Gareth
Bangkok
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Bangkok
šššš Oh yes! That was a Saturday! That feeling when you know for a fact that there are heaps of clues youāll never get and your weekend is ruined, then you slowly chip away andā¦ it ever so slowly comes together. The anticipation of entering the last letter and hoping youāll hear the tune and not the withering āalmost there..ā messageā¦ Now Iām in a good mood!
Hmmmā¦ bit disappointed to be honestā¦ I like a challenge on a Saturday and this just felt like a āfill in the boxesā Wednesdayā¦ what am I gonna do for the next half hour? And the screw/nail clue was just crass and vulgarā¦
That was great!! So challenging but rewarding to finish it. Maggie Simpsonā¦. Aaarrgh! Got me for an age.
Quite an easy Saturday. The Springbok clue was helped by the fact that Iām driving through Etosha in Namibia right now and theyāre everywhere! š
I think I deserve an awardā¦ I managed to complete that while on a 30 hour ferry ride between Borneo and Java with a lousy cover band tunelessly blasting out Indonesian songs beside meā¦
Not sure what I think of this one. If youāre a regular player youāll find it easier due to ERR, TKO, which come up often enough. I liked LATTE. I also quite liked QUIDPROQUO despite the negative comments. I read BOOS as being as a plural for a term of endearment hence SWEETIEPIES so, though it frustrated me, I quite liked that too. Too many obscure peoplesā names thoughā¦ thatās annoying.
Crikey! I asked for a Saturday and really got a Saturday! Tough tough tough but so much more gratifying to solve as a result. For anyone at the NYT reading ā¦ this is what a Saturday is supposed to be like.
Now THAT was a Saturdayā¦ thank you. I was definitely going nowhere for a good 15 minutesā¦ so satisfying to trawl through it in the end. I had ALLOW for the second part of āput up withā n was stuck trying to think of an opposite for DISALLOWā¦ Anywayā¦ loved it and a nice way to start the weekend.
Interesting puzzle. I didnāt like āseized with the teethā as ābit offā thoughā¦.it doesnāt imply or mean that at all; to me thatās more like āgrippingā ā¦ anyhoo, other than that, quite clever.
Hmmmā¦. A sorta challenge but not massively so. As a Brit Iād take issue with two answers. Cockahoop is waaay more ecstatic than gladā¦. Itās dancing in the street and popping champagne cos you just got into university or won a car, whereas āgladā is āIām glad your washing machine is working nowā. āChapā is not a word Iāve ever used to describe a friend unless I was born a hundred years ago, maybe the constructor has been reading too many Somerset Maugham novels! š
That was really good šš I stayed far too long on LIFEBOAT. As a Brit, I have to say Iāve never heard of a PAN LOAF thoughā¦
Loved it! A perfect Saturdayā¦. Difficult, challenging but made it in the endā¦. A tough and enjoyable 50 odd minutes.
That was a good Saturday. As I often find them, really difficult to start but get a foot in the door and youāre off!
Easy peasyā¦. The Wales clue was straightforward as Iām doing the puzzle in a cafe in Cardiff!
Todayās (1st feb) Saturday was so frustratingly easyā¦ I always look forward to Saturday as a challenge but now it seems to me itās on a Wednesday/Thursday level and has been dumbing down in recent monthsā¦. Toughen it up a bit!
@Andrzej no no I would never look down on anyone!! I hope it didnāt come across that way! That wasnāt my intentionā¦ as I said my personal feeling is that when I have to look an answer (which I do) then Iāve failedā¦ sure, might have learned something but, for me, I cheated. Iām certainly not elitistā¦ some of these posted PBs are way faster than I could ever do.
That was a better Friday (even if the TREES clue escaped from a Monday puzzle).
Really enjoyed that! Tough and I had nothing for a while. Lots of American stuff that I didnāt know but so satisfying to finally slog it to completion. I had āin horrorā for a while which held me up for a bitā¦ Good puzzle.
@Beth in Greenbelt indeed! Largely based around Conradās Heart of Darkness; the title of Graham Greeneās Power and the Glory obliquely referenced this, then Apocalypse Now borrowed some of it too! Such a good poem.
@Nora As a ānot too bad but not greatā pianist Iāve learned a lot over the years chatting with seriously good musicians how often the āinstructionsā on a given piece are interpreted very very broadly, and that they should be. Play the right notes in the right order at generally the right tempo and do what you like them! Itās amazing to listen to ten different, say, Chopin nocturnes played by ten different pianists and to observe how utterly different they sound.
