Nice puzzle. Somehow BEAVERS were a gimme for me as lodge builders - I did not realize I actually knew that meaning of the word "lodge". The Polish word for a beaver lodge is the very specific term "żeremie", which applies to nothing else. It derives from the noun "żer", "animal food". Incidentally, that noun in turn gave rise to two verbs: "żerować" and "żreć". The former means "to eat", but only as an animal. The latter is an uncouth descriptor for the action of a person (or more rarely, an animal) eating greedily and noisily. Beavers had become nearly extinct in Poland, but conservation efforts in recent decades have made a huge difference - beavers have become practicality ubiquitous in wet areas. Several months ago they actually built a dam on a very urban stream dividing my district of Ursynów from Mokotów to the North, transforming the landscape. The spot has become a huge attraction, with people coming from all over Warsaw to see it. Naturalists have been praising the environmental impact of the dam - the resulting reservoir has improved local water conditions and has become a habitat for many plants and animals, not just beavers. Here is what it looked like in April: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/DKdSyHB" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/DKdSyHB</a> Before in that spot there was only a rivulet a meter wide.
@Andrzej Amazing how Nature works in harmony when allowed to. And we humans, with only a few thousand years of building and engineering experience, seem to think we know better.
@Andrzej If someone else had posted this you'd be responding with all sorts of innuendos about beavers and blockages and wetlands, wouldn't you?
@Andrzej Fascinating! If that happened in my city, I guarantee an outcry about unsightly debris gumming up the stream would have that dam removed, pronto. It’s nice to know there are still cities that let nature be nature.
@Andrzej My house in central Atlanta has a small rivulet in back of it that runs at the bottom of a forty-foot-deep gully and feeds into Entrenchment Creek, so named because of its role during our Civil War. Before the neighborhood was established in the 19th century it was farmland, but I believe the steep gully banks left that area impossible to farm. There are oak trees there that are at least eighty feet tall and may be a small surviving pocket of primeval forest. I have owls, woodpeckers, snakes, squirrels, salamanders, raccoons, rabbits, and a chorus of migrating songbirds that changes daily, all within sight of my back wall. And somehow, miles inside of an urban srea of close to seven million, beavers found their way up Entrenchment Creek a few years ago, so now we have a pond south of us. complete with herons wading slowly through it. And I live less than ten minutes away from a skyscraper roughly the size of the Chrysler Building in NYC.
@Andrzej Our NE Ohio home was near a creek that flowed through a culvert under an unpaved road. Eventually the county paved the road, which brought in more traffic; at about the same time, some beavers industriously dammed the creek, which backed up enough to encroach on the road at its lowest point. (Insert lengthy back-and-forth of county workers destroying the dam and beavers rebuilding it overnight....) Eventually the wildlife officer trapped the beaver (but not competently, so the beaver drowned) and that was that... (The beavers that stuck to the nearby Aurora Branch of the Chagrin River were safer.)
"You shared my top-secret chili recipe!" "Sorry to spill the beans." ("Now I'm stewing about it.")
@Mike Do my a fava, stop pulling my legume. You’ve gotta be kidneying me.
@Mike I put ghost peppers in my stew. Turns out they’re so hot that they burned up and now I’ve got nothing but ghoul ash
@Mike Don't be so upset. Go enchilada pool or at the beach.
@Mike No sense cayenne over spilt pintos. (Cheese, I seem to be going to the dogs with these wretched buns.)
I just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make “Branzino” an accomplished player of “SKA BASS”. 🤦♂️
@Alex M --- me too, but only after I thought I had learned a new word for "SkA BAnd"
So much better than yesterday's. What makes a crossword hard/fun is the wordplay, not trivia.
Wow did my comment really get emu’d? Try again: I thought FAN INTERFERENCE was just trying to grab a home run ball in play. I think a streαker would be Fαnnγ Interference. I don’t feel like repeating all my other musings again, maybe they’ll turn up. Suffice it to say, breezy but entertaining with several clever misdirects, some more subtle than others.
@SP Welll... pretty sure there are rules about running foul balls across the field. Not to mention the more offensive Foul Tip. :) /had to look these up
@SP I always copy my driveI into the clipboard before posting - it's helped me avoid retyping a comment many a time. Depending on what they had down there, the interference could be funny or fantastic.
@SP, Granted, they don’t play baseball in the UK (typically), but under no circumstances would they ever refer to such streakers as being Fanny interference!
