Theo

Re the Mini: the Wah-Wah pedal is not and has never been calked the wawa pedal.

RAWR, really?! Feels like a bit of a reach. I filled that in last because it seemed like it would have to be right but blimey! Another Friday where I could only complete it with the aid of the simple clues after I'd exhausted the normal ones. Still forced to look up the Mazda because they don't have names over here in the UK. Not sure why, they're all just called things like MX-5 or CX-3 or just 'saloon'.

Had to look up a few of the general knowledge answers but surprisingly I managed to finish this. I had to spell 21 across three times. First time: PIRHANAS but then clearly MHGMA was a bust so I changed to PIRAHNAS but then _ITNEROR was staring at me for a very long time before I Googled to make sure that, oh, it's PIRANHAS. The only answer I really didn't like was 'ARSONS' because, I dunno, just sounds ugly, doesn't it? Not a word you tend to hear pluralised. In fact after seeing it fitted my first re-read of the clue made me think we were verbing the noun.

Too hard for me this Wednesday. Maybe if I had more general knowledge but I had to give up on the bottom right corner where I needed to know a bunch of people in sports, or about US sports, or obscure dog knowledge. I don't mind looking up a few to break a deadlock but when I find I'm still mired I just tend to let it roll. Didn't like the gimmick because it was just that. A gimmick. Helpful with some of the clues but only if you could glean what the name might be or know it well enough. Some of these are, IMO, truly tough clues. MY EYE?! Really? The Slap for *how rude* is more that I'm not sure I learned the asterisked thing yet. I did consider slap but that felt to far from the point. Sports stuff like 'air ball' wasn't even on my radar and I don't know if the PROM == Royal Court thing is a term used in the US when you guys have high school proms but it's not a connection I'd make at all.

Anyone able to shed light on why the two circled letters in the Mini spell 'DO'?

Cripes. Outside of the US that was a really tough one. So much general knowledge including really obscure things like "molcajete". The bottom left particularly just seemed to be a mass of interconnecting impossibles: G-Note, St. Pete, AMC, Kmart (what in god's name is a 'big box store'?), Octopi. Had to look up a fair few.

I think I will forever be unsure if you guys use 'YAP' for a small dog's bark like us or not - apparently not. Had to go through the whole thing to try to find my mistake until I saw 'CHAA' on 46 down. Never heard of a CHIA PET either but it was the only thing that made sense.

Incredibly tough Tuesday for me. Had to crack and look up two in an attempt to get my brain to understand the top right. Never heard of a 'loge' before so expected that to be a fail. Luckily remembered the NY Times crossword loves 'POL' even if I've never heard or seen it used anywhere else. LEOI? Not up on my popes as an atheist and I guess I don't understand 'eponymous' in this context because the Lumiere brothers invented cinema, surely? Who's Loew?!

That was a hard one. I had to confirm with an online dictionary that people actually spell RIGMAROLE that way when it seemed that would be the only option. Had to look up TREYS and AGHA as I was so completely lost as HOOPS and GOALS didn't work with anything. Do people refer to a 'lemon soda' instead of lemonade? Another one that was tripping me up for ages.

Had to look up four general knowledge items (UTES, ERICA, KANT, TERESA) in order to get some solid extras but it seems my mind was on the right track for a bunch of the other clues and I was able to solve this one after I understood the theme.

Was only able to do this by combining the easy clues with the difficult. Even then I had to look up the Vagina Monologues author since POL isn't one I know and I didn't really want to just enter all 26 letters. A good tough Friday.

This has also taught me that an 'alley-oop' is a thing. Basketball is really small potatoes here (but I have no interest in sport in any case) so I'd always just heard it used by people giving someone a leg-up or something.

That was too tough and I had to reveal in the end but only really because of some specific general knowledge in the top right combined with my brain not working which meant I'd be Googling a lot. I tend to weigh up when I'm just grabbing a couple of gen knowledge answers that I think I just don't know because I'm not American and when I'm just answering the whole thing (in which case I give up). One square off it seemed here but I was unsure about so much. It turned out I was a lot better than I thought. Got a lot of clues instinctively, figured out the the (-) meant to use the across and down together etc. One that is odd to me: never heard someone say "I GIVE" before. I GIVE UP, sure, but not without any qualifier. Not sure SANKA ever made it to the UK or, if it did, Nescafé's dominance killed it stone dead.

Strangely I managed this one with a few of look ups for what on earth a Jeremiad was and who the Bundy actor was (Married with Children is one of those US traditions that never made it over to the UK so those sorts of clues become incredibly obscure here), and which country was west of Zambia if it wasn't (in my confused brain georgraphy) the DRC. I also had to check a few as I got the seeming answer from the acrosses (was there really an author called 'Sadat'? Were there in fact 'SUVs' called Explorers?) and what kind of college trophy fitted the name HEISMA or even HIESMA to get that final letter. Got to the end to find one letter out and guessed I'd made a mistake in the 'Ol' Man River' - turns out I wanted HANG GLIDES not HANG GLIDER.

Somehow I managed to complete this (basically I had to sit there adding a letter to '_IP' until I realised it was 'DIP' which made OPT_D explain where buds go that definitely wasn't CANS, CARS or BARS. Anyway, enjoyed understanding the theme bit which allowed me to actually get the answers to those acrosses.

Managed that quickly and didn't need to look up a single piece of gen knowledge, which surprised me as there were actually many there I didn't know. Luckily all the cross ways filled in or had intersections that could only really be one letter even though I had no idea. e.g. Who Abby Wambach is and what an ESPY is 2010s HipHop move Amo, anas, amat An Egg Cream (Ew) Malcolm-Jamal Warner Elks as a fraternal order Van Gogh setting Poe's Poem Aoki Isao Vanna In fact a bunch of these I'm still going to have to look up.

Mostly very quick but somehow the middle left gave me a lot of trouble thanks to thinking OPEN UP instead of OPEN IT and also guessing BIOMA rather than BIOTA which meant ADMIT IT was a while to come to mind and make me see.

Well that was too tough. Wouldn't have considered ever putting an = sign in there. D'oh.

Well... Had to look up about 5 gen knowledge items but I actually managed to do it. Not sure about a SOIRÉE being a big do. I'd have said it was an intimate affair. On the other hand interesting to learn 'toreador' isn't a thing when I was struggling to work out why it didn't fit. Overall this felt a bit off for me: I got the answers but frequently felt like I was entering them without conviction.