzle for me! Really enjoyed it! Went a bit slower than my norm, but it was all good! Many fun misdirects. Slow and steady won the race! Hip, hip, hurumba and huzzah!! After my first go through, pretty much the only (of the few) answers I was confident of were KARENINA crossing VINNIE, which really shows my range, I'd like to think. I haven't read any comments yet and I have to get back to being somewhat BUSINESSLIKE, but I hope people generally enjoyed this one!!
Hi HeathieJ, Hope you're feeling better today.
@HeathieJ My wife also detests Red Delicious apples. Makes fun of them. Why? They were the dominant apple when I was growing up, at least in my family. What happened to their reputation?
This was haaaaaarrrrrdddd... and amazing! The SE's confluence of JEFF, HENRI, JENNY, and VINNIE was a tough pull, with JENNY fortunately providing a tenuous anchor for me. I think I only had two or three words placed after my first pass, but got there in the end. Really amazingly good clueing.
I could barely do any of yesterdays puzzle (far too many Americanisms) but this one I found very fun! Lots of 'abstract thinking' clues and solutions. Tubes that go down was a highlight for me and blew open the puzzle once I realised. Had trouble in the centre, particularly with "Coalesces" which originally was "UNITE" and led to many issues.
Even though I should know better, I always hope "Rocker Brian" will be MAY. I mean I guess I know well enough to not hopefully fill it in. I always wait for crosses and (so far) I'm always disappointed when the constructor is once again not a Queen fan.
@ALH Yes! I actually filled in MAY at first. No disrespect to Brian Eno, he's pretty awesome, but while he is an accomplished musician I think of him more as a producer.
Wow! That was a perfect Friday—love one that seems impenetrable but slowly opens up. Lots of fun stuff lately, but I’ve had to limit my typing due to a two-week-old shoulder surgery. The one answer that resonated (not in a good way) for me today was LIEAWAKE. Here’s to better sleep in a month or so… Cheers, all!😊
Here to say that, despite the comments so far, I actually thought this was one of the easiest Fridays in recent weeks and I was seconds off from my best time. This is why I think we should pay less attention to the complaints in this forum about declining difficulty because there will always be different strokes for different folks… what is easy & enjoyable for you may not be (&& probably won’t be) easy & enjoyable for me. Great debut, Andrew!
@Emma apologies, misread your constructor note — I will have to look for your older puzzle(s) :)
@Emma Agree! 25% faster than my Friday average.
@Emma I solved this some 20% faster than average BUT it was super hard. I think solve time works as a measure of difficulty only to some extent. A very hard but well thought-out puzzle often solves more quickly for me than a less-well constructed one. Here I struggled until I didn't - everything finally fell into place perfectly.
@Emma “This is why I think we should pay less attention to the complaints in this forum about declining difficulty because there will always be different strokes for different folks” I’m definitely not going to argue that you should pay *more* attention to any comments in this forum, but I will ask: have you spent much time solving puzzles from 10+ years ago in the archives? It’s absolutely true that solvers’ perceptions of difficulty can diverge wildly for any one puzzle, but the complaints about declining difficulty don’t hinge upon just one or two (or even ten or twenty) puzzles…
Had nothing filled for the first five minutes before I seeded answers with a ton of esses; filled northwest corner quickly, and the rest came naturally in the next 10 minutes. Well designed and actually felt like a Friday/Saturday grid.
Joining the chorus of masochists who loved the old-school challenge of this puzzle. More like this please! Took me 1/3 longer than average and couldn't be happier
Loved this. Was staring at a frightening amount of blank space after my first few passes, but slowly things started filling up and then suddenly this felt very solvable. Great clues and brilliant misdirects. I'd say the juice was worth the squeeze. Well done!
@Michael Bonnell, I had the same experience but once I found a couple of "ins", it was pure joy! Took me just a minute over my average!