Ah. Flow state for me. Perfect amount of frustration and aha moments. A+
Full credit for my gold star today goes to my dog. It's the old story: I was halfway through, frustrated and about to quit, but old Festus needed to go outside, so we went for a short walk in the garden. We got back in, he settled at my feet under the computer desk and I looked up at the puzzle on my screen and the answer to 3 down appeared out of nowhere. Then another and another, and in less than 5 minutes I heard the happy music. It has been said here many times before. The brain, for some reason, refreshes neural pathways when given a short rest and distraction. Sunshine and dogs may also help.
@Don H I've had a good day so far, also in part due to a nice walk with my dog, but your post made it even better! Thanks 👍🏾
@Don H Same, same all same for me this morning. Stuck half way through when Tillie insisted on our usual morning walk. 30 minutes later while she is breakfasting the puzzle began to open up and we finally got the music. Tillie was not impressed as usual.
@Don H Love it, that dog deserves a treat and a good pet
Many lovely moments in the outing today. Such as: • Reading a clue, having a short or long moment of confusion, then the sudden sweet joy/relief of cracking it. This happened with the “waffles”, “hot shot”, and “game” misdirects. • My two favorite answers, and they cross – WHAT IFS and I CAN ONLY IMAGINE. • A smile at the apt abutting of EEK and BOAS. I think I heard the EEK. Five box-spanners combined with a low number of black squares (27), and yet a practically junk-free answer set, revealing a high level of constructing skill. That, combined with the lovely wordplay scattered throughout, made this puzzle a showcase of the art and science of creating crosswords. Sufficient rub, plenty of fun – a most splendid outing. Thank you, Willa!
... six box-spanners, not five ...
NO(ise) COMPLAINTS for me on this one. It wasn’t easy for me, but it felt very fair with few naticks and some nice long fill. More please :)
What a good, good Friday puzzle, the longs smoothly clued and plenty of gnarly areas to give one pause, like the clue for HUNT or what accompanies waffles, I dig Willa's twisty mind, her line of unreasoning. It's funny how some clues are Rorschachs that reveal something of our selves. When I was first pondering what late night partying might lead to, the first things I thought of were hangovers, headaches, missed appointments, and in general the ill tidings of a profligate lifestyle. I didn't think of romantic hookups, boogie nights, having fun with friends on the dance floor, doing a dozen jello shots, or getting a tattoo of a favorite Pokemon on my posterior the way some of you probably did. Or like yesterday, I couldn't for the life of me think of a hit 1977 musical with FDR in it. I mused to my wife, "Was there a hit musical in the late seventies called YALTA, with FDR, Churchill and Stalin?" There's no such musical, she replied, maybe you should consider pitching it to your silly theater friends, they're always looking for ways to waste money. By the way, it's ANNIE. SCAD seems a little iffy to me, but I haven't looked it up on MW or OED to see if it's a failing on my part, that I've only seen its plural. Something like SCAD came up recently, or maybe it WAS scad. I don't have scads of brain cells left any more. And I do like SOFT for [Merely whispered] though it took a while for my brain to fully accept it, and even now I can hear some mutterings.
@john ezra The scad-like clue was of course yesterday's "kudo" accolade, which grated on me greatly. I was happy to miss the comments section and avoid the inevitable bickering that I assume took place. I looked it up at M-W myself after solving, and didn't like what I saw. 🤷♂️
@john ezra Honestly. You were smart to skip Thursday. I don’t think there is any benefit to participating in Thursday comments. But if anyone in this mob has a tat of a Pokémon on their posterior, I will give you $10m fake dollars. There is zero chance. Or is there? I will also need visual proof. Charmanders are really really cute though.