Whatās the protocol here? I read comments on people completing a puzzle in such and such a time āonly having to look upā this and that. For me if Iām so stuck that I have to resort to looking up an answer, which occasionally happens with a Saturday, I deem myself to have not completed it. Iād feel a fraud claiming success having resorted to what I think is cheating (well, what IS cheating), but maybe thatās just meā¦
Oooff that was hardā¦ serve me right for criticising some recently for being too easy ! And Iāve never heard of a Zarf!
Enjoyed thatā¦. Breezed through the top right section thanks to SWIT but struggled on the bottom right and top leftā¦. Got there in the endā¦ an hourā¦ felt like a Saturday crossword!
Serious question to the NYT: Does ETSY pay you to have their store mentioned every other week in the crossword? So tiresome, clumsy and obvious. Iād never heard of ETSY until I started doing these which I guess is the point.
Why does a feast have to be meaty? Have I missed something??
Quite the challenge! Never heard of turduckenā¦ looks awful. As for ādesertā, itās defined by lack of rain not heat. The Antarctic is a desert, and it aināt hot there!
Crikey! Thatāll teach me to moan at how easy Saturdays have been latelyā¦ but agree with other postersā¦ too much obscurity hereā¦ Blow dry bar??? Hey anybody?? Not clever, just clumsy and often nonsensicalā¦
Tough tough tough!! Some of those I never would have got. Hate having to cheat!! š©š©
Great puzzle!! Really tricky especially the top left corner for meā¦. Took me a good while but felt so satisfying to nail it! šš
Database/bankā¦ sneaky!! šš
That was difficult! What a Friday should beā¦ it was the bottom right that killed me and I have to admit to a DNF as I had to look a couple up down there š© but a proper Friday it was šš
@Speede itās the game ātruth or dareā
Ouch! Tough but got there in the end and it felt soooo good! You enter your last letter and wait for what feels like an eternity willing the jingle to play! I get that itās a NYT puzzle but I think many puzzlers are international so fewer local sporting clues would be nice, just in generalā¦ pretty please??
@Andrzej I almost crashed my car looking at that Wonderbra adā¦. š
Hmmmā¦ dunnoā¦ largely too obviousā¦. A 3 letter fighter is always going to be ALI and a Hollywood icon Davis is most likely to be BETTE. Maybe Iām just too used to the style of the cluesā¦ I did get stuck on WALDO for RANDO (which I think sorta fits the clues) and was stuck on SALES for SPIEL for a bitā¦
My fastest Saturday ever!! Yay me! PEDIATRICIANS was my āinā (mentally having to remove the A, being a Brit), and it all seemed to roll on nicely from there āŗļø I thought the lah-di-dah was a ābit Wednesdayā thoughā¦
Tough tough but on the whole enjoyableā¦ SNEES never heard of n was wondering if it should be EPEES as I had the two āEās ā¦. Itās weird to have the Mondayesque clue of KINGSIZE in an otherwise quite tough solve. SCHMEAR was annoying. WAYFARER was nice as WANDERER was the obvious answer. Enjoyed thisā¦ on the whole š
@Vaer agree with the cavern confusion. As a dentist, I thought the ātutā was a judgemental click on poor oral hygieneā¦ I need to get out more. Otherwise quite straightforward.
Not sure what I thinkā¦ some easy, some impossible if youāre not localā¦ think I wouldāve finished in 20 minutes if I were American. Karate lessons was great as was Here be dragons.
@Lars oh man! Didnāt get that sighting! š
@Sonja Exactly!! Brian is a rock guitarist (who I had the privilege to meet at a taxi rank in Edinburgh once and I gallantly gave him my cab)ā¦ eno is a pioneer but not a ārockerāā¦
That was tough for me! But so rewarding to completeā¦. Please more Saturdays like this but not another OREO clueā¦. So tediousā¦ how much do they pay NYT for this regular placement??? As an aside, can we have a Billy Joel themed clue by way of an apology for the NYT shamefully omitting him from the top 30 American songwritersā¦.
@Richard agreeā¦ the schmears was downright annoyingā¦ My final wordā¦ āschā I thought I was looking at a brand name. MUNSHI is new to me but HAREMS i was familiar with.
I think nerd cred for solving a Saturday used to be a thing, not so much nowā¦ itās been so dumbed downā¦ compare this to the Saturdays of 5-10 years agoā¦
ENTRANCE and TREES on a Saturday puzzle??? Such weak cluesā¦ thought it was Mondayā¦
Thought it was gonna be easy but turned out tough, enjoyably so though. Thank God Count Chocula didnāt make it to UK š¤¢ ā¦healthy way to start the day kids! As for ANTE, it features so often in the NYT crossword, do the compilers have a collective gambling problem??!
A card is not necessarily an indicator of a penalty in āfootballā (thatās the gameās name btw).
ENO makes an almost unhealthy amount of appearances in the NYT crosswordā¦ itās annoying. Does he know about this!?!