Niall

I found this very tough. I was one (embarrassing) square short of finishing the Saturday one (same as on Friday) but for this one I had to start Check Puzzle with less than half the grid filled after an hour. To anyone who thinks this was Monday level clueing, you’re just very good. This was, for me, way harder than Mon/Tue.

Got closer to finishing this than any other Sunday, but still about 10 clues short. And that took almost 2 hours. As usual, did not see the theme and didn’t even realise there was a theme until reading the column. Overall a fair challenge for my level. Considering the long entries there were very few answers that seemed they’d been bashed in to shape to make them fit, very well put together.

So many mistakes again today, took me about 20 minutes to unpick them. After I filled the grid and got the finger wag I went to fix and I had 7 incorrect answers, only 2 of which made absolutely no sense on review. I’ll note this was the first time I’ve smiled at an answer (in about 100 attempts at the crossword). I already had GREATBALLSOFFIRE when I got enough crosses to see the GOODNESSGRACIOUS answer and I did crack a smile, I think because of Top Gun. I did notice near the end that the circles all had F I R E but as usual themes zoom over my head with the balls thing. Found this harder than some of the other Wednesdays I’ve completed, but I’m clearly in the minority on that.

Anyone out there from UK/Ireland, did you bat an eye at Career/Careen? “The car careered off the road” seems like a familiar phrase to me and I’m wondering if it’s more common over here. Which is no help to the United Statesians obviously, I’m just curious.

Not one for beginners, at least not this beginner. Clueing felt brutal (in more ways than one). Can’t blame the trick because the only one of the four that I had enough crossing letters to get was Come To Pass. Nowhere near the rest, although there’s no way I would have thought of substituting in other words. I didn’t know that was a thing.

My worst effort at a puzzle in a few weeks, got buried in Americanisms in the middle left/bottom left, bottom centre. This was on the hard side for a Wednesday anyway I think, but c'est la vie. One thing I will say, which crops up in comments regularly, is stuff like GAH. Has anyone, ever, in any English speaking country, said GAH for any reason? I've never heard anyone make that sound. I'd guessed GAa, which obviously didn't help me, but those type of clues are incredibly irritating.

This was great. I mean, it's my worst Friday attempt ever, I just counted and I have 43 squares with the little red YOU FAILED marker on them. On a bad day I might have 10 normally. I appreciate the cleverness though.

No gold star again, but this was very well put together. For some reason I couldn’t get anything in the top right. At all. An hour in I had most of the rest, but literally one answer above BEER. And that was DING, which turned out wrong anyway. In the crosswords I’ve tried there have been a few references to Celtic mythology, which you’d think might give me a tiny advantage being Irish, but I’ve never had any clue about them. I must try to find out who these celts were that had this mythology.

Generally good clues here, especially for a Sunday. I'm assuming for experienced folks this was fairly easy. There were a lot of things I've never heard of but got them all with crosses, which means the other clues were on the easy side. Muckety muck/ NABOB (googled afterwards). EASTS I(rom the card game?) EOE (that acronym is not a thing over here, googled after) ALBA was new. ICEE I should have remembered from previous puzzles. TRIB NOHO DDE ERIE as a county TOMTIT NOE Overall close again, but no cigar has been my pattern for the last few days. Today I couldn't parse out BLAsK__. I had sOHO for the New York district, never heard of NOHO, so I never considered SOHO could be wrong. My knowledge of US presidents is not what it might be and EER felt like it could be 15 different things instead of the first E. 30 minutes of messing around with it didn't help, BLANKED never occurred because that's not what I think a brain fart is. Had the whole rest of the grid correct without getting the theme, just assumed the trick was that the end of some words were missing. My general blindness to themes continues.

I’ve been at this a couple of months, still haven’t got a gold on a Thursday. This was an easy one for the day, had it filled after about 40 mins (fast for me on a Thur). Couldn’t find my mistake though. I knew it was the Ray Charles song, but I was focused on the last letter because I’d never heard of Keno. Turns out Keno was the right guess, but eventually gave up and check puzzle told me ODE TO was wrong further up the same clue. Anyway, at least it didn’t drive me nuts with a Rebus. Still havent managed a Thursday or Sunday gold.