This was hard! at first, and I had to go all over the place to add a speculative letter here and there — or remove one, as the case may was. (C'mon, that *ought was grammatical.) But little by little — littlerally — the gestalt gestalted and words slowly began to reveal themselves. And my solve time wasn't that much longer than my Friday average. There were many great clues, Saturday-worthy, perhaps. Like "Camp neckwear" for BOAS, where camp don't mean summer camp, but campy. Or "Yard sticks?" for FENCE. And the six 15s always make a puzzle fun. It seemed ironic that "In tandem" clued AS ONE, while it might also clue "AS TWO". And I was awestruck when at a conference in 1983 I found myself in Detroit and visited the Detroit Institute of Arts and saw the Rivera murals. Especially considering that his Man at the Crossroads mural (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads#/media/File:Mural._El_hombre_en_el_cruce_de_caminos._Diego_rivera_(1934).JPG" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads#/media/File:Mural._El_hombre_en_el_cruce_de_caminos._Diego_rivera_(1934).JPG</a>) was destroyed almost as soon as it was completed, these murals are well worth a visit. (There are also some great murals in the manner of Rivera, in Coit Tower in San Francisco.)
literally took me an hour and 45 mins
@Vinny Mad respect. Seriously. Way to fight.
@Vinny You get an A for perseverance.
@Vinny One hour and five minutes for me. 29% longer than average. Literally. No cap. For reals. SRSLY. No BS. Kidding NOT KIDDING.
@Vinny So you guys are never revealing cells, but sitting on it until you get it?
"Things that come with waffles?" Can some explain "ers" to me? All that's running through my mind is that waffles are a massive choking hazard and everyone ends up in the "ER". After decades of eating waffles safely, I now feel incredibly lucky. 🤷♀️
@V. Think of “waffles” as a verb, then of those pauses filled with ERS
@V If you're "waffling" on a decision, you might be saying "er...."
Loved SPILLEDTHEBEANS crossing ESPRESSOMACHINE
I refuse to believe I’m this good. The mob is going to say “too easy” After yesterday’s “too hard”. Can’t please anyone. The long entries just flowed like water. I SRSLY hate the abbreviation SRSLY. I hate it. Okay. I have a 2005 viral video I need to watch. Peace.
Weak, I saw your question yesterday hours after you posted it. My solve: when the puzzle drops, I print the Newspaper Version PDF and do it with a pen. End of story. I don't key it in later. If I think -- or read in the column or comments -- that there is an animation. I'll either fill the puzzle on the website to see it or just go to xwordinfo.com. Only exception is the Sunday crossword, which I do in the Magazine after I receive it Saturday morning. I have the stone tablets delivered to my cave seven days a week; I support what's left of the press.
Our cockapoo Tillie dragged me out for a walk when I was totally stalled halfway through. 30 minutes out with her in the very warm Virginia morning broke the ice jam and we drifted into the music.
Excellent example of the puzzling art of puzzling. Bravo.
This one felt kind of hard to me but it turns out I finished about 32 point something percent faster than my average. Maybe it was the extra birthday martini I allowed myself last night... Well, what else are you going to do when you're eating at your favorite Russian restaurant!? Don't worry, there were no NOISECOMPLAINTS. Had a beautiful evening on the restaurant patio with wonderful food and even better company! 🥳 Anyhow, I thought it was a good puzzle with some fun word play. HUNT was clued so cutely that I couldn't even turn my hunting hater nose up at it. 😏 At first I actually thought, that can't be right, when I filled it in with the crosses... but then the nickel dropped and I said my HAHAS. I also really liked the spanners! Good puzzle! Felt very fresh to me! Isn't it weird some of the words we use for crosswords? I'm not always sure what makes a puzzle fresh, but I can feel it when it's not. Lastly, @NYCTraveler, in case you didn't revisit the comments yesterday, I wanted to thank you for your call out and birthday greetings! Very sweet!
@HeathieJ, I did see your reply yesterday. I’m glad to hear that you had a wonderful time on your birthday, even if there were no NOISECOMPLAINTS! You deserve the very best! 😊🥂🎂🎉🙏🏻❤️
@HeathieJ Could you explain the HUNT clue? Is it to do with hunting big game?
@HeathieJ Hope you had a great birthday.
@HeathieJ Happy birthday fellow Cancer! I knew there was a reason I liked you!
Wow! This was just great. Kept me guessing. Just when I thought I was stumped in one area, I'd see a wrong answer and get started again. Great construction and great clueing. Dollar offering had me until the very end.
Fun one! Went by quickly, but forced me to abandon my solving pattern, which is *always* a good sign. True story- we ate Swedish waffles (very thin) last night along with Swedish pancakes (verrry thin), after painting our fence! And our anteaters are snuggled up right next to me as I solve. Not lying, I just pronounce “anteater” as “PUP.” All the letters are silent.
One quibble: Wu Zetian wasn't an empress, she was a straight up emperor, with the same Chinese title as all the other (male) emperors who reigned before and after her. The only woman to ever hold that title in Chinese history!
