Jac

Imagine my delight when I remembered that I have a bank note featuring the temple of Angkor Wat right here in the room with me! ...Now imagine my disappointment when it was no help at all. XD

Delightful puzzle, disappointing column. Better than the other way around, to be fair.

[Rush delivery?] has my vote. The editors get a disappointed shake of my head for rejecting it.

This is exactly what I want in a Wordplay column. Well done, Sean; more, please!

FYI, the letter between India and Kilo is Juliett, with two T's. It's spelled that way as a compromise between Juliet, in which French-speakers read the T as silent, and Juliette, which might entice the rest of the world to venture a fourth syllable.

> ...I did wonder how that would affect the difficulty level. I’ll check the comments to see what y’all think. Overall difficulty was on the easier side, but this was far from my fastest Thursday solve this year. Without the circles, it might have been the hardest of the year. Grokking the theme early made me feel clever. If I'd struggled through and only understood the theme after filling in the grid entire (a possibility), my thought would instead have been, "well, isn't the constructor clever." I think the editors made the safe choice, and likely the right one. I am curious, though, about the road not traveled. Wouldn't it be a great online feature to be able to choose "hard mode" for a puzzle like this, give it a shot, and then ask to be shown the "normal mode" (adding in the circles, in this case) later if necessary?

My favorite Thursday gimmick in a while. Delightful!