Alex

Loved this one! I adore that feeling of something being "off" at the beginning of a solve, where the straightforward is awry, and having to slowly work things out and into place... The double-rebus realisation was a wonderful gear change that added extra impetus and set the puzzle perfectly for the home stretch. An hour of crossword joy! Many thanks Michael!

Awesome puzzle, I loved noticing Coyote and the anvil! The 'HELP' sign was the icing on the cake 👌 Super job Daniel, thanks!

Excellent puzzle! The theme came slowly at first, then faster and faster - very satisfying to work out during the solve. I love that OXO was in there like a little bonus, as if there weren't already enough theme words! Many thanks!

Very nice Saturday puzzle. Thought I had absolutely no hope for the first 20 minutes or so, then the long entries started falling into place and it gradually rolled over and let me tickle its tummy. Finished almost exactly on my Saturday average time in the end. As others have commented, this has been a really good week of crosswords from the NYT. Thanks Sam, and I'm looking forward to a beauty of a Sunday!

The Sean Connery "quotes" were adorable, the double-o's in a seven were a clever little touch, and some bonus Bond sprinklings throughout - excellent puzzle! Some tricky fillers, but very gettable with crossers and the odd Google confirmation, as evidenced by my under-average time. Top debut crossword. Thanks Danny, shuper Shunday sholve!

Trying to come up with my own... This puzzle was the perfect amount of [Tr°uble] for me! (degree of difficulty)

Ouch. The fact that the themed entries all had 4-letter words elongated, so fitted fine as the normal phrase with 'long'... Plus no revealer or clue? Very devious indeed, and possibly illegal on a Wednesday - I'm consulting my lawyers. I spent 90% of the solve time in a state of confusion and distress, but when the penny dropped and everything fell into place it was one of the most satisfying endings to a crossword I can remember! Many thanks for a superb puzzle!

Aww I now feel a bit disappointed that I raced through this one on New Year's Eve Eve, instead of savouring it on the proper day. Almost got my personal best for a Wednesday, so that's something nice. I hope everyone enjoys the last day of 2025, and here's to a wonderful 2026! Thanks Jeffrey!

I'm not usually too effusive, but I thought this was superb. The entries were rock solid, the clues were fresh, it wasn't too easy and wasn't annoying - I just really clicked with this puzzle and enjoyed solving it. Seasoned constructors don't make them as good. Adrianne is gonna be a star that much is obvious, thanks for the first of many!

I didn't expect the STEPMOM to be the most controversial aspect of this puzzle! The spelling doesn't change depending on where the stepmom is from, it changes depending on where the observer of the stepmom is from (ahem). As a Brit I'd call her a stepmum, like for me Central Park is in the centre not center of Manhattan, but I'd fully expect an NYT crossword to call her a stepmom. Fun puzzle, managed to finish with just a few look-ups of some of the more obscure Americanisms. Thanks Jacob!

Fun puzzle, although the theme was indeed such a "slow-moving realization" that for me that realization in fact happened after finishing the crossword and reading the article. Thanks Adam!

Good one! Took a few passes of the grid, several clues needed lots of crossing letters, a few "never heard of that" moments, plenty of replacing wrong first ideas... Exactly how it should be! Some more fun crash blossoms (from Mental Floss): "Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant" "Milk Drinkers Turn to Powder" "Chester Morrill, 92, Was FED Secretary" (obituary) "Jacksonville Pornography Free, Officials Say"

I enjoyed Sean McGowan's column, very interesting to learn about these "cheater squares". I don't usually read the column because I find that often it's just written from the POV of a regular solver: friendly and sympathetic, but ultimately not very illuminating. I'd much rather some expert or technical insights about things like grid design and other aspects of construction that I don't even know exist. I wouldn't have appreciated today's marvellously clean grid - quite a beauty in its elegant simplicity, even just aesthetically - if I hadn't read the column. Thanks Andrew and Sean!

I started this one angry and frustrated, not being able to get into it at all and not liking all the 4-letter plurals and identical college clues ... grrr ... But after a while things started falling into place, got some long answers and had some epiphanies ... ahhh ... Ended up loving it! Thanks!