@Andrew B. Her title in Chinese was the same as the male emperors because such words are of indeterminate gender in that language. Not because she was awarded a male title for some special reason. Don’t read more into it than there is. In English, we would use the gendered word “empress.” Just like Elizabeth was Queen, not king, being a queen reigning, even though Camilla is referred to similarly, despite being a queen consort.
@Andrew B. Her title in Chinese was the same as the male emperors because such words are of indeterminate gender in that language. Not because she was awarded a male title for some special reason. Don’t read more into it than there is. In English, we would use the gendered word “empress.” Just like Elizabeth was Queen, not king, being a queen reigning, even though Camilla is referred to similarly, despite being a queen consort.
This was a tough puzzle but a rewarding one. I got the top half quick but every part of the bottom half was a bit of a struggle. THEYRE was sneaky, I was looking for words that came from the trilogy. (Since it was a 'Viral video' I didn't think it had to be an actual direct quote). A few I didn't know but had enough crossings to reason it out like ANTEATER as relative of sloth. Really well clued spanners like LINE OF REASONING, ESPRESSO MACHINE, FAN INTERFERENCE. COIFS/SRSLY gave me a lot of trouble, that was what I got last. I know what 'No cap' means but thought the clue was translating it to a normal word, not an even youthier youth slang.
@Chris I was looking for an LOTR character whose name fit the crossings I had. Needless to say, there is none. (I was not assisted by confidently filling in phd and cropTOP as crossings.)
Grandma, Grandpa, what's a typewriter? SRSLY, the typewriters settings clue for DESKS was the one that flummoxed me the longest, otherwise, No Notes. For the LOTR fans out there, here's Steven Colbert's homage to the 20th anniversary of the release of the first movie from a bunch of years ago, which I've posted before. It's way shorter tgan 10 hours. Warning there are a few instances of NSFW words scattered throughout. <a href="https://youtu.be/L1dU1HZ_73M?si=AJw0JC_yLAjsD0l5" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/L1dU1HZ_73M?si=AJw0JC_yLAjsD0l5</a>
@Vaer Taken the other way, what would you even consider for [Typewriter settings]? Typewriters are so low-tech compared to the devices we use today that there are practically no settings to select, save on and off if it’s an electric.
Steve, Tab set. Margins set.
@Vaer Great video even for non-LOTR fans like myself!(Though I probably miss some of the references.) Every day another reason to love Anna Kendrick a little bit more.
@ad absurdum Thanks. The Dan Brown dis cracks me up every time. And this is the first time I ever noticed "krill-y."
Super quiet in the comments tonight. Versus the fireworks yesterday. I was pretty active in the comments last night and this morning. But I did notice the top reader pick for most of the day was a long post from Francis Grand Marais, MN. And now it’s gone. Like it got removed by mods? Now I’m curious. I guess a sub-thread devolved into madness. But I feel like the mods can just delete sub-threads now, versus the entire post. What did I miss? Come on. Tell me… Tonight’s comment section is boring. No fighting. No grand statements. No arguments over definitions or arcana. Just a bunch of reasonable, non controversial posts. Boring… I’m here for the drama. Haha
Uuuuugggghhhh.. Suffix with caffeine-??? Seriously?!?!? What else could the answer be??? So annoying. And does it even qualify as a suffix… caffeine is a word… just ridiculous. 😖😖 I need my caffeine…
Gareth, As an alternate clue for INE, which of these recent ones would you have preferred? Suffix with serpent Suffix with Benedict or elephant Chemical suffix Mozart's "Adagio ___ for Violin and Orchestra" Like 59-Across's fourth and final scherzo
@Gareth So...if it includes a suffix it's not a word? Weird complaint.
@Gareth Yes, it's a suffix. "caffe-" meaning "of coffee" and "-ine" being a common chemical suffix denoting an alkaloid substance. Which caffeine is.
@Gareth, @BA, et @lii-- After yesterday's "kudo,' I just couldn't stay away. As etymology, www.oed.com lists a borrowing from French "caféine," from "café" + "ine" (a suffix). www.merriwm-webster.com says it comes from German "Kaffein," from "Kaffe" + "in" (but "Kaffe" isn't a word in German!--it's "Kaffee"!) www.wiktionary.com says it might come from either of those two, or even Italian "caffè" + "ine". (But we know that wiktionary is merely a cabal of Italian barristas and Finnish weavers, aimed to deceive us.) In any case, no good ol' 'Murican suffixes were involved--just those darned foreign ones! Barry, I'd go with the Mozart, any day.
