John

Congratulations on your debut Mr Brody. NYT Sunday crossword puzzles with anagrams always remind me of a lazy Sunday morning over 40 years ago when I was a student in New York. I had just moved into a shared apartment, and a couple of my roommates were working on the Sunday puzzle, which had an anagram theme much like today’s. After I (politely, of course) suggested a couple of (incorrect, I should add) answers to clues they were discussing, they asked me to join in the solve. It was start of some great friendships and I’ve been doing the NYT crossword ever since.

From the two people divided by a common language department: Pudding here usually means dessert. What most of you call pudding we call custard. Pudding here can also mean something savoury like Yorkshire pudding, black pudding (essential for a “full English” breakfast), white pudding and haggis, which some of us find quite tasty especially with a wee dram. The word pudding originally meant offal and Pudding Lane in London was where carts carrying offal traveled to the Thames to dump their bloody loads. It’s also where the Great Fire of London started in 1666 and one of the world’s first one-way streets.

Of course the answer to 58 across should be: “because that is how those words are correctly spelt”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite fit. Two people divided by a common language and all that. And yes, I still chuckle when my American friends refer to wearing “khaki pants”!

Really liked this one. When there are long answers I like to chuck in initial answers and see what sticks. Only my initial 1 across worked out for me today. Also, wolverines and otters, who knew ? Well, at least I didn’t!

A nice solid puzzle this morning. I’m always surprised when people comment (complain?) that they don’t know a word. PAEAN being today’s example. A quick search of recent news stories shows the word being used by many media outlets in all sorts of stories, including pieces on the arts, food and even gaming (although apparently none from the NYT!). After this puzzle, we’ll all be seeing it pop up all over the place.

Really enjoyed the puzzle this morning — great cluing and clever answers (or perhaps the other way round!). My only gripe is that for me it was way too easy for a Saturday. Finished in half my average Saturday time — or perhaps a more meaningful measure, I finished the puzzle before my coffee!

For me any puzzle that has KHAN as an answer as in “The Wrath of” or the original Star Trek series is a good puzzle. Solved it a bit faster than my average for Saturday but not by much. The south west corner fell last especially when I worked out it was EXOTICA not ErOTICA! What was I thinking?

I like hard puzzles and to be honest have no patience for those who complain about rebuses or difficulty on Thursdays or Fridays and Saturdays — bring them on I say — but saying “chance” and “chants” are somehow phonetically equivalent— ah no. Also at least in my view the revealer is counterintuitive. Even accepting that dodgy pronunciation, no chants should mean no chants in the answer not the cluing. Otherwise the overall harmony and consistency of the puzzle does not work.

Now that was a real treat. A hard Saturday puzzle to start the weekend off right. Thank you.

While the construction and use of theme were admirable, I felt the puzzle overall was a bit too easy. (I got ELM on my first pass and the theme fell in place from there.) For me the best Thursday puzzles are when I go from “what the heck is going on” to “oh, I now get it, what a clever puzzle!”. And yes I know I’ll be regretting my comment when we get some quadruple rebus monster next Thursday!!

Took me a bit longer than my average. But after what I thought were way too easy puzzles on Friday and Saturday, it was good to have a challenge. Was some of the clueing annoying, for sure, but overall a good way to spend some time this morning!

I really enjoyed this one even though it took me ten minutes more than my average. At least for me, the last few Saturdays have been a bit on the too easy side. So thank you Mr Lieberman for helping me blow away the cobwebs on this Saturday morning!

Fun Tuesday puzzle with the added treat of inspiring my playlist for the rest of the day. And yes, I do have music from each on my phone. Funnily though, I owned albums from each band in the day on the medium of the time: EW&F on vinyl and 8 track (look it up kids), TMBG and RHCP on cassette and GD on CD.

Fairly easy for a Friday, at least for me. The long clues came quickly. My only hold up was on 35 down, as I, thinking myself clever, had initially started 35 across (JOB) with an S rather than a J.

I really liked this one. Not the toughest Saturday imho, but thoroughly enjoyable. The paratha clues and the Bath seat were gimmes for me. I thought at first there was a rare mistake in the 62 across clue. Much of the other clueing went from huh? to ah! Well done!

Good Saturday puzzle. I had a bit of slow start but then finished in good time when I deleted some off the answers from my first pass that I “knew” were absolutely, positively correct: 16 across - SLUSH, 18 across HINDU, 19 across MARS CANALS (which I was especially proud of), and 52 across ROMA. As with writing, in crossword solving sometimes you need to “kill your darlings.”

I thought this was a solid Tuesday puzzle. I was not bothered about the SW corner despite not knowing GOHAM (note to self: try phrase next gym visit), ESME (I was just missing the M, but it’s a fairly popular name here so an easy guess) or BRODY (but I thought it had to be GO something given the clue). What’s this about some baseball tournament? Is it now a real World Series because you’re letting the Canadians play? Cue snarky responses!

Really enjoyed this one. Started with DONER as that was a quick dinner the other night and went from there. Having not attended summer camp in the US or otherwise I started with TWINRACES, which I thought was very clever until it was not! Had GINA for 28 across until I realised that it had to be GENA given the “heavenly” hint in the down clue.