Saturdays have on average been somewhat kind to me in the couple of months I’ve been trying to do this, so I was cautiously optimistic opening it today, even after yesterday’s disaster. One look at the grid said it’s going to be way above my level. I jumped in anyway and quickly realised I was absolutely right, I had no chance. I’m really bad at long answers. It does look to me like this is one you’d enjoy if you are a proper crossworder.

Too hard today for me today. Too much trivia I didn't know, although not getting Fifty Cent is inexcusable given my age (mid 40s). I didn't get the theme even after Check and a few Reveals to fill it, so all it did was leave me confused. It is a clever trick though. I actually liked Yoink, even though I didn't get it without filling in all the crossing words. I definitely remember it from kids cartoons. Mostly enjoyed it. The thing with these is, for novices, you fill in an answer that you're happy with (HighFive, a fairly easy one) and then you get stuck later, so you do Check Puzzle and it says the F is wrong. And you just go AAARRGGGGHHH. I had GradeInflation at that point, but not the other two theme clues, and as I said, didn't recognise the trick, so all it does is irritate you. Even after you read the column with the explanation, the sense of it being a waste of time just stays. I'm just moaning now, I'm probably still going to attempt tomorrows one.

Lot of good clues here, most of which I did not get, but sometimes the crossword giveth and sometimes it taketh away. Today it tooketh. Big fail on the trivia. ANIMALFARM was the only one I knew. Very few short quoted statements (like "Here we go" today), which should have suited me. I tend to find them very hard because the continuum of answers always seems vast. I didn't like CAW for that reason. Overall really well put together. I usually do better on Saturday than Friday, so on to tomorrow.

I did better on this than yesterday and Thursday, but didn’t really threaten the gold star. It was just hard and mostly fair. Some clever stuff in it and quite a few that I don’t get. Having read through a lot of the comments I’m realising it was heavy on Americanisms, which doesn’t help (absolutely my problem, not the crossword from an American newspaper). There are a few I still don’t get. AHOY is a greeting, but why is it main? I did get that answer, I but didn’t really threaten the gold sta just don’t get the clue. Dad-blasted was DOGGONE? I’ve heard the word, I don’t get a connection. Small things, I agree with some other commenters that PINT is wrong and I hated DEPLORES. I kind is see it, but that’s not what deplore means to me. Someone was asking me the other day about knowing random stuff. The only thing I know about Charlie Puth is that he should be a bigger artist, courtesy of my 11 year olds music obsession.

The middle left broke me. With ERGS, PEI, the last few letters of CARTRIDGE (I had all but the last two and was stuck on it being a game with two words in its title like CART-RID__. All those hours playing games on cartridges…). I didn’t get INEEDIT either. I’d been at it well over and hour at that point and I’d had enough. Generally enjoyed the clueing. A few absolute gimmes took longer than they should have to resolve.

This was probably on the easy side, I got it without too much trouble (20 mins is fast for me on a Wed). Good theme, cleverly done without being overwrought or just pointless. I actually got the theme after getting two of the theme answers, which is unusual for me. I think using a couple of shorter answers for the theme meant that the rest of the clues don’t have to be battered into shape to fit in, which allows for better answers and clues. Liked this one. I did look at “cookie with about 50 calories” and think how am I supposed to know that, but three months of these things kicked in pretty fast.

This was very well done considering the number of theme entries. Took me a long, long time fo figure out the trick. Well, first it took me a long time to get either STEALAKISS or GIVEAHUG, but even then it took ages to realise what they meant. Still, made it eventually.

This was probably more of a Monday than a Tuesday but it’s my first gold star in 13 days and I’ll take it.

I might have scraped through a Wednesday level with that collection of trivia, but any harder day and I've have been utterly goosed. After my first run through the grid looked like some of my late-week efforts. Partially generally awkward trivia, partially because it's an American newspaper.

This was brutal for me. Too many things I’ve never heard of. I’ve gotten gold a few times on a Friday, but nowhere near this one. Hour and a quarter, less than half the answers. Gave up, Check Puzzle. Now less than a third of the answers. Restored to reveal word in about five or six places just for the practice. This was a very American puzzle. Not necessarily heavier than normal on US trivia, just culturally. Which is perfectly fair, it’s an American newspaper.

