Quicklinks:
The full solution to today’s crossword that appears in the New York Times
The full solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword that appears in all other publications
THEME: Risky Business … all the theme answers contain a word related to gambling, and each answer sounds like a well-known expression, name etc. e.g OTB IN ENGLAND (“Oh, to be in England”), HOLD ‘EM CAULFIELD (Holden Caulfield), CRAPS SUZETTE (Crepe Suzette) etc.
COMPLETION TIME: 52m 59s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … SUE ANE (SUERNE!), LEBEAU (LEBERU!)
Across
In India, a house that was in the Bengali style, was called in Hindi a “bangla”, which came into English as “bungalow”. The original bungalows were humble buildings, single-story with thatched roofs (or “rooves” as the Colonials would say!) and a veranda at the front. Later, the British built very elaborate bungalows, and then even later, the term was brought back to the British Isles, where it was used to describe a more modest home. Today, a bungalow is simply a single-story, family dwelling.
Figure skates differ from hockey skates in the front of the blade has a jagged edge called a “toe pick”. The toe pick is used when jumping to help lift the skater off the ice.
18. One of the Three B’s : BACH
The “Three Bs” of classical music are Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Like so many of the great composers, the extent of Bach’s contribution to the repertoire was only fully recognized long after his passing. Johann Sebastian Bach was undoubtedly the greatest composer of the Baroque period, and is ranked by many as the greatest classical composer of all time.
Johann Sebastian Bach raised a very musical family. He had four sons who became famous musicians in their own right. They were:
– Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (aka “the Halle Bach:)
– Carl Philipp Bach (aka “the Hamburg Bach”)
– Johann Chrisptoph Bach (aka “the Buckeberg Bach”)
– Johann Christian Bach (aka “the London Back”)
19. Friend of Hamlet : HORATIO
Horatio is a character in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, a friend of the play’s hero and a relatively uninterested party in the intrigue of the storyline. As a trusted friend, Horatio serves as a sounding board for Hamlet, allowing us in the audience to gain more insight into Hamlet’s thinking and character as we listen to the two in conversation.
The Sundance film festival is the largest independent film event in the country, and takes place every year around the Sundance Resort near Provo, Utah. The festival has its roots in the Utah/US Film Festival which started in Salt Lake City in 1978. Management of the festival was taken over by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in 1985. The festival has became a bit of a media feeding frenzy in recent years, as a lot of A-list celebrities attend. The Festival organizers introduced a “Focus on Film” campaign in 2007 to try to offset some of the madness.
22. London-based place to play the ponies? : OTB IN ENGLAND
“Oh, to be in England”.
Off-Track Betting is the legal gambling that takes place on horse races outside of a race track. A betting parlor can be referred to as an OTB.
24. Firm part : ATTORNEY
In the US, the noun “firm” tends to mean an incorporated business partnership between two or more people. As such, we often refer to “law firms”.
25. Street bordering New York’s Stuyvesant Town : AVENUE C
Stuyvesant Town is a large, residential area on the East Side of Manhattan. It is named after Peter Stuyvesant, a leader of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, who owned a farm on the same site as the current development. The locals today often call the area “Stuy Town”.
“To an Athlete Dying Young” is a moving poem that appears in the cycle of poems called “A Shropshire Lad” written by English poet A. A. Housman. The verse is often used as a lament when remembering young people who are lost in their prime. Meryl Streep’s character recites the poem as a eulogy in the 1986 film “Out of Africa”. More famously perhaps, Jim McKay recited it at the closing of the 1972 Munich Olympics to commemorate the Israeli athletes killed in the terrorist attack at the Games. The opening stanzas are:
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town …
The game of Scrabble has been around since 1938, the invention of an architect named Alfred Moshoer Butts. Butts determined the optimum number of tiles of each letter, and the appropriate point value of each tile, by analyzing letter distributions in publications like “The New York Times” …
29. Laughing : RIANT
“Riant” is such a lovely word, I think, meaning cheerful, laughing and full of mirth. “Riant” comes into English directly from French, the past participle of “rire” meaning “to laugh”.
30. J. D. Salinger character’s favorite game? : HOLD ‘EM CAULFIELD
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the main character in J. D. Salinger’s 1951 novel, “The Catcher in the Rye”. Salinger had used the same character in a short story called “Slight Rebellion off Madison” that was published in 1946 in “The New Yorker”. Caulfield must have been a real favorite, as he appeared even earlier in the short story “I’m Crazy” in published in “Colliers” at Christmas 1945.
