Anna

Another fun Erik Agard puzzle! This fell into place quite quickly for me, even if I was a bit worried on my first pass. A long quote and two Hollywood father and child clues… It could have gotten tricky for me, but the crosses were quite lenient for me. And naturally I gotta acknowledge 15D. Suomi mainittu, torille! (=Finland mentioned, to the market place!) Finns, stereotypically at least, gather to the market place to celebrate winning the ice hockey championship or other such things, so “torille” has become kind of a funny meme people say when something remarkable happens. In Helsinki the gathering place is the statue of Havis Amanda, and after the statue was restored, the city built a mobile wall to place around the statue. The wall is brought out when it looks like Finland might win in ice hockey, because people used to climb the statue and swim in the fountain.

I was a little worried looking at the empty grid, with the triple stack of grid spanners, but I ended up finishing in less than half of my Saturday average. I absolutely love the occasional super easy Saturday. It makes me feel myself so smart! 🤓

I finished in almost half of my Saturday average, which surprised me greatly. I struggled a lot to get going, but after I did, it all fell into place smoothly. I just watched How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for the first time ever a few days ago, so it was fun to see it mentioned in the puzzle. I also just learned the word tallow a little while ago while checking out bird names in English, and it felt serendipitous to run into the word here again. I learned lots of new things today, which always makes me happy! The last letter to fill was the 52 square. Off to research what 52D is. And what the difference between tallow and suet is. The things crosswords make me ponder… Thank you for the puzzle!

This was such a great puzzle and an extremely enjoyable solve! I struggled a little at first, but after I got going, everything fell into place in such a pleasant way and in less than half of my Saturday average. The top middle section was the hardest for me, but once I managed to find 21A rolling around in my brain, I got the poet and that cracked the problematic nook. Huzzah, what an excellent start to a sunny day!

Fun, but very easy for a Saturday. I got a new Saturday PB with solving very leisurely while watching a space documentary on TV. Moons of Jupiter are fascinating. Lots of trivia, cultural tidbits and proper nouns I didn’t know, but the crosses were very generous, so I never really got stuck. I feel so smart now! 37A went on my reading list. I love learning and discovering something new in almost every puzzle I solve.

What a pleasant solve for a rainy Saturday morning! It wasn’t that hard but still gave me a good workout in places. I was delighted to see 1A and 16A, they took me right back to childhood. I got 1A immediately, but had to rattle the old brain for a while to remember 16A. I love finding out the odd bits and bobs of information my brain has retained, like in this case the real name of the turtle guys. A word I’ve definitely not used in decades.

Nice and easy! I thought it’s Saturday today, and thought it was an extremely easy puzzle for a Saturday. Turns out it’s actually Friday, but it was still quite easy for an end of the week puzzle. Re: 33A, I just learned to make a dog last week!