@Gareth @Scott @Bill I have to go with Scott for the meaning because the chemical suffix is the way I had interpreted it, but honorable mention to Bill. Because Mozart. I'm out.
And I’m back to a 1 day streak! Thanks again Thursday.
I loved it! The right level of challenging and fun. Espresso machine was brilliant.
I can only imagine how difficult this was to make. And such a beautiful looking grid with 6 spanners to work out. Perfect Friday for me.
A perfect Friday. Just hard enough and just long enough.
I'm waiting for someone to post the obvious joke. :)
A SRSLY excellent Friday puzzle. Well done. ⭐️
Had to check here to understand ERS relationship to waffles. Guess I, um, need to, ah, open up the old, uh, mind. With 4 Fridays (2 were collabs) our constructor is in the groove. Care to comment? Well done.
@John Carson. Me too. Still don’t get it.
The only thing better than "THEY'RE Taking the Hobbits to Isengard" showing up is the fact that I just happened to spend a couple of hours earlier tonight reading all about how sloths are related to ANTEATERS and armadillos. I'm so pleased. Sloths are crazy! Look up the extinct giant ground sloth sometime and all the other strange creatures (like marsupials) that originated in South America and traveled across the Antarctic land bridge.
@Katie I had to google sloths and I found out that they spend most of their lives hanging upside down in trees. Doesn't sound like fun to me.
@Katie Yeah, cool stuff. Giant ground sloths were mentioned here the other day in connection with avocados. There were several species, some Volkswagen- sized. They may (or may not) have been the chief dispersal agents of Joshua Trees too.
I'm not familiar with the meme, but if you give me four of the five words from a LOTR quote, I'm probably getting the fifth word without context. I know that unagi means EELS from Friends, but wouldn't the main ingredient if unagi don (or any don) be rice? SPILLEDTHEBEANS was an easy spanner and gave me a nice toehold
Lively grid-spanners, nicely clued. My favorite was LINE OF REASONING which I got with 2 or 3 crosses. And I'm so glad I didn't write in NOISE violatIons when I thought of it; it would have loused up the whole top of the puzzle. A new way to clue OLE, but not one I especially like. I finally got NRC, but I'm old enough to remember the AEC. GRE before GED. I didn't know who was taking the Hobbits somewhere or other and I didn't care. I expected a name, but happily it wasn't a name. Is SCAD really "ginormous" enough? HAHA, I don't know what catfishing is, but you'll never get me with that or any other SCAM. I don't open up strange emails and I don't stay on the phone long enough (less than 3 seconds) to find out what it is you want to alarm me about. A colorful puzzle that gave me some trouble from time to time. I enjoyed it.
@Nancy Hand up for AEC, then NEC. Also GRE before duh! GED. I don't think one can have just a single, singular SCAD; it's SCADS... Scads of solvers agree!
@Nancy OLE has been clued to the founder of Lego five times, although technically, it's the first time this exact wording was used. So a first-time clue, but not "a new way."
"Suffix with caffe-" would be an awful clue even on a Monday. How did that get through?
@a How about, "With 'wh-', something NYT commenters do more than they should."?
@a There was an interesting discussion of suffix entries a little while ago. It's worth a read. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4hd5se?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4hd5se?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
@a Mr. Folger slipped Mr. Shortz a few bucks under the table.
I think a lightly grilled branzino pairs well with a dry bandeau. Two words I had only heard before today.
I'd like to be there when you order...
Well.. typical tough Friday for me and had to look up some stuff. Not much else to say. And... my usual puzzle find: A Sunday from April 30, 1995 by Warren W. Reich with the title: "Animal Fare." Some theme answers: OTTERNONSENSE GNUSPAPERS LIONDRIVE JACKALLANTERN DEERSANTA BURROOFQUEENS BEARBONES RABBITTRANSIT Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/30/1995&h=34d" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/30/1995&h=34d</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta Doesn't that puzzle sound fun!! I think it was still Before Sunday Puzzles for me. That was really a tough year. And when I did begin doing the Sunday NYT (in the Cleveland Plain Dealer) it usually took me all week!
