Mary

I enjoy a hard puzzle when the clues are clever but some of these clues just don't make alot of sense or are just not clever. BLACK HEART, I do think is tough and clever when you figure it out. But BAD THING for DEMERIT to me is not at all clever.

So weird. I am not a fan of the CORNER / TREE clue. I get it but it's a little clunky, if you ask me. I don't recall ever seeing it before. I was just doing a puzzle from the archive, July 26, 1997, and the same clue is in that puzzle. I do love when these coincidences happen!

Agree that it was challenging but disagree that the clues were trivia or obscure. They were just hard! Just because you don't know something doesn't make it obscure!

I have been going through puzzles in the archives from 1990s and IMO they were much harder then. Many obscure clues and clues that just don't seem to make sense, the kind require a few clunky leaps of logic. Today's felt like one of those. And MERER? Just no.

This is one of those puzzles where you can complete it without figuring out the theme. I always wonder what the point is. Oh well.

Isn't a NAPE more a kitten's handle for the mother, rather than vice versa? I guess I'm just splitting (cat) hairs.

Should the clue "Talk to shrilly" be "too" instead of "to"? Otherwise I don't understand the clue.

I still don't see how "Makes fast" means "secures" and thus TIES.