I was looking at my stats literally yesterday (I've finished about 300 crosswords over the last year) and noticed that Thursday was the only day where my best time was quite close to my average time. Very consistently tricky between 35 - 38 minutes. Well, not anymore! I absolutely raced through this in under half my average Thursday time... I immediately guessed the thrust of the theme with the HAM/HARM and IDEA/IDEAL entries, and those L/R circles only sped up a super smooth solve of the filling words - sometimes you're just on the same wavelength as a puzzle and everything falls into place very satisfyingly. Thanks, Adam, next time make me a double-sized version for me please!

Aww nice to see a couple of Peruvian entries on Independence Day! ¡Felices Fiestas Patrias! Only last week I was in Ayacucho in the Andes here in Peru, where you can visit the site of the final battle that concreted Peru's (and basically South America's) independence. There's a super monument, great cuisine and lots else to see around the area - very much recommended! Easy 45min flight from Lima. Very nice puzzle, loved noticing all the "C" clues! Wasn't it mentioned a couple of days ago that there was a puzzle once where all the clues began with "T"? - I think I read about it in the comments on the recent one with black squares shaped like T's, with "Teetotaler" as an answer somewhere. Nice work, thanks Brian!

I don't know why rebuses get so much hate, I like noticing that there's an extra bit of jiggery-pokery going on in a puzzle! I had RAGtAG at first as well, but quickly fixed. Thanks Ben & Zach!

Excellent puzzle, many thanks to Emily and Kunal! The themed entries were satisfying to work out with just a few crossing letters. Wonderfully clever clues and entries. My favourite Martin Van Buren fact: he was the first US president born in the United States of America

Had to come and say kudos for DIAPER - still giggling to myself about that one! [Bum wrap?] today and [Knight schtick?] (= "honor") yesterday are two kinda similar and truly superstar clues in my opinion! I went straight in with Lawson, easy-peasy for a Brit, and never got truly stuck in the grid. I had no idea about BANANA SEATS so was a bit bogged down in the SW corner for a while, but it never seemed impossible. Excellent puzzle, this is real professional standards! Many thanks Ryan!

Aw shucks, if that wasn't the most adorable little theme I ever...!

Lovely puzzle, great theme! I'm genuinely shocked by the negative reaction to the AI poem for EYES... People seem to miss that gen AI didn't write the clue, it wrote the silly little poem in the clue - AI wouldn't write a clue like that. I thought it was funny! Nice work, thanks Joe!

dAD JOKES was the first answer I put in, and it just silently and patiently lay in wait until the very end... I knew dATTED was dodgy, but it took me ages to see the right answer since I don't know much about either baseballs or eyelashes. BATTED was good though, so a satisfying finale and at least it wasn't a case of pouring through the whole grid looking for a typo. Nice puzzle, thanks Robert!

My spirits dropped when I read 1A, but actually I had a lot of fun and obscure US sport trivia wasn't as prominent as I feared. Lovely little theme, I especially enjoyed that they were Down clues looking like needles pricking into a patient when you click on 27D :) Many thanks Jared, super puzzle!

Lomo saltado! It's an absolutely delicious example of "Chifa", Chinese-inspired Peruvian food: stir fried beef, potato, rice, tomato, onion and mild chili pepper with a meaty soy sauce jus. If any of you ever find yourselves in Lima, please go to "Isolina" restaurant in Barranco and order the lomo saltado, it will be the best decision you make for a long long time! Nice puzzle, thanks Adrian.

MAO & CERA both appeared very recently (were they both yesterday?) with the same clues - what am I paying my editors for?! This was a nice Tuesday solve for me, only a few references I had to guess - HAL, RVER, BRODOWN, HERO et al. Strangely I was totally on board with SNARF, it's a nice not-so-common synonym of snaffle :) Many thanks Mr Caprera!

Very nice puzzle. It achieves what many others don't these days: a theme that you can actually use during the solve rather than just noticing afterwards. Very satisfying! Thanks Stephan (great debut) and Jeff!

Nice puzzle - I liked the clues and the fill was good. I only had the square in NI_RO and O_T left at the end since I'd never heard of either of the cold brew or the baseballer, but I got it in my first guess so I'll try to remember those. Thanks Carolyn & Christina! (And Crystal - great trio! Reminds me of a group of students I once had in my class called Adriana, Andrea & Ariadna, who always sat together I'm sure just to confuse me...!)