John Daly is a golfer with the nickname “Long John”, as he really knows how to get distance off the tee. He has the reputation of a wild man on the circuit, and perhaps that’s why he has a drink named after him. A “John Daly” is the same as the non-alcoholic “Arnold Palmer”, with lemonade and iced tea, but the “Daly” has vodka added.
39. Asian royalty : RANEES
A ranee (also spelled rani) is the female equivalent of a raja in India.
44. Like Nasser’s movement : PAN-ARAB
Gamal Abdel Nasser was the second president of Egypt, from 1956 until he died in 1970. He had stood alongside Muhammad Naguib, Egypt’s first president, during the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew the ruling monarchy of Egypt and Sudan. Nasser was an advocate of Pan-Arabism, an ideology promoting unification of Arab peoples and countries. President Nasser went so far as forming the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union between Egypt and Syria that started in 1958, but fell apart in 1961 when Syria withdrew.
48. Game played with dice set on fire? : CRAPS SUZETTE
Crêpe Suzette
Crêpe Suzette has to be my favorite dessert, although I haven’t dared to eat it in a long time. If you haven’t tried it before, you just have to indulge yourself when you get the chance. It is a pancake served with a sauce of caremelized sugar and butter, with orange juice and Grand Marnier, brought to your table with the alcohol flaming spectacularly.
If one considers earlier versions of craps, then the game has been around a very long time, and probably dates back to the Crusades. It may have been derived from an old English game called “hazard”, also played with two dice, which was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” from the 1300s. The American version of the game came into the country via the French and first set root in New Orleans, where it was given the name “crapaud”, A French word meaning “toad”.
52. “Mad Men” actor Hamm : JON
If you haven’t seen the AMC show “Mad Men” then I urge you to go buy the first season on DVD
Nena is a German singer (Nena became the name of her band as well), and she had a big hit with one of my favorite songs of the eighties, “99 Luftballons” (or the version she recorded in English: “99 Red Balloons”). The English translation of the title isn’t literal, with the color “red” added just so that the title had the right number of syllables. A “Luftballon” is the name given to a child’s toy balloon in German.
55. Short and detached, in mus. : STAC
Staccato is a musical direction, signifying that notes should be played in a disconnected form. The opposite of staccato would be legato, long and continuous notes played very smoothly.
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano, now retired from the stage, working behind the scenes as a successful opera director. Amongst all the accolades for her performances, Scotto did once have to deal with a hostile audience. In 1974 she was singing Eleni in Verdi’s “I Vespri Siciliani” when a clique of Maria Callas fans continuously called out “Maria, Maria” and “Brava, Callas”. Maria Callas was actually in a box, watching Scotto perform, and refused to acknowledge the interruption. At the end of the opera, Callas rose graciously and led a standing ovation of Ms. Scotto.
59. One-third of a game win : TAC
When I was growing up in Ireland, we played “noughts and crosses” … our name for tic-tac-toe.
62. Libido : EROS
Sigmund Freud believed that we humans are driven by two desires, the desire for life (the libido, or Eros) and the desire for death (Thanatos). Personally, I don’t think so …
64. One-armed bandits? : SLOTS OF LUCK
Lots of luck!
66. Arabian Peninsula native : ADENI
Aden is a seaport in Yemen, located on the Gulf of Aden, by the eastern approach to the Red Sea. Aden has a long history of British rule, from 1838, until a very messy withdrawal in 1967. A native of Aden is known as an Adeni.
68. Sideways on a ship : ABEAM
The beam is the widest part of a vessel. Something pointed out as lying “abeam” is something that it is 90 degrees from a line through the bow and the stern, in other words, off to the right or the left.
Pamplona is famous for its San Fermin festival held in July every year, the highlight of which is the Running of the Bulls. Every year, 200-300 people are injured in the bull run, and 15 people have been killed since 1910. If you get to Pamplona two days before the Running of the Bulls, you can see the animal-rights protest event known as the Running of the Nudes. The protesters are as naked as the bulls …
71. Relative of a bingo caller? : KENO SPEAKER
Keynote speaker
The name “Keno” has French or Latin roots, with the French “quine” being a term for five winning numbers, and the Latin “quini” meaning “five each”. The game, however, originated in China. It was introduced to the West by Chinese immigrants who were working on the first Transcontinental Railroad in the 1800s.
Anne McCaffrey is an American science-fiction author, famous for her “Dragonriders of Pern” series of novels. McCaffrey emigrated to Ireland in 1970, and lives in a house of her own design in County Wicklow. She calls her home “Dragonhold-Underhill”.
80. Antiquity, quaintly : ELD
“Eld” is an archaic term for old age, and antiquity.