Lingo queation: I was fairly sure "Booking, for short" was some contraction of Reservation or Ticket, but I had no idea what a standard shortening of either would look like. RSN/RSV/TKT/etc. Briefly considered TIX as well but didn't seem likely. Eventually went for RES when I had RE_. Anyway, my question is whether "for short" always means the start of the word or could it be any set of the letters. Maybe RES is a well known thing in this case?

The most I can say for today is that I held my streak of Sunday being miles harder than Thur, Fri or Sat. I didn’t complete Fri or Sat either, but I got a lot further on them than todays one. I must go ask my colleagues at work tomorrow if they’ve ever heard of F#. I’ve been in software dev for 20-odd years and that was new to me.

I had most of this in about 20 minutes and it took another 15 just to get the last few in the top right. I knew SOSA, but no idea what the drug name was, never heard of onionskin paper, stupidly missed the wordplay in the NHL clue as I tried to figure out how hockey penalties could be described in 3 letters was. Had NEO for ages but convinced myself it was wrong, had DMs instead of IMs. I've no idea how or where I ever heard of Tempe Arizona, but eventually that landed in my head and that got it moving. To be honest if I'd been stuck like that on a later day in the week I'd have given up but since it was a Tuesday it was driving me nuts.

I didn’t have any issues with the trick letters because my rebus strategy is to refuse to engage. (It only encourages them). Write in the absolute minimum needed and only hit the rebus button if absolutely necessary. I still didn’t finish this because I could get the middle left. Never head of a Rod as a measure, should have gotten Note but didnt, don’t know why Inc is a fortune competitor and didn’t get CDs. My head was thinking coin sized for “little” platters and CDs eluded me. Anyway, all my own fault. I’d love to know of anyone found the theme clue more useful in solving the extra letters than the fact that there were three/four circled bixrs right next to where you had missing letters. Generally enjoyed this, was hard for me but I nearly got to the end.

By far my slowest successful Tuesday. Thought I wasn’t going to get there at all for most of it. A few wrong answers crossing the long clues were killing me for a while. End instead of Enz and Uees instead of Ueys were two in particular. I didn’t enjoy this that much, looking back I think the restrictions from the four big clues were too much to build out the rest of the grid.

Enjoyed this a lot. I never got the theme with the ROW trick so I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the pattern of Gs when I had about 5 of them from crosses and another (incorrect) letter. Took a long time to accept it and write in all Gs. MacGyvered nearly buried me. I thought of it on the first run but it didn’t fit with early (incorrect) crosses and even after I fixed them I forgot to go back to that option and I was only missing two letters when it finally came back in my head. I found this hard but never a slog.

Just looked out of curiousity, I have 3 Thursday golds and the itmes are 58, 60 and 63 minutes. Now that's consistency.

This frightened me a little with how few I had on the first acros pass and I thought I was in for a disaster, but the first down pass filled out a lot. Enjoyed several of the clues in it. I was wondering what TAE BO is, looked it up and some long-dormant parts of my memory were dragged out of their coma. We even had those infomercials over here.

I feel like Erin should have been clued with Informally or whatever to indicate it’s not an actual name of a place. Apropos and Apt don’t seem right to me either, that was a bit of a stretch. Otherwise this was definitely the easiest Thursday I’ve tried, first time in 11 attempts I got it without help. Rebuses drive me bananas, but at least this was one where it’s just the same letters in each direction. Plus it was obvious it was going to be a rebus on the italicised clues once you knew at least one of the six trivia clues. The one advantage of trivia is it at least gives anchors of definitely correct answers so you’re not second guessing all over the place, which is what I spend so much time doing from Wednesday onwards. I see all the other comments complaining the rebus was too easy, I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Found this really hard, didn't get close to finishing without help from Check and two Reveal Words. I had the entire left hand side and almost nothing on the right. I'd gotten HABANERO and then ICANTLOOK and then only a couple more all down the right. Revealing the Tolstoy title kind of got it moving, barely. I also discovered I never knew what Pithy actually means. INTERNETFAMOUS was a great one, even though I had INTERNE, the A and U before I got it. VEGENAISE sounds awful. It's probably not, but that is an awful, awful branding exercise. I still don't know why PAM is clued by spray. Given AP is something I'd have only picked up on from TV/Movies I was well pleased with getting APBIO from just the B. There were a few gimmes that I really should have got. MONOGAMY, AMINO, UPANDATEM were all easy enough. Top one though is how long I stared at __XRETURN and somehow never got it. I did a reveal on BASIE. That little middle section was the last bit, because I didn't know the trivia. OSU/BASIE/TOROS. I'd have had them on the crossing answers though if I hadn't had some sort of stroke and missed TAXRETURN.

