Matthew
Ireland
On the first pass the only clues I got were ONE and ENO. Then after all the trivia lookups (they were so obscure that lookups were pretty much mandatory), I had enough to piece the rest together. It was difficult mainly because so many of the answers were so obscure, not because of the wicked wordplay of yesterday's puzzle.
That was a fun solve. The southeast corner was particularly challenging. I'm on a 54 day streak now and I swear I must have seen TSA clued in a dozen different creative ways.
@John Presidents are sometimes referred to by their numbers. I was first aware of it when 45 became shorthand for Trump (now 47). So 46 = Biden, and 46 years? is Biden years, i.e. Biden Presidency. I needed crossings to work this one out.
@Matthew Got it! ESPERANTO!
@JMG It's an expression you would never hear in Ireland. The first time I heard it was in the USA and I've never heard it anywhere else.
I love all the many wordplay features in the clues, once I finally got them. I was lucky to get the marquee answer on my first pass through so I had a good few crossing letters to hang words on. Even still, this was a tough solve. I was sure the number discovered was Euler's number, e, and I even saw the possible double-meaning way before I realised I was wrong. And PANZA in the top left was a certainty, but left me completely stumped on the first three down crossings. Other favourite wordplay clues are Returns home? for IRS, Starting line at a starting line, and Characters in LOTR.
@Sam Lyons Agree. The skin layer is called DERMIS, not DERMA.
@logical My initial guess there was MORPHED but it didn't work with the crossings.
@Kate My objection to DERMA is that it is clued as a singular. I had a similar issue with GENE SET, so I left it as GEN.... until I had crossings. (btw "gene set" is the term used to refer to the annotated genes in the protein/amino acid alphabet.)
@JiMPOT I can't work out what TEARS OPEN is - any ideas? I think it ends in ESE. Anagram solvers only give PERSONATE which isn't a language.
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