“Tuesday’s with Morrie” is a novel by Mitch Albom, first published in 1997. The story is a work of non-fiction, telling the tale of sociologist Morrie Schwartz and his students, one of whom is the author, Mitch Albom. Albom has frequent visits with his old professor when he discovers that Morrie is dying from ALS.
82. Losing tribe in the Beaver Wars : ERIE
The Beaver Wars fought in the middle of the 1600s were the result of the Iroquois expanding their territory in the northeastern part of North America. The Iroquois were largely incited to take such steps by their trading partners, the Dutch and English, who profited from the gains in territory. On the losing side of the expansion were the Huron, Neutral, Erie and Susquehannock tribes.
84. Psychologist LeShan : EDA
Eda LeShan wrote “When Your Child Drives You Crazy”, and was host of the television show “How Do Your Children Grow?” on PBS.
The crumhorn is a woodwind instrument that was very popular during the Renaissance. The name comes from the German “Krumhorn” meaning “bent horn”, which adequately describes the instrument’s shape, somewhat like the letter “J”. As it is a woodwind, the sound is produced by blowing air past a reed, in fact a double-reed in the case of a crumhorn.
Burt Bacharach
Composer and pianist Burt Bacharach had an incredible run of hits from the fifties through the eighties, usually working with lyricist Hal David. Bacharach’s hits ranged from “Magic Moments”, a fifties hit for Perry Como, “Close to You”, a sixties hit for the Carpenters, and “Arthur’s Theme”, a hit for Christopher Cross in the seventies. Bacharach was married to Angie Dickinson for fifteen years.
Burt Reynolds is famous for playing the “Bandit” in “Smokey and the Bandit”, and Lewis Medlock in “Deliverance”, but his critically acclaimed performance was as Jack Horner in the 1997 movie “Boogie Nights”. Off the screen he was quite the man around town, romantically linked to the likes of Tammy Wynette, Lucie Arnaz (daughter of Lucille Ball), Sally Field, Dinah Shore and Chris Evert. He was married to Judy Carne, as well as Loni Anderson.
Baccarat, in all of its three variants, is a relatively simple casino card game. But it looks so cool when it is played on screen by James Bond, 007, his favored game of chance. Banco!
95. Poe’s “rare and radiant maiden” : LENORE
“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allen Poe, and tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters his bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word, “nevermore”. As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore” …
99. Actress Langdon : SUE ANE
Sue Ane Langdon is a retired actress, a winner of Golden Globe for her supporting role in the TV show “Arnie”. She also had a brief stint playing Alice Kramden, the wife of Jackie Gleason in “The Honeymooners”.
101. ___ ghanouj : BABA
Baba ghanoush (also baba ghannouj) is an Arab dish with the main ingredient of mashed eggplant. It is sometimes served as a dip.
Don’t rule it out
I know this is regarded as sacrilege by many, but I am not a big fan of “Monty Python”. If I had to choose one of their movies that I quite enjoyed, it would be “Life of Brian”. It’s a very satirical and irreverent piece though, so not something for everyone. It was banned in many countries, and even earned itself an X-rating in the UK (hard to do!). But the folks marketing the film used it to their advantage, using an advertising tag line of, “So funny it was banned in Norway!”
Igor has been the assistant to Dracula, Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein, among others. He is almost invariably portrayed as a hunchback.
I am an unapologetic fan of ABBA’s music. ABBA was of course the Swedish group that topped the charts in the seventies and eighties. The name ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of the given names of each of the band members, namely: Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid.
112. Arriviste : UPSTART
An arriviste is a pushy, ambitious person. The word “arriviste” is French, from the verb “arriver” meaning “to arrive”. The idea is that an arriviste is an upstart, someone intent on “arriving” in society.
114. Split personality? : CROATIAN
After WWII, Croatia was part of Yugoslavia and remained so until 1991 when it declared independence as the troubled country of Yugoslavia began to split into disparate parts.
But, as someone kindly pointed out in a comment below, the reference in the clue it the city of Split in Croatia, the second-largest city in the country.
118. Pot with a pile of chips? : STAKE PLATTER
Steak platter
A pergola looks somewhat like a gazebo in structure, but it is an open walkway, with vines trained up the sides and over the top. “Pergola” ultimately derives from the Latin “pergula”, the word for a covered eave.
Radio Disney is mainly a music radio station, aimed at young people. It was launched in 1996, and is still going today. One nice feature, I think, is “Playhouse Disney” aired on weekdays. Although Playhouse Disney features music, it goes beyond that with stories, interviews and question & answer sessions.
Down
2. 8-Down’s home : LATVIA
Latvia is one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics. People from Latvia are called Letts.
