Not fun. Not satisfying. When EPT is the key to wrapping up my solve, I just feel cheated.
@Jim If you didn't like it you didn't like it, but "feeling cheated" is kind of ridiculous. There are a lot of people happy to see an old-school difficult Saturday for the first time in a long time
@Jim EPT made me giggle. It reminded me of a 1984 New Yorker essay by Jack Winter. it starts like this: IT had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.
@Jim That E was last to fall for me too. But I figured it out from the cross: 'Trigger hair'? get it?
Wow, toughest Saturday of the year so far for me! I thought my streak was over for sure but got the happy music after a much longer time than my average. This is what a Saturday puzzle is supposed to be.
@Kevin "This is what a Saturday puzzle is supposed to be" Absolutely. Haven't seen one this challenging and enjoyable in a long time.
Hard disagree. This was dismal and just poorly constructed. A good crossword shouldn’t require this much arcane and trivia knowledge Many of the answers are just altogether nonsensical
@Kevin Precisely! This is what we pay for. So utterly impossible until it is so incredibly satisfying.
@Kevin agreed. This was, for me, the toughest of the year! But persisted and got through it…
The only thing I liked about this puzzle is… Nothing. There’s nothing I liked about this one.
Never heard of EPT before. I understand the joke about it after looking it up, but that's a bit of a stretch. I really hope we don't make it a habit of using astrological signs and their "definitions" that no intelligent person would ever know or even care about.
@Dave K.The "it's said" was a pretty good indication to me that it was an astrological sign. I had LIBRAS at first until I got a few more crosses.
@Scott “it’s said” is a good indicator that the answer is not straightforward, but to jump from that right to “astrological sign” is a big leap. I was thinking of those personality typing schemes.
@Dave K. Without some knowledge of astrology much of the history of art, literature, science, and Western Civilization cannot be properly interpreted. Astrological factors governed the practice of medicine well into modern times. The sun and moon rule the seasons and the tides. Many gardeners still swear by the old sayings of when to plant and harvest crops.
@Dave K. I get you. Zodiac and horoscope references annoy me no end, too. It's all such a load of carp I consider it below me to know anything about it. I understand AI in Pittsburgh, but my hate of irrationality is so strong for Al's arguments to sway me. The more we tolerate people acting irrationally and believing irrational things, the easier they are to manipulate for all the wrong reasons.
@Dave K. If you ignore common cultural knowledge like astrology then you are going to have a hard time solving crosswords.
@Dave K. Yeah, astrology annoys me too. Makes sense since I'm a Capricorn and thus naturally skeptical and easily irritated not to mention ept at wordplay.
@Dave K. As a Virgo, I personally thought that clue was quite apt ;)
For some reason when I see the letters EPT, I think of hexagons.
@Dave K. You're painting with an awfully broad brush when it comes to what intelligent people should know and/or care about. There's a fascinating take on astrology near the beginning of Douglas Adams' MOSTLY HARMLESS. Remember, these words are in the mouth of a character in a sci-fi novel. “In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people.” The clue is fine. You cannot argue that there aren't some people who say that.
I’m glad for all of you who have been wanting a difficult puzzle, because you sure got one. What I got was an exercise in frustration and futility. And after 30+ minutes of lookups and still getting nowhere, I decided to cut my losses and bail. This is the first puzzle I have ever quit since I started doing them here, around 3 years ago, but if I’m not having fun I just can’t see the point. I hope to have fun tomorrow.
@Heidi. AGREED! Way too arcane clues - this puzzle belongs in 1976
@Heidi There have been a few HARDER puzzles this year. This puzzle was just awful. ZAFTS, EPT, ANDYKIM? Uninteresting solve, nothing fun to be found really. If I didn't have a fat streak I would've signed out an hour ago.
Really! <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/zarf" target="_blank">https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/zarf</a>
@Rodzu On the bright side, have you ever wondered what the name for those things are--apparently, thanks to comments, also the name for the paper heat-protectors on to-go coffees? Now you know, and will remember it forever. (Maybe??)
I hated this puzzle, but I’m mainly just brain dead tired.
I read the clue for 19A [Name shared by the singer of the #1 hit "Rock Me Gently" (1974) and the first Korean American elected to the U.S. Senate (2024)] and thought "No idea who either of them is". It wasn't until there were three letters from the crosses that it dawned on me...that's MY senator (and yes, I voted for him). D'oh!
