Rainman

I don’t think I’m the only one but I spent a extra 10 minutes on this fine Tuesday puzzle because I started 43 across with an O rather than an E.

Good Monday, just the right level of difficulty. One complaint on this and prior puzzles is the clue at 34 Cross (opposite of NWN). Maybe clueing this as “direction from (some location) to (another location)” or something more non-obvious would be better. I don’t mind a gimme here and there but a giveaway detracts from the enjoyment.

I am a relatively new solver who can do Monday through Wednesday puzzles without help, and do the other days using check when necessary. As I was trying to do today’s puzzle I kept thinking how can anyone do this without help. My hat is off to all of you out there that were successful today. I had to turn on auto check after I got about four clues on my own. Even with auto check on it still took me an hour to finish this puzzle. My hope has been that maybe I will improve enough to be able to do Friday and Saturday puzzles without help. I have gotten better over the last few years, solving on occasion a Thursday and one time a Sunday. But after attempting this Saturday puzzle I don’t think that I will ever do one without help. There are just too many clues where I have no idea what the solution is. This puzzle especially…

Tough puzzle but I was able to finish with the help of several checks. Seems to me there were a lot (16) of answers with the letter U in them. Anyone else notice that?

Just finished this Friday puzzle now, with a little help. I had trouble with 26D as sort is not an excel function, it is an excel command under the Data menu.