Ally McBeal is a very successful television show that aired from 1997 to 2002. It starred Calista Flockhart as Ally McBeal, a successful lawyer. I must admit, I never watched it …
4. Climb, as a rope : SHINNY UP
One can shinny up a rope, grasping it between one’s legs, squeezing it between the “shin” of one leg and the calf of the other.
6. Big gun : HONCHO
A honcho is a slang term for a leader or manager. It comes to us from Japanese, where a “hancho” is a squad (han) leader (cho).
The Iguazu River runs through both Brazil and Argentina. It empties into the larger Parana River at the point where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay join, a location known as the Triple Frontier. The Upper and Lower Iguazu is separated by the Iguazu Falls, a magnificent waterfall often featured in movies. You might remember the waterfall scenes in “The Mission”, “Moonraker” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.
Mikhail Tal was truly a chess legend. He holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competition chess. And the second longest winning streak, well, that was by Tal as well.
9. L overseer : CTA
The Chicago “L” is the second largest rapid transit system in the US, with the New York City Subway being the largest. It is also the second oldest, again with the New York Subway system having the honor of being the oldest. Note that the official nickname for the system is the “L”, although the term “El” is also in common use. (especially in crossswords as “ELS”). The L is managed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
12. Mich. neighbor : ONT
The state of Michigan and the province of Ontario are neighbors.
13. Capital until 1868 : EDO
Edo is the former name of the Japanese capital city of Tokyo. Edo was the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime that ruled from 1603 until 1868.
The navel is basically a scar left behind when the umbilical cord is removed from a newborn baby. One interesting use of the umbilicus (navel, belly button) is to differentiate between identical twins, especially when they are very young.
20. N.B.A. star nicknamed the Candy Man : ODOM
Lamar Odom is a basketball forward playing for the LA Lakers. Apparently Odom loves candy, and that’s how he earned his nickname, “The Candy Man”.
21. World capital almost 1 1/2 miles above sea level : SANAA
Sana (also Sanaa) is the capital city of Yemen. Within the bounds of today’s metropolis is the old fortified city of Sana, where people have lived for over 2,500 years. The Old City is now a World Heritage Site.
José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican painter famous for his themed murals, often promoting the causes of the peasants and the workers. His most famous work is probably a fresco painted in the Library of Dartmouth College, called “The Epic of American Civilization”.
33. Effort : DINT
A “dint” is an effort or power, as in “he made it by dint of hard work”. “By dint of” is new to me, but it has been around since the early 1300s. I must have been out that day …
I was tempted to take a look at the TV drama “Lost” when it was airing, as the premise sounded intriguing. I have to respect the producers and writers for the level of intrigue and loyalty that they were able to engender, but I’m glad I skipped it. I heard a lot of people expressing frustration at the outcome when the last episode aired in May 2010.
43. Rock band with an inventor’s name : TESLA
Nikola Tesla was born in Serbia, but later moved the US. His work on mechanical and electrical engineering was crucial to the development of alternating current technology, used by equipment that is at the backbone of modern power generation and distribution systems.
Tesla is a hard rock band formed just down the road here, in Sacramento, California.
46. Tropical menace : ANACONDA
Anacondas are native to the tropical regions of South America. The green anaconda is one of the world’s largest snakes, growing to 17 feet long and weighing up to 215 pounds! Anacondas are not venomous, and prefer to kill their prey by coiling around it and crushing it.
You might hear a roadster referred to as a spyder (or spider). It’s a two-seater car, without a roof, side or rear windows. They’ve been around forever, a design used for many early cars.
49. Seven-line poem : RONDELET
A rondelet is a French form of poetry. It is similar to a rondel, a longer form of verse.
51. Bygone geographical inits. : UAR
The UAR, United Arab Republic, was a union between Egypt and Syria, made in 1958 and dissolved in 1961 when Syria pulled out of the arrangement.
Yoko Ono was born into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the Emperors of Japan. Her father moved around the world for work, so she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, then moved onto New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to be living in Tokyo at the time of the great fire-bombing of 1945. Immediately after the war, the family was far from prosperous. While her father was being held in a concentration camp in Vietnam, Yoko’s mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. But, when her father returned, life started to return to normal. Yoko was able to attend university, the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin Univeristy.
Hector Hugh Munro was a British writer, actually born in Burma. He was most famous for his short stories, which he published using the pen name “Saki”. His most well-known story is “The Open Window”, which ends with the line “Romance at short notice was her specialty”.
64. Talk to the flock: Abbr. : SER
A pastor might deliver a sermon to his or her flock.