The sheer number of American proper nouns - sports, actors, govt, schools - meant I could never do this one enjoyably, unfortunately. Only 3 themed clues as well? The fill seemed very desperate, with obscure, archaic, abbreviated words that usually betray a loss of control due to crowbaring in a lot of themed entries... But not much theme to warrant it. Finished in under-average time thanks to Googling, but in future I should probably just leave ones like this and take the hit to my streak.

Nice enjoyable Monday - good level, fine clues, decent theme that was helpful to fill in some squares, not too many obscurities (for me). Happy camper here! Thanks Hannah!

Actually much longer than my best time and a tad longer than my average, but I had fun with this one - thanks to Alexander from Alexander! Is there really such a thing as a "semester at sea"?! Why wasn't I offered that?!

I noticed the golf clues first, then the Indian food & drink ones, then the morning glory appendage clue (well done Sam Corbin for referring to that one in the piece while maintaining a straight face) - and finally I noticed the precipitation words. (Rain is slush?) Great crossword, loved solving it! There were many I didn't know, but crossing letters were merciful to me today. Nice work and thanks! BTW, a totally separate rant if I may: on the topic of the Monday vs Friday, Easy vs Difficult thing mentioned in the piece: [Ones doing the filming on a set] vs [Focus group?] - These aren't necessarily easy & difficult clues, the difference for me is that the first is gettable on its own and the other needs crossing letters to confirm/justify it. Focus group? = camera crew? No, but if you've got CA_E__C_EW you can sigh and put it in. If you had CA_E__K_RS you could sigh and put in "caretakers". I come from the British tradition of cryptic crosswords where every clue should lead to one and only one answer. It's a necessity in grids without so many crossing letters, but at least it doesn't confuse "vagueness" with "difficulty". In a straight definition clue vagueness excusable (e.g. "Fast" (5) could be brisk, quick, rapid etc without any crossing letters), but when attempting to be clever/cryptic it's not so fun to have many possible interpretations. If it's not good enough to get it on its own, use a more straightforward clue. Love from the Guardian, Times, Private Eye, etc

I think I got the hang of the theme... Polaris / Notable name

Hmm, not a fan of this one I'm afriad. The themed entries (and especially the circled squares) didn't play any significant part in the solving process, rather it was just something that you notice when you finish, like an "aren't we clever" message from the setters. Enjoyable enough as a simple solve, but not much of a puzzle.

I got through most of it without too many problems, but the SW corner had me hostage for about 15 minutes. Never heard of BRITICISM, despite being a Brit, I was hindered by having angl-ICISM in my mind. Quite a few tricky Americanisms in other parts of the puzzle, but it's the NYT so whaddyagonnadoo? The dog theme was cute. Thanks Katie & Jeff, I always appreciate the effort constructors put in, and the brain workout!

Lots to look up for me as someone who doesn't know anything about American sports, but that's nice always good to learn. Felt more difficult than it was, coming in surprisingly under my average. Thanks for the nicely tricky Wednesday workout! One thing: please, never, ever, allow TSK TSK-ED in a crossword ever again! "Delightful" is not the word I uttered when I realised that really was the answer...!

Excellent puzzle, especially the TRANSLATE clue! 👌

Beautiful puzzle, great work and thank you Sam!

As a Brit I have to admit I've been chuckling at all the fear and confusion that roundabouts apparently evoke in our American cousins! Roundabouts to me are just normal and harmless and useful! Took me a long while to get the theme idea, mainly because since the whole point of roundabouts is that you can enter / exit anywhere so I didn't think to always start on the left. Good one once it clicked, though. Nice - but challenging - Sunday ... thanks!

Have to say I wasn't "wowed" by this one. The theme was pretty basic compared to many ingenious others I've seen on a Thursday ("So it's a number beginning with T, fine... It's city beginning with Q, fine...."). And I definitely agree with others that the ambiguous COTTO/COTTA and HIYO/HIYA combination should have been weeded out in the editing process - very dodgy there indeed. Still, good for a quick mental distraction (above average time for me today though!) - much appreciated as always.