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Switzerland
It was 4:30am in Switzerland and I thought, surely I'm hallucinating that IMCOMING over "Tenderly stroking".
@Dave Humphrey (1) 1/4 is [TWENTYFIVE]PERCENT. 98-Across gives a hint to enter it without the quarter. This hint should be interpreted like the hints for the dime, penny, and nickel. (2) "See red", an idiom. (3) The crossings should be interpreted by hints in their relative clues (101-Across, 62-Across, and 54-Across) - see the column for more on the theme.
I still remember my first Thursday gold star. I came here so proud and read that it was apparently a very easy Thursday, not representative. So I'm here about 5 years later to say I got a gold star and PB with this one, at 11:54. I have stopped measuring myself against what's "easy" for others (I still don't know many US references) and so should you. Just wanted to say it really is a learnable skill, in case you're not there yet.
I was stuck on Prime Choice being SAMEDAYDELIMEAT for the longest time. Eventually, I prevailed.
@Jane Wheelaghan Hi Jane, i just want to encourage you as someone also unaware of many of the names in this one and not knowing much about star wars (and English not being my native language). It gets easier to make correct guesses over time. I guessed about 6 boxes in this (e.g. STUART was guessed out of -U---T and I couldn't verify it all from crosses) but I got through without lookups. Hang in there, it gets very satisfying and rewarding.
Thank you for getting NIQAB right. I lived in the Arabian Gulf for 7 years and I am tired of people using burqa to refer to all the things. Hijab, niqab, abaya, burqa are all distinctly different items. Though it gets a lot of coverage, I have never seen anyone wearing a burqa. And the niqab is indeed the only one of them that fits the clue.
@Skeptical1 An "I" character is added to "twister" to make it "twistier"
"One in a cage" is now one of my favorite clues ("Handful on the farm" being the other).
@Dave We are used to be confused with Sweden, but this was a stretch.
Had FAn before FAD. Cute that both fit the clue. I'm annoyed that we're ignoring conventions, with RUN being in 2 answers and a clue entirely in Italian having an answer in English.
@Shaun Thank you! I loved that it was easy on fill and naticks/Americanisms/trivia/obscure proper nouns. Just beautiful words and riddles, and it flowed at a steady pace.
@Shrike I would reason that since ALIA Shawkat is in the puzzle, ET ALIA couldn't also be an answer.
The Issa (RAE) crossword era might be over :(
@Renegator I remember it took me a really long time (maybe a year of doing at least a daily and one from the archives every day) before I could solve a Thursday unaided. You're doing great! It gets better and so rewarding.
So much trivia :( Successfully guessed TANYA and TARA and several others but BARQS did me in. Loved the theme. Can anyone help me understand HRS for "Smash hits: Abbr." (35D)?
I do not know these films. I had MAYTHESTARWARSWITHYOU for the longest time. And LORDPATER. But appreciated the revealer once I looked at the date and it clicked. Somehow I got my gold star after an hour and ten minutes. I am struggling to match BEGRUDGING to "Given reluctantly". Shouldn't the clue be "Giving reluctantly"?
I took my time, wanting to understand every theme entry before submitting this. Loved every minute. Can I please suggest choosing a photo + title combo for the column that is less likely to give away an answer? It's very easy to accidentally get a spoiler when solving on a browser. And my 2 cents: if a Danish smørrebrød can be a sandwich, so can a taco.
@The X-Phile I'm competing virtually, excited to go in person when budget and visa situations allow.
@Andrzej I care about understanding cluing conventions. That's how I get better.
@Christopher The clue for the revealer says that it's an "instruction for entering the [themed] answers". The instruction is "No IFs, ANDs, or BUTs". I double-check revealer clues and answers and often they will hint toward rebus or no rebus. In this case, another hint for me was that there's no elegant solution including rebuses, because frequently the extra letters could go in one of two boxes, or both. For example, VERIFY could be entered as V - E - RIF/R - Y V - E - RI/R - FY/Y V - E - R - IFY/Y And there is no thematic reason for it be one way or another.
@Cloudy Rockwell On a mac, you can use command + right / left to go to the end / beginning of a line. Option + left / right will take move your cursor one word in that direction. Command / option + up / down can be used to scroll up and down a page.
@K Update: I was pleasantly surprised to 100% 3 of today's 6 puzzles within the time limit and actually get the hardest theme (puzzle 5). I highly recommend giving next a year a try if you're curious at all, find out where you can grow and focus on your own goals. I started by practicing on past years' puzzles.
I don't think the SOMM series is a trilogy, SOMM: Cup of Salvation seems to be the fourth in the series. But that was from 2023, so does that mean "2010s [...] trilogy" is still accurate?
@YooperJake I'm interested in understanding more about cluing conventions so I get better at solving crosswords. I wanted to know if the "trilogy" was an oversight, or intentional.
Sigh. My replies are not showing up, so I'm posting a separate comment. Re SOMM and the clue, I was asking so I can learn more about cluing conventions and get better at solving crosswords. I wanted to know if the "trilogy" was an oversight given there are 4 movies, or intentional because 3 of them were in 2010. Knowing NYT I'm gonna go with the latter and learn from this that, for example, "2010s movie franchise with 4 installments" could well be THEHUNGERGAMES, in a future puzzle.
@Vincent R My experience was similar. Naticks, naticks everywhere. I had 2 gold Sundays in July (no lookups, no hints, no wordplay, no friends), it's not the norm (yet) for a puzzle to be so inaccessible for non-US folks.
@Mark Carlson and Barry, thanks for clarifying! Happy to learn.
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