69. Former Buffalo Bills great Don : BEEBE
Don Beebe is a former wide receiver who played for the Buffalo Bills, the Carolina Panthers and the Green Bay Packers. Beebe is remembered for a play in the Super Bowl XXVII playing for the Bills against the Cowboys. A Cowboys defensive tackle was celebrating as he approached the end zone after recovering a Bills fumble, with the ball held outstretched as he ran past the 10-yard line. Beebe appeared out of nowhere and knocked the ball out of his hand before he could score.
Daryl Hall & John Oates are a pop music duo, most successful in the late seventies and early eighties. They had six number one hits, including the 1982 release “Maneater”.
73. 1974 top 10 hit whose title means “You Are” : ERES TU
We have a big event across Europe every year called the Eurovision Song Contest. Each nation enters one song in competition with each other, and then voters across the whole continent decide on the winner. That’s how ABBA got their big break, as they were Sweden’s entry debuting their song “Waterloo”. In 1972, Spain’s entry was “Eres tu” sung by the band Mocedades. “Eres tu” is the Spanish for “you are”. It is a great song, that came in second but should have won, in my humble opinion.
Dick LeBeau is considered by many to be one of the football’s greatest defensive coordinators. He is currently on the staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
77. The Altar : ARA
The Ara Paci Augustae, the Altar of Augustan Peace, is often just called the Ara or Ara Pacis. It is an altar that was commissioned by the Roman Senate to honor the return of Caesar Augustus after his conquests in Hispania and Gaul. It stood at the northern outskirts of Rome, and over the centuries was covered by silt as it was located in the flood plain of the river Tiber. It was excavated and much of the altar recovered over recent centuries, although as usual, parts of the altar have found their way into the major museums around the world. Much of the altar was reconstructed and placed inside a protective building under the orders of dictator Benito Mussolini in 1938. A new building was built to house the altar in 2006.
86. Do some quick market work : DAY TRADE
Day trading is the buying and selling of financial instruments, usually stocks, within the same day, with all trades being settled by the closing bell. This used to be the realm of professional investors and speculators, but day-trading has become a big fad for at-home traders since the Internet made buying and selling transactions so easy and rapid.
90. Smooth operator : ROUE
“Roue” is a lovely word, I think, describing a less then lovely man. He could otherwise be described as a cad, someone of loose morals. It comes from the French word “rouer” meaning “to break on a wheel”. This describes the ancient form of capital punishment where a poor soul was lashed to a wheel and then beaten to death with cudgels and bars. I guess the suggestion is that a “roue” with his loose morals deserves such a punishment.
The Treo is a smartphone that was originally developed by a company called Handspring. Handspring was bought by Palm Inc, and Palm continues to develop and sell the Treo line, although the 2009 Palm Pre seems to be pushing aside the Treo brand name.
94. Neighbor of Swe. : NOR
Norway is a neighbor of Sweden.
95. Trial of the Century defendant : LOEB
The phrase “trial of the century” is really a bit overused, I think, and has been applied to a number of cases including, the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, the Nuremberg trials, and the O. J. Simpson murder trial.
“Shanghai Express” is a film released in 1932, starring Marlene Dietrich, with Warner Oland in a supporting role. I love Marlene Dietrich …
100. Mathematical sequence of unknown length : N-TUPLE
In mathematics, a sequence of values is known as a tuple. If there are say, four values, then the sequence is 4-tuple or quadruple. In general though, a sequence with an unknown number of values, n, is an n-tuple sequence.
The Agathas are awarded every year for fiction that is written within guidelines self-imposed by the marvelous detective fiction writer, Agatha Christie. Those characteristics are: a closed setting, no sex or violence, and featuring an amateur detective.
104. Texas nine : ASTROS
The Houston Astros Baseball team started out as the Houston Colt .45s in 1902, but changed their name to the Astros when they moved to the prestigious Astrodome three years later, the world’s first domed sports stadium. The name “Astro” in “Astrodome” is a reference to Houston’s role in the exploration of space.
105. Mandates : DICTA
“Dictum” is a legal term, describing a statement by a court as part of a judgment.
109. “Your safety is our priority” org. : TSA
The Transportation Security Administration was of course created in 2001, soon after the 9/11 attacks.
115. “Taps” hour : TEN
“Taps” is played nightly by the US military, indicating “lights out”. It’s also known as “Butterfield’s Lulaby” as it is a variation of an older bugle call called the “Scott Tattoo”, arranged during the Civil War by the Union Army’s Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. The tune is called “taps”, from the notion of drum taps, as it was originally played on a drum, and only later on a bugle.
116. N.Y.C. subway line : IRT
The Interborough Rapid Transit Company was the original, private operator of the New York Subway when it