@Rich in Atlanta Aw Rich, you've given me another excuse to avoid work. I'm skipping reading the answers, and on your and MOL's recommendation will open from xwordinfo. Will try to resist solving until after work.
@Rich in Atlanta Oh! Guess it's in the archives. Even better.
@Rich in Atlanta Solved w no lookups, took over an hour. In addition to the really entertaining wordplay, a lot of old trivia, most of which I remembered. So that helped. I could recognize the Shortz-era humor in it.
Had a weird time trying to get here..."Backend Unhealthy"?? I asked DHubby and he checked, said it looked okay to him.... ANYway, this was Quite the... SOME? I did hear about 'catfishing,' but can't remember exactly how it works... So many SCAMs, so little time! Of course, my fave was FAN INTERFERENCE, which I got quite early. Most helpful! "Things that come with waffles" = ERS. Um, uh, hm, [shrug]. I started 14A with IMPRESSARIO and was disappointed by having to disassemble it immediately. Maybe some other time, eh? Today's task: cutting the outer border and measuring and pressing the backing fabric .....then (groan) clearing up the work-station so I can layer the quilt sandwich. Extra time required in order to ponder how to turn into one of those people who always puts everything away ...
Enjoyable with just the right level of hurt for me, like a New Mexico Hatch Chile RelleƖo, on the bright side. Thanks for the Friday morning wake up call!
That felt like the toughest puzzle I ever finished quickly.
Branzino held me up for quite a while. What the actual? Did Brangelina break up? Oh, it's a fish. Yeah, I don't even look at that section of the menu. And I thought they were calling it tilapia.
@Grant, I think tilapia is actually Patagonian toothfish; restaurants renamed it to make it sound fancier. As for branzino/sea bass, sea bass seems more direct and accurate to me!
@Susan Patagonian toothfish is branded as Chilean sea bass. Which is an amazingly rich and buttery fish. And very expensive. It was crazy popular like 15 years ago. Like overfished. I distinctly remember being limited by how I could buy from my local fish market, because of demand (and supply). It’s still amazing. But I think you can buy as much as you want nowadays, if you can afford the $35-$40 a pound fillet pricing. Talapia is a cheaper fish. I call it a bottom feeder, like catfish. Branzino is definitely a popular Italian restaurant grilled fish. Yummy.
For me, a nice chewy Friday in exactly average Friday time. I asked my wife for help with branzino (I was thinking cod for some reason) and she looked it up...in the latest Zingerman's catalog! lol
I enjoyed the long entries that defined this puzzle. ICANONLYIMAGINE the LINEOFREASONING that led to the clue for FANINTERFERENCE.
Great fill and great cluing. What a pleasure.
Quick, but surprisingly fun. I think Sean has it right: "Fresh, stylish fill, escorted by snappy clues that feature late night partying, hot shot producers and a streaker running across the lower third of the grid." I'd have preferred it if it offered greater resistance, but I'll take it. Thanks, Willa Angel Chen Miller!
I appreciate this puzzle enormously. It took a bit to find a toehold, and I solved it fairly chaotically, bouncing around the grid. I was tempted a couple times to look something up, but I managed to work through the ones I had no idea about, and finished around 25% under my average time. Thanks to the constructor for a pleasant start to my day.
About an hour for me today. Probably the low end of my normal Friday range. A really fun fill!
I started out like a bat on out of hell in the top third, and thought, okay, here's another Monday puzzle. Then got my comeuppance when I got to the middle, and found the bottom third the hardest of all. But then it was done. I did appreciate the relative absence of obscure trivia, unlike yesterday, and some really clever clueing (cluing?), such as [Hot shot producer] and [Stylish, as an award show]. But even though I I've seen it before and didn't remember it until I got most of the crosses, I don't understand how the abbreviation SRSLY relates to No Cap. I'd a thunk it that it came from the Italian Non capisco, but it doesn't. If you've been on as many cruises as I have, branzino is a common entree (main course for you non-Americans). Most of the time what they call Chilean sea bass here is fake, but I'm not sure about the fish served on ships. All I know is that it's delicious, whatever it is.
@Times Rita I had the same experience, sailed through the top half and then had a little push back on the bottom.
@Times Rita No Cap is more recent slang for “No lie.”
@Times Rita 'Chilean sea bass' is fake even if it's real. It's a marketing euphemism for Patagonian Toothfish.