Someone commented that they had IOS instead of cpu for Apple Core? I had the same and I realised that clues on something you know about are a nightmare sometimes. It was wordplay, so not straight forward, so it’s not the obvious one I think, it’s the operating system. Early week I’d have probably gone with cpu, but Fridays are hard, it’s going to be the awkward one. I’ve was doing something similar with the Unix one, thinking of more obscure stuff. There’s a touch of that thing where you read news stories about something you know a lot about and you might know it’s a load of rubbish, but then you read the next story about something you’re not familiar with and just accept it. You’re too deep. One comes to mind from a few weeks ago. “16 in a sweet sixteen”. Haha I thinks, this is about March Madness, not some birthday thing. I spent an atrocious amount of time trying to come up with a word for when a low seed (16th seed) in the NCAA tournament makes it through a few rounds. Unfortunately the answer was just Team. I didn’t get that one.

TIL Stephen Sondheim is a famous musical person, giving a 50% increase on my previous ability to list musical writers. The name was lodged somewhere in the back of my head, but there’s no way I’d have known what it was connected to. I’d probably have guessed old movies. Do these themes make any difference to people in whether or not they solve the crossword? Or how quickly they solve it? I’d be extremely impressed by anyone who was able to spot the pattern as it developed and use it to fill in some of the circles boxes. My time to finish this was nearly 28 minutes, so I’m definitely not yet in the target audience for being able to spot patterns like that.

Found this a weird one from a difficulty point of view. I had to concede defeat early on and a Check Puzzle erased half my answers. I had close to nothing, but one short reveal word in each quadrant pretty much let me run through all of each area. It was fast when you were motoring, but dead stop when you were stuck. Even while going through it I had no idea what to do with the Roman numerals, kudos to anyone who knew it was even possible to figure out what the max number could be. I wasn’t even able to read the number when it was all there.

Big shout out to Steph Curry, without whom I would never have heard of Davidson college and this probably would have taken a good bit longer. Also TIL it's in North Carolina. As so often, I did not get the theme until I read the column, even though I know who Pete Rose and Pete Davidson are.

I’ve watched all those movies. I really should have gotten baby groot. I feel like I’m missing something with PIN for Spare part? Got about half this before I passed the hour and had to start cheating. One other question: is “Leader” a regular thing the means prefix or was this unusual?

I found this generally light going until the bottom right. Diverse trivia: Classical music South/Central American cuisine 30 year old pop culture Modern technology (Minor character from) Classical studies. (Don't come at me) Currently relevant movie star. Construction equipment. I unravelled it, but anyone could have been lucky or absolutely ruined down in that area.

So many mistakes in the top middle and left that dragged this out to 90 minutes for me. Esc instead of END, even though I doubted Esc because it’s not rarely used. Instead of GODNO I had nOway from the start, then hOlup when I wanted humanoidspecies. Never heard of MACARONISALAD so that slowed me down too. I had the second half of 5 of the 6 long ones well before I got the first halves, although the bottom half and middle weren’t too bad. I started at this game some time in October and I had two Sat gold stars in Nov, one the first week of December and none since. I just looked and all three of those were much faster than today. I wouldn’t have thought beginners luck would be a thing for crosswords, unless the luck is that they happened to be very easy-for-the-day editions, which is probably likely. I enjoyed this more than yesterday, which is probably why I stuck with it longer.

I can't believe I threw away a gold star on BRAVA. I had SuSSES, knew BRAVu was wrong obviously, but I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to make the several change to other answer to get it to line up as BRAVo before I ran out of patience.