I have read others' complaints about setters' obscurantism with a certain quiet forebearance over the months because, after all, I had solved the puzzle. If I get the natick on a cross and am then able to look askance at and tiptoe past the unknown fill, what's it to me? I "got" it, too, in the end, didn't I? But today I'm adding my voice to what I imagine will be the chorus. This is your clue for UCLA? Why not clue instead its acreage or the year of its founding or the number of buildings on its campus? I'd have loved to know the student enrollment in 1955, too! Is it because "Back to the Future II" ranks right up there with "Casablanca" and "Dr Strangelove" in the pantheon of film for you, setidors? Maybe I should give it another watch. And who hasn't been sung to sleep on steamy summer nights in the outback by the sultry warble of the "Double-wattled cassowary?" Ah, the memories...before the dingo ate my baby, that is and when I still had a farm in East Africa. And only yesterday I put in a bid on a lovely 17th century capote coat on Ebay. Gee, I hope it's not too mothballed. (to be continued...)
Look. Maybe it's just sour grapes and not SEAGRAPES because this day broke my streak, but it's not all sour grapes. There's at least a fillip of esthetic indignation. Trivia should make you smile, not yawn or ask why or want to go back to bed. For me, this was a peacock strut of a grid for the setidors with bland plumage for us solvers, a pub-trivia contest with no winners that'll leave lots of teetotalers with headaches, too. All bad? Certainly not. The setter's clearly got game. INTWOACTS? Bravo. SECONDSTRINGER? Certainly me today.
And I forgot DEBATECONTESTS mid rant. No argument here.
@Matt If today’s puzzle prompted you to jump over to the other side of the aisle, I’d be curious to know how much time you’ve spent in the archives. For instance, here’s a Saturday puzzle from 2015 that I happened to solve last night (i.e. I am *not* even going out of my way to find an exemplar of old-school difficulty) for which my solve time was 4x today’s: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/2015/05/16" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/daily/2015/05/16</a>.
@Matt lol. I love the rant. But yes. It is just 1000% sour (sea) grapes. Of course. Very few knew it was UCLA. but you just keep thinking. Maybe Washington wasn’t a person. Are they talking about UDub? Pt2 in the clue? An abbreviation? Oh maybe it was a big college football game? UCLA? Okay. Not useful trivia. I get it. But I think many who live in the NE, probably knew Andy Kim. I’m on the west coast. But I know the name. Just like I know the name Ilhan Omar. Again. I love the rant. But it’s only because you didn’t figure it out. As you stated. I feel like EPT was way more crazy. But I ain’t mad at it. Constructor needs some weird entries to make a grid work. I’m down. I ain’t gonna let a questionable entry ruin my enjoyment of the entire solve. And of course. I realize it was the clue, not the entry that gave you fits. But it was Saturday. I’ll take that clue over “school located in Westwood neighborhood of LA. part of the state’s university system”
Not fun. Honestly the type of crossword that makes me want to quit crosswords. Perhaps I’m just not as smart as the rest of you.
@Mike Agreed, it was a slog. We’re entitled to our perspectives and can post them here. I completed it only to maintain my streak.
@Mike Nah, it was a horrible fill. The worst this year I think. Naticks crossing Naticks, no cohesion, and even some awkward clues. This feels like lazy work from a constructor who built a few long-fills and then had InGrid do the rest for them.
Oh, hello NYT Saturday puzzle! Bringer of pauses that feel like they’ll never end … until a revelation hits that give you excitement you don’t feel anywhere else in the world. Where you severely earn your squares and gloriously beam when you do. Where you uncover an answer and go “Huh? … Wha?” until the wordplay hits you and you silently nod in awe. Oh, hello Byron Walden, Saturday specialist, who takes you to that Moment of Truth, where you have to decide whether to cave or ditch, or soldier on. Today’s opus features all the BW trademarks – stupendously low word and black square counts, wide range of fields, no-knows, word-wit, vagueness, cleanroom spotlessness, and amazing freshness. I love aspects of every NYT puzzle, but I hang around for those special ones, those Capital-P Puzzles that take me away from the world and surround me with greatness. Like every single one of yours, Byron. After 25 years of making Times puzzles, your edge is as sharp as ever. Thank you!
