Monday, December 12, 2022
Well, well, well.
Achoo. Flu season has finally got to me and my nose is redder than Rudolph. A nice hot bowl of soup, several cups of hot chai and one crossword later, I feel a tad bit better than last night. I guess. Well, here's my latest midi, a nice little 11x11 grid that made me feel a little warmer on the inside with the satisfaction of having constructed a themed puzzle that is not a mini, and albeit the theme is pretty straightforward, I tried my best to make the clues interesting.
I was aiming for a mid-week difficulty and while the theme pattern is pretty Monday-esque, I reckon the cluing and filler entries may make up for the simple theme.
Tricky Clues
I tried to avoid as much crossword-ese as I could and the more obscure entries should be fillable using crossings.
12A: BRENT Musburger is the sportscaster we are looking for. Interestingly, he starred in Pixar's Cars as Brent Mustangburger, the (no prizes for guessing) sportscasting old-timer Mustang in the Cars universe.
29A: A, here refers to a CHORD even amateur musicians would be familiar with. Personally, I like the A chord. It's easy to play and has a nice ring to it.
7D: While most Disney movies are animated, they are also RATED G, though there are exceptions: 2020 lacklustre Mulan was the first Disney live-action with a PG 13 rating.
8D: Crosswords from the 90s featured Lucine AMARA pretty frequently, and its incidence has reduced a lot in recent times. This was the bit of crossword glue that rescued my north-east corner.
34A: Mary Jane is a street name of marijuana, and so is SESS. I had heard a bunch of other names but SESS was new to me.
The Theme
I did not feel particularly pleased to put the revealer in the very first entry, but I don't really mind.
The theme entries are UNDERCOVER, SIREN SONG, and APGAR SCORE, and the ends of all of these, COVER, SONG and SCORE, also happen to relate to pieces of music that one might listen to on an IPOD, but who uses IPODs anymore?
-- Priya
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