Kelly

@Petrol So this person made a bet that their dog could talk well enough to correctly answer three questions... "What's on top of a house?" "Roof!" "What's the texture of sandpaper?" "Ruff!" "Who's the greatest baseball player of all time?" "Ruth!" The person they were betting against says, "That's pretty good, but you said correctly answer the questions and there's no way Babe Ruth is the greatest." Takes the money and walks away. Person looks down at their dog, "Buddy, you just cost me fifty bucks." Dog looks back, "Well what did you expect me to say, Mickey Mantle?"

@Responder Internet tells me the vest became an option for older scouts around 2008 and for Brownies in 1993. It makes sense, it's easier for younger kids to keep a vest on if they're running around, and tbh sashes feel pretty antiquated.

@Withnail For me it isn't how long it takes, but simply is it possible without looking tons of things up. Crosses on proper nouns where many letters are plausible in both directions, "what is in my pocket?" type clues (as someone else put it, but encapsulates perfectly how I feel), and a particular menace today: one letter words... OK it is "_ rating" but the only reason that should be B instead of C is the cross... In short, answers that don't leave me thinking "oh of COURSE" so much as just shrugging and moving on. And I'm well aware that an answer to that is simply to learn more trivia, but personally not interested, I prefer the wordplay aspect of things.

@Bill That was what got me, too... A bit rough!

@Laura Stratton If you're 77, you were at least alive for much of the trivia in this puzzle. Like a gas station that was rebranded a quarter of a century ago or a sports match from 70 years ago referenced in a movie from 40 years ago. For anyone younger I wouldn't call it cheating so much as what else do you expect?

@Swift Most Saturdays penciling in my guesses still helps, but this Saturday it was multiple guesses or none at all for most clues...so not so helpful.

@Barry Ancona I wonder if more people gave up quickly and reached for a search engine. l was convinced the bottom was an impossible mix of trivia I didn't know and clues that were too vague...but I did eventually figure it out, in a slower than average time for me. If I'd reached for a search engine when I thought it was impossible then it would have been much faster than average.

@DIVAS IVLIVS I had trouble seeing past SPAM or JUNK... Doesn't help that most things can autopay these days, I almost never see an actual bill.