@Lewis curious to see which clue(s) end(s) up on your monday list. ;)
Fun fact: In addition to the ornate versions seen in the link provided in the column, ZARFS are the paper sleeves you find at Starbucks and hotel breakfast bars that your cup fits into so you don't burn your hand on the hot cup.
@Steve L And that's what I thought the puzzle was referring to (though I didn’t remember the name and had to get it from the crossers.) TIL that it goes back to being made of porcelain. I've never seen one!
This was way out of my wheelhouse. I knew almost none of the general knowledge entries, except for ANDYKIM and NUUK, and so many of the other clues were so deliciously twisted that I thought I might have met my match. But persistence and a few lucky guesses helped me unlock this one’s mysteries eventually. Many thanks to Byron Walden for a Saturday worthy of the name. LITTLEOLME thought EVENSTEVEN for 7 up was both clever and elegant. And to top it off I learned a potentially useful scrabble word: ZARFS indeed!
@Marshall Walthew I used ZARF in a game against my 26yo a week or so ago and it did raise his eyebrows.
One of the worst puzzles ever written. How is this even supposed to be a challenge? Just a bunch of random PPP, other obscure trivia, forced/made up answers, and overly vague misdirects. LITTLE OL' ME?? Why would you shorten OLD, but not LITTLE to LIL? 1D is absurd - why would anyone remember a sports match from 70 years ago that was briefly referenced 40 years ago? 8D is the worst of the worst. I get that there is an intermission, but the wording makes absolutely no sense. If you're going to send me snarky replies, so be it - but please don't try to defend something this atrocious. Special mentions to EPT (I still haven't even a foggy hint as to what this means after researching), W HOTEL, ZARFS, IN FOREVER, ROUND EM UP.
@Nick It was a tough puzzle. Is that too snarky?
@Nick, brilliant prediction regarding getting snarky replies: As someone who thought this was one of the best puzzles in a long time, I'm thinking you might want to consider seeking out the TV Guide crossword puzzles from now on. (Not sure they still exist, but they were a bit, ahem, easier.) Keep those amusing comments coming! They make me feel so superior, and god knows I need that!
@Nick I won’t be snarky, you have a right to your opinion and to an extent I agree, this was a stretchy puzzle. I will say INTWOACTS makes sense to me logically and grammatically. If a Broadway show is in two acts, there’s a break in the middle (usually); so I can say a show is “in two acts” or, risibly, “getting a break” equivalently. As for EPT I suppose it’s someone having fun with the opposite of INEPT; does anyone really say that in real life even for fun? No idea. It was a little pushy of the constructor, because he could have gone with MANA and APT, or MANO and OPT. But that’s Saturday for you, and Byron Walden in particular.
@Nick No snark, but for me want to cross being URLS told me that most likely one down was going to be UCLA because it shows up in the puzzles so often. Confirmation came when I was able to fill in some of the crosses. I remembered the film had a important storyline about Marty maybe having the sports trivia book in his pocket or something like that, when he went back in time, allowing that other guy to get rich or something... but there's no way I would have remembered the actual answer without being pretty sure of the crosses there.
@Nick - re: 1D, my approach was - "well, I don't remember the details of BTTF, but this is clearly a reference to Biff betting on future sports events. So I'm looking for a 4-letter sports team." And once I had the U from URLS, it became clear pretty quickly - no pro teams would fit, this is U as in "university," and the most famous 4-letter college that fits (and that was a fellow Pac-10 team with U of Washington) is UCLA.
Fresh clues with twists requiring diligence and stamina. It took me 50 minutes to reach a satisfying solve. Reminds me of the difficult Saturday puzzles of years past.
This puzzle brought Saturday puzzles back to life. — And laughed in my face, wickedly. I got through it with some look-ups and a puzzle check (out with Mix tapES, in with MÉLANGES; out with breAkS, in with ME DAYS.) Touché, Mr. Walden, touché, and congrats to those who sauntered through this solve or sprinted to the finish line!
There was a lot I really liked in this puzzle but several sections especially the north-west were incredibly frustrating as a non-American solver - seemingly random American secretary of defense from 13 years ago, random American gas brand, random American senator, random American college football reference and so on. But overall I'm still very thankful for yet another Thu-Fri-Sat combo with pre-2020 difficulty levels.
@Rahul Non-American? How about non-Terran!?
@Rahul Apparently plenty of Americans (myself included) also found this one very rough.
