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Many accusations of ‘trivia’, but I thought the theme clues were excellent. You’d have to be a pretty keen movie buff to know them outright, but all of them transcend the movies they come from. People who have never seen those films use them without knowing their origins. I saw The Fly many years ago, but if I ever knew that the ‘Be Afraid’ line came from there I had forgotten. It was fun working it out from the crossings and learning the connection.
@Jaebum As someone for whom English is very much my first language, I also learned today that I can’t spell NEAPOLITAN!
@LB It’s a rebus. Without spoiling it for you, you have to fit 2 letters in one of the boxes.
Well it wasn’t super hard but it was fun. I enjoyed working out ROYALPAIN. I started with rightPAIN then went to totalPAIN first as I worked out the crossings. I also convinced myself that SCALeS are ubiquitous head coverings. Well they are for fish. Held me up a bit.
@Jonathon I suppose a rebus is by definition ‘shoehorned in’, whether you enjoy it or not!
Nice puzzle. Not too many repeat fillers and a satisfying theme. 2s off my Monday best, despite sitting with MARES NEck and IrINA for a while.
@Classic Hip-Hop Fan I put blank as a rebus in the 2 cells and it also completed that way. I guess a b would have worked as well but that would have been very unsatisfying!
@Barry Ancona Funnily enough I was working through the archive and came across that one last week. I almost never abandon archive puzzles and I don’t read the wordplay, but I did leave that one half done. Apart from the offensive clue it really wasn’t very fun! Thanks for referring us to the comments.
@Gabe R Mares nest is one of those ones I remember when it’s filled in with crosses but couldn’t for the life of me recall outright.
@Petrol I know. I must have done a dozen puzzles with darling IDINA in them but I can never remember whether it’s IrINA or IDINA. Maybe committing it to the comments will help for next time.
@Andrzej It was explained below that MEESE is to moose as geese is to goose. And that this is funny. All of this was news to me.
@Phil I do kind of get your objection. Aquatic seals do have especially high levels of wax in their ear canals to protect them on dives. Does that make them waxy creatures? It’s a stretch.
@Andrzej Ah I see the question. Apparently yes. It is a classified as a true deer.
@Steve L Indeed. In the UK shrimp is specifically for only the smallest of edible swimming crustaceans. Anything bigger than a thumbnail and it’s a prawn. So we have king prawns and tiger prawns and I suppose jumbo prawns, but a shrimp is always shrimpy.
@Barry Ancona Indeed. Tickets the price of a HOME MORTGAGE and an AGING Messi putting in cross after (VICTORIA) CROSS.
@Brody I can’t remember their name but there was a commenter posting recently who was solving only with across clues. It amused me that they could have solved the puzzle without noticing anything amiss.
@Petrol Yes and for me cleats are the bits screwed into cycling shoes to clip into the pedal. They are also what you attach to walking boots for icy conditions. Like crampons but for less extreme conditions/ascents.
@Lpr Well I read it and I too had glom staring at me from the middle screaming it must be wrong when I had filled all the squares. Turned out I had adjourned rather than sojourned, but I still blame the glom
@Helen Wright I struggled with PANACHE for a bit because the crossings gave me ACHE.
@Matt Yes maxIMIZE instead of OPTIMIZE and NEGATive instead of NEGATION had me staring at the centre of the puzzle for a good while!
@NanuNanu Can you casserole a noodle? Don’t they go all mushy? Or do you add them right at the end?
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