Amazingly, I didn't find this too difficult! The lack of brand names, sport, colleges, and only one little rap name helped. It had to be STILTON, such an English choice (not really Scots) and warm memories of my Dad who was in the RAF in WW2. He used to say 'raf' rather than R.A.F. and wore his 'raf' tie when seeing the bank manager or similar. I didn't know about the Red Delicious apple; American apples are reckoned to be large, shiny and tasteless in the UK ..... possibly a rumour put about by Cox's Orange Pippins and Worcester Pearmains. I wouldn't have got HENRI or JEFF except for the crossers. I have DADO rails in my house, and I didn't know there was a secondary meaning. Good to learn. The clues were the sort that I like - BIRTHS, DAFFODIL, GAME. Excellent!
@Jane Wheelaghan My dad was in the USAF in WW2, and of course was based in the UK. Oh, and his B-17 got shot down over Germany and he spent the last year of the war in a POW camp there. I actually visited the place some years ago. Sorry for the drift. ....
@Jane Wheelaghan Was STILTON obvious? Why couldn't it have been CHEDDAR?
@Jane Wheelaghan I recall an episode of "Chef!" in which Lenny Henry's character scours the English countryside, in search of unpasteurized STILTON for a special meal.
@Jane Wheelaghan Regarding Red Delicious apples, I don't think that was a rumour. We reckon them the way you do.
@Jane Wheelaghan During my childhood in the 1960s, the Red Delicious apple was a favored choice. With the advent of the “factory culture” of everything in America, especially food, many farm fresh items have become banal. Fresh strawberries used to be soft, succulent, juicy and red on the inside. Now, my God, they’re like tiny apples with a hint of strawberry flavor! A former work colleague of mine from (forgot the African nation) once commented on how our avocados lack any taste. All US avocados are imported from Mexico. There is an actual cartel that controls avocado exports from Mexico (imagine that, in America). He hated them, since the avocados from his country are delicious and tickle the tastebuds like no other. Don’t get me started on our factory-fresh tomatoes. They’re apples under the guise of tomatoes! The bananas are still mostly palatable, as are the celery and iceberg lettuce. I really miss the days of actual fresh fruit and vegetables, but I’m old and irreverent, and who cares about Boomers. Send me some Worcester Pearmains, PLEASE!
Thank you! That was fun! This felt like a Friday, as well as very well engineered: I had a tough start of it, but once I got going, it had a way of guiding me through. Lots of nice clues throughout. More, please!
Nice one! Very slow to start, a real accelerando experience. Loved how many words fit--and were wrong. More later. Gotta yoga now.
Holy cow. That was a slog, and thank goodness I remembered “VINNIE”…that finally blew open the SE corner and got the solve. Damn good Friday (but not Good Friday).
This might be sleep deprivation talking, but that was the toughest Friday in recent memory. And I loved it!
Encore! Encore! It reminded me of the level of difficulty in the 80s and 90s. Acrobat's display, Peace sign, Low volume. That is some outstanding and enjoyable wordplay sir. I haven't had so much aggravation, frustration, revelation and fun doing a crossword in years. I hope to be enjoying more of your works soon, Mr. Spooner. Thank you.
It’s interesting to see 38D {Dillydally] and 49A DAFFODIL crossing in the same puzzle. I’ve been pulling gazillions of daffodil plants out of my garden this week and the bulbs are sitting on the concrete. It seems that no matter how many bulbs I removed last season, they still come back in droves. From Wikipedia: "From at least the 16th century, "daffadown dilly" and "daffydowndilly" have appeared as alternative names" for daffodils. For anyone interested: Jamie Jeopardy almost had another close call last night but managed to maintain his championship. The Final Jeopardy question in the category "The 50s" asked what was deemed safe and effective in 1955, ten years after the death of an important person. Jeremy got the answer right: The Salk Polio Vaccine. The other guy had it wrong: he said "penicillin," which I believe was in use way before the 1950s. Discovered 1928; used in World War II; Nobel Prize, 1945. By the way, Jamie said in an interview that aired yesterday that he is too busy to study for Jeopardy because of his law school obligations!
@lucky13 Oh, I forgot to mention that the death of an important person in Final Jeopardy, of course, referred to President Franklin Roosevelt who hid his disability from polio from most of the world most of the time. He usually appeared seated but if you see him standing in photos, he is always supported by another person by his side.
@lucky13 SRSLY, penicillin? Clearly he did not get the reference to FDR, who had suffered from polio.
@lucky13 - This was one of my "screaming at the screen" Jeopardy! episodes. I knew the final right away -- it was bloody obvious -- and assume everyone would know it, too. I knew Jamie would get it so I knew he would win, unless he didn't bet large. I ASSumed the guy on the right would know would know it, too. Nope! It was good to see Jamie have to sweat a bit. A part of me wants to see him finally lose, but the other part wants to see if he can break all records, including Ken's. This is the first contestant in a long time who I think might do that. He working hard to improve the public image of "bureaucrats" everywhere.
This was as delightful as yesterday’s was abominable (in a good, tough way). I surprised myself at how quickly I whizzed through this, chuckling at the long spans. I love OXTAIL but didn’t know it was a Caribbean staple. I buy oxtail from my local butcher to turn into lovely, gelatinous stews and soups (with apologies to the vegans out there). I knew 42A was RAF, but the PD I already had for 35D made me doubt myself. I held off filling in almost to the end, before the lightbulb went off over my head. 8D made me think of a candle jar one of the boys gave me a while back; ‘Mum’s last nerve. Oh look, it’s on fire’. I have no idea what they were trying to convey. I have the patience of a saint. As I frequently yell at them, alongside 46A, but in full technicolour. We embrace Olde Anglo-Saxon vernacular in this household.
@Helen Wright My wife and I traveled all over Jamaica in 2011 but I can't remember oxtail soup featuring on menus. If only I knew if it was there but I just can't recall it, or maybe it's not popular even if it once was. I liked my memory better when I was younger!
@Helen Wright The thought of eating oxtail anything would make me gag. But a few weeks ago, a friend said she took out oxtail soup from a local restaurant. I got curious, so I did some research. And that's when I learned that it's actually a cow's tail. But then I learned about the gelatinous part, and I gagged again. I can't even tolerate gelatinous soups from Chinese restaurants. I'll stick with chicken noodle or mulligatawny.
oooEEEE!! That was good! So hard I almost gave up and looked up a few in the SE corner. I did check spelling on KARENINA and DRYAD. When I finally realized it was PDFFILES, I laughed out loud. Such an excellent misdirect, plus the PD start made it seem so unlikely. I tried many things for 42A. RCA? RAF? R ?!?!?! Now we also have an emu-safe abbreviation for 46A (WT_). So many great clues, almost no junk. I don't think we see ENO too often anymore. Just my opinion. Plus he was not clued as ambient or whatever they usually use. I had just enough answers I was pretty sure about to keep me going, but I finished in well over average time. Thanks, Andrew!
My one SPARE AXON must have been firing today. It allowed this puzzle to SNEAKUP on me. I like how it's a party of names down there in the SE - JENNY, KAREN, HENRI, JEFF, VINNIE. The DAFFODILs are all out in force here, btw. So cheerful! TGIF
?!?!?! What the flip?! Lots of fun misdirects. No Spoonerisms noted. Thanks for this puzzle, Andrew.
First pass was alarming! But, as usual, once I got started, the answers filled in. Nice puzzle and good cluing made for my slow start.
This required a lot of patience and a nap in between, but it was worth it in the end. Today was where you fill in something and see where it goes, and then backtrack if it is not going anywhere. And use some Sudoku like logic to see which letters cannot logically fit in the squares ahead according to English phonology. Quite fun, although I could have done with a fewer proper nouns in the bottom right section.
@Apurv You know what, that’s exactly how you get good at crosswords! Does this string of letters make sense? If this string of letters absolutely has to exist from answers I’m sure about, what am I not seeing in this untenable Down answer? PDF->lightbulb 💡->Adobe Acrobat= Eureka! Fun times.
Good. Creative. Challenging. Fair. More Fridays and Saturdays like this please.