@Rahul I'm not sure where us "native" Americans had an advantage here, except in knowing how to super-size a "Combo meal". I assure you that ANDY KIM was just as unknown to most of us. Oh, some of us probably remember CHIA PETS better than most non-nationals, but that answer didn't come easy either.
@Rahul None of today's impossible solutions were random. They were very carefully chosen. Perhaps pick a more appropriate adjective? Sadly, "obscure" and "arcane" are also overused criticisms here.
In retrospect, I filled in "Cattle call" as MOOOOOOOO a little too hastily.
Guesses and look-ups, one after another, and who knows, maybe I learned something, but it was more like a trip to the dentist than a crossword.
I allow myself to Google obscure references that I simply don't know. This meant I had to Google half of today's puzzle. Not enjoyable. Zarfs?!
@Henry C Yep. Never heard of it, but somehow I got it.
Emulates ET? 7up? Cup holders? Up to snuff? That was really enjoyable romp Byron! It’s always fun to see one of your puzzles. I have no idea how you fit it into teaching our grouchy pre-meds Calculus! Peace, Elizabeth (your buddy from Biology)
Matching overly precious clues with some real reaches made for a non solve. Honestly, who here has used KAYO?
@Dan Maguire Nikita Tszyu vs Oscar Weigh In LIVE 🎤🔥 Tszyucastle fight night live on Kayo Sports ByNo Limit Boxing AU 05/05/2026
@Dan Maguire I occasionally use KAYO, but only when my brother-in-law isn’t using it, as it only allows one device at a time. 🥴 (It’s a sports streaming service in Australia)
@Dan Maguire I haven't used it because I don't talk about boxing. But I've heard it, and read it in headlines (I don't read articles about boxing either). Any examples of overly precious? reaches? throw us a bone here.
@Dan Maguire Sportspage stuff.
Compare PHONESHOME and UCLA. The first is an oft-repeated, memorable part of a beloved, blockbuster movie. The second is obscure trivia from a bad sequel. Even if Back to the Future II was someone's favorite film of all time, they might remember the plot included an almanac, the time-travelling existence of which was the MacGuffin from which comedy ensued. But the game played that day? And who was the victor? It is the worst possible clue for an often used crossword answer. It felt as if the accomplished crossword author's goal was to create a puzzle that no one could complete, even with cheats. If so, job well done. But fun? Not one bit.
Don H, I didn't see the movie and I wasn't following college football in the 1950s, but UCLA went in easily after a cross or two. One does not need to know every answer from the clue; I certainly do not. The puzzle is a crossword.
@Don H Oh, come on. Of course the constructor wasn’t actually expecting the vast majority of solvers to be able to know/remember UCLA directly from that clue, as a matter of trivia. However, the clue gives you a very strong hint that it’s talking about a sports contest, albeit with a fair bit of ambiguity beyond that (as to which level/league it’s referring to — or for that matter, which sport). But given the crosses, what else could the answer have possibly been?
@Don H I have never seen the movie, but was able to guess UCLA with a couple of crosses. This is the secret to crosswords, and also Jeopardy: making an educated guess. You don't have to actually know all this stuff. I didn't know ANDY KIM either, but I had an "I" so I made another educated guess and put KIM in there--it's a good bet a Korean is going to be either a KIM or a Lee.
@Don H PHONES HOME was an awful, easy clue for a Saturday. The Washington/UCLA game was obscure and lovely. It took a minute to figure out that it was an allusion to a football game. (The reference to Back to the Future was superfluous for me.) But once you know that it's a four-letter university, UCLA is not too terribly difficult.
@Katie ANDY KIM was easy for me; we're in the Philly/NJ TV market, so we got all of his campaign ads. He won Bob Menendez's old seat after they found all those gold bars in that Senator's coat closets.
@Don H - I completed this crossword without cheats, as did many others I'm assuming, and though it was tough, I had fun doing it. So that supposed "goal" was not accomplished.
Painful to solve. I needed lots of hints. May Mr. Walden step on a LEGO.
Way too much obscure trivia. No thank you.
