Lisa Cummings

@Rob Richards Your confusion is because the answer to that clue is not "casino," which is not, as you indicate, a portmanteau. The answer is "racino," which is place combining a race track where bets are made and a casino where people gamble. It's "race" combined with "casino" equals "racino."

@Helen Wright I'm hoping the fire to which you refer is in the fireplace and not a reference to the Sunday roast.

@K No - A question mark after a clue indicates there's some kind of a trick to the clue. In this case - "singles" refers to tennis - which can be played in a singles or doubles format. So the solution is the type of surface that a tennis match can be played on - hard, grass, or clay. It's a play on the word "(roof) shingles" -which can be various materials - metal, asphalt, clay, etc.

@Marco Interesting that you found that to be a difficult entry. To me, it was a "gimme," I found it to be a very clever clue. I'm thinking you're too young to know about the infamous 1980 Sugar Ray Leonard/Roberto Durán boxing match. Sugar Ray was really beating up on Durán. Durán quit the match in the eighth round by saying, "No más," which means "no more." That's akin to the English slang word "uncle," meaning "I give up." I immediately knew the answer since I had watched the fight.

@mikeweb A bit is the smallest unit of memory in a computer. It can either be 0 or 1, representing the binary system that all computers rely on. This binary system forms the foundation of all digital data. Other similar terminology: A "nibble" is 4 bits, which is half of a byte. A "byte" is a unit of data that consists of eight bits, and it is used to represent characters like letters, numbers, or symbols in a computer. One byte can store one character, such as "A" or "7." <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-science-fundamentals/understanding-file-sizes-bytes-kb-mb-gb-tb-pb-eb-zb-yb" target="_blank">https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-science-fundamentals/understanding-file-sizes-bytes-kb-mb-gb-tb-pb-eb-zb-yb</a>/

@Chet <a href="https://steadybicyclecompany.com/products/rat-rod-bikes-beach-cruiser-bike-black" target="_blank">https://steadybicyclecompany.com/products/rat-rod-bikes-beach-cruiser-bike-black</a>

@Susy Tucker I was delighted to see a word as contemporary as "ciswoman." OMG - I just got the reference to "GWBush." Clever!

@Pax Ahimsa Gethen - I agree. I understand that that some folks are not comfortable with the concept of gender fluidity (I am NOT one of those), but they shouldn't have an issue with a word being in a crossword puzzle. I'm an atheist, but I don't resent clues/answers that require knowledge of a religious text such as the Christian Bible, Islamic Quran, Jewish Torah, Buddist concepts...

@dutchiris - the note with C plus popped up for everyone upon completion of the puzzle - it didn't represent how you personally did.

@Barry Ancona I'm wigging out over your pun!

@CNS The hippocampus is a structure in the brain: <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/hippocampus" target="_blank">https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/hippocampus</a>

@sotto voce I gotta ask: "emu decoy" - is that just something you made up, or is it actually a phrase?

@Hugh Some spoilers ahead… The title is “next, please.” All the theme answers are common phrases where one letter is changed to the next letter in the alphabet. So “controlled chaos” becomes “controlled chaps;” “that’s so not okay” becomes “that’s so not olay,” etc.

@Bryony Just don't crow about it if it doesn't get deleted.