Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Thursday, May 24 - Patrick Merrell

When I see long theme answers, like we have today, I usually end up working a lot of downs to get some idea where they're going.

These were definitely looking strange...

17A: DDD
41A: HHHH
62A: KKKKKKKKKK

Not that I had all of them, of course. But enough to wonder what was up. And what was up was:

17A: "Creature From the Black Lagoon," e.g. (DDD monster movie)

41A: Gathering of budding agriculturists (HHHH Club meeting)

62A: Some running competitions (KKKKKKKKKK races)

Initially, I thought that 62A would be KKKKK. Since we had three, then four, I just assumed the next one would be five. So much for assuming.

Who doesn't love gimmes? I especially love the longer ones, like 15A: Site of an annual auto hill climb (Pike's Peak) and its symmetrical correspondent 69A: City of Indiana or Louisiana (Lafayette).

With the 10K and Pike's Peak, the letter K appeared 18 times in this puzzle. 5D: "The Greatest Generation" author (Brokaw), shared his with 19A: One trying to stay up while going down (skier). Clever clue, by the way. Some others were:

1A: Food that's stuck on a plate (kebab), with 1D: Western moniker (Kid)

18D: Jefferson site (nickel) with 30A: Attention-getting haircut (Mohawk)

39A: Canon rival (Nikon) and 27D: Two-piece suits? (bikini). Happy to see it clued without reference to waxing.

A scrabbly X in the grid as well. 51D: People in a crowd, maybe (extras) and 54A: Controversial 1767 act of Parliament (tea tax).

Liked the clever clue at 64D: Restaurant with wings (KFC).

Did not know 21D: Old wine vessel (amphora). Must remember, as it will probably come back some time.

The award for the funniest-looking word in the puzzle goes to 22D: Bigwig (Poohbah). That always reminds me of The Flintstones.

61D: Bed, slangily (sack) reminds me that I need to hit it early tonight.

Enjoy your Thursday. The weekend's almost here.

Linda G

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a skier, so the clever clue was much appreciated. And thanks, Linda, for a definitely female blog on crosswords. Much appreciated. -s

DONALD said...

Orange thought 19A, the skier clue, was salacious. See lively discussion in Rex blog Comments!

Linda G said...

Welcome, anonymous skier. Even though I live in Colorado, I'm not one. I tried to be, but something was missing...maybe several things. Now I'm too old and beat up to even think about it. I do enjoy cross country skiing, but that's out of the picture until my bum shoulder is healed, surgically or otherwise : (

As for the salaciousness of the clue, it sailed by me completely.