I feel shell shocked. Did I just attempt to solve a crossword in a completely foreign language? I consider it a win when I managed to solve nearly 50% of the puzzle without looking anything up. After nearly 2 hours, I hit “reveal puzzle”, and after looking at the answers, I never in a million years would have gotten those. At least I kept my connections streak going…
Also- big TIL moment for me that both the crime-related science and debate contests share the word "forensics" because they are rooted in the Latin word forensis, which means "of the forum" and is related to "speaking for judgement" in a public setting.
@Rahul Forensics as crime-related science is a bit narrow in definition. Forensics is a legal term related to examining evidence and drawing conclusions. Forensic accounting is examining financial records to find evidence of criminal activity (e.g., fraud), while forensic art and reconstruction is related to the process of developing an image or representation of an individual from available evidence, my favorite example of which is sculpted models of persons based on skeletal data. There are other applications of the term in the legal world. So, a bit broader than just laboratory testing.
"Gasoline brand that offered the Torch Club credit card" ...until the 1980s. Your clue relies on a retailer-specific credit card that was phased out forty years ago? Really? Yeesh. There's challenging, and then there's arbitrarily arcane.
Jimmy, Pro tip for Saturday puzzles: ignore clue detail you don't need. The AMOCO torch is still around. <a href="https://www.bp.com/en_us/united-states/home/products-and-services/amoco.html" target="_blank">https://www.bp.com/en_us/united-states/home/products-and-services/amoco.html</a>
@Jimmy I remembered that AMOCO's logo had a torch in the center. They're mostly BP stations near me, post-merger.
@Jimmy I'm not old enough to remember that credit card, but AMOCO stations still have a torch in the logo, so I got that one pretty easy. Here in the Midwest, you're more likely to see a Casey's though. I have eaten so many of their taco pizzas...
@Jimmy I had no idea what brand had the torch logo but the 5-letter gasoline brand is often AMOCO. So that was my first guess, and, after a long time wandering in the wilderness, the guess I finally came back to.
This is the hardest puzzle I've ever solved without looking anything up. Need to look up a few answers now to understand what they mean, though.
One takeaway from today's comments: Lots of people hate puzzles they can't solve.
@Steve L This, if you'll forgive me, is a fatuous conclusion. Nowhere in my screed, some seven hours below or so, did I say I hated the puzzle. And I don't think I've read "hate" here more than once or twice, and then without explanation, so worthy of dismissal. I wanted to love the puzzle. But the puzzle would not allow it. It sparkled and beckoned. Called with a siren song. And in places it gave of itself with cleverness and verve and a wink. But, in the end, all it really cared about was its own aggrandizement and image. This was Narcissus as a grid gazing into a pool at his own reflection.
An absolutely dreadful puzzle. Nothing more than an annoying exercise in figuring out all the obscure proper nouns etc that the constructor had to google to complete the grid.
JDaW, If you didn't like it, you didn't like it, but I doubt the constructor googled any of the entries to create the grid, and I certainly didn't need to google anything to solve the puzzle.
@JDaW Agreed, I don’t get any enjoyment out of puzzles where I have to google every other clue. A handful is reasonable but this felt particularly egregious. Not normally one to give up but I decided this wasn’t worth my time to complete.
@JDaW we are very much aligned here
Nobody born in the last 60 years has used KAYO to mean KO.
@Derek Nobody born at any point in human history has outside of the NYT puzzle. It's not dated; it's a crossword thing
@Derek Good thing I was born 70 years ago :) Same with ANDY KIM (the musical one)
@Derek KAYO has been in the puzzle many times. It last appeared…a month ago.
@Derek Sportspage stuff
@Derek prove it. seriously, it's used in sports columns both in print and online. I can't guarantee for a fact that it was used by someone under 60, but neither can you guarantee it wasn't. And it was recently in the puzzle and posters showed examples of it.
I find people who argue to be disagreeable. But I really dislike FEUDISTS.
@Alex Barry I can't argue with that!
This is a terrible puzzle for a pretty bad creator. Stuffing a bush of obscure and esoteric words/clues into a puzzle is in no way creative. And these is nothing of particular interest in these words from history, religion, or literature. It’s just obscure fluff. It’s just bad all around. The sad part is, the entire puzzle outside of the top left corner was pretty easy.
@John But it is creative, in a way.
Not my favorite puzzle. Too many stretches and obscure references for my taste. 63 minutes of mostly waiting for the EPTs and ZARFSs to emerge from the fog.
Fun Stuff: Senator ANDY KIM posted a picture of the grid on X today, with his name highlighted. Amusingly, he identified himself as the pop star.
@Grant I hope he had the decency to hide it behind a ***SPOILER ALERT***
@The X-Phile No worries, he cleared the rest of the grid before he posted. I'm assuming he finished the puzzle.
I did not enjoy it. Yes, you can make a puzzle hard by using obscure references. You can use vague clues. But to be this does not result in a smart puzzle, just something I wish to be over and hope for the next day's one to be better. I kinda expect to be told to just quit it altogether or keep my opinions to myself as this is US paper for the great US nation, so be it.
@Marek my thoughts exactly, although I see the US solvers had similar struggles to we non-Americans. I think it was just not a great puzzle.
@Marek ... Pls don't let the regulars in this column and their consistent criticism of anyone who doesn't LOVE the puzzle be any more than a reflection on their own desperation to be relative. There are many of us in the U.S. who don't spend our time defending bad puzzles and attacking people here just because we have nothing else to do.
The crossword equivalant of a killer dungeon. If there's anyone out there who solved this cleanly, my hat's off to you, because you are so far beyond my skills that you probably qualify as a different species than me.
Wow, even after sleeping on it, my performance was that of a double-wattled cassowary missing one of its wattles.
Whoof, too much for me. Way too many slang terms/names/factoids fitting together to provide good cross fill, and it's never fun to end by filling in words you don't understand (EPT/ZARFS). Looking forward to tomorrow's puzzle, so my brain hurts a little less.
Did Will Shortz’s grandfather clue this? Are they perhaps a native of Natick, MA? Way too much obscure trivia and dated references to be enjoyable - I saw Back to the Future 2 in the theater when I was in the 5th grade and haven’t thought of it since… if people in their mid-40s find the puzzle to be old-fogeyish, that should maybe be a strong indicator to freshen things up a bit. I eventually broke down and started googling things to get the puzzle over with. I need to go do an AVCX cryptic as a palate-cleanser.
Alexandra, I never saw the film and had no trouble getting the answer. And not all of us who did well today are VIRGOS; we may be EPT.
This one just wasn't that much fun for me. With words like EPT, ZARFS, HAGEL, NUUK, WHOTEL, and FEUDISTS (FEUDISTS? Really?), I just had a hard time getting interested. I generally try not to look stuff up and rely instead on crosses, but I just wasn't getting the help I needed here. I do like a good tough Saturday though, and this one did have some real bell-ringers.
You may enjoy this poem: <a href="https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling0001/mccord.html" target="_blank">https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling0001/mccord.html</a> .
There’s a point during a crossword solve when it ceases to become fun. This us when all you’re doing is googling answers because too many unguessable across clues are not helped by too many unguessable down clues. For a crossword to work well it has to be tough enough to engage the mind but not so abstruse that’s it’s impenetrable. This crossword unfortunately strayed too far into the unintuitive, the arcane and the quirky to be genuinely fun.
@Spacebabe. This was hard for you (and me) and not so much for others. There just are times when a puzzle asks for things that are not in our sphere of knowledge, and we get stuck. This one was very tough for me. But it is possible to enjoy a serious challenge, even if it occasionally beats you--as this one did for me. I'd suggest if you are seriously not enjoying it, stop. The great thing is you can always try again tomorrow.
Been asking for a difficult one, and boy we sure got it! Now if we can just go one step further - difficult and clever. I want 'aha' moments, not obscurity. Especially when that obscurity is down and across in most of the puzzle. I'm a relatively new solver (5 years), but the archived puzzles seem to be so much better.
@Hitch Yes, spot on. Clever aha clues make for a great puzzle. I did like the clue for SECONDSTRINGERS.
I made it through maybe halfway without cheating. Out of my league, for sure. Hats off to anyone who could figure this one out.
I’m not sure our columnist realized that it’s not “Who-tel,” but simply W Hotel.
Shout out to NUUK, perhaps the most beautiful city I've ever visited. The combination of Scandinavian architecture with glacial mountains in the background is unmatched. Imagine taking the houses of Nyhaven, building a whole city out of it, and putting it in the Canadian Rockies
@Steven M. At last, someone who got something from this puzzle apart from indigestion.
@Steven M. Lucky you. The cruise I wrote about yesterday docked in Greenland, but only in Qaqortoq, not the capital. It was picturesque, but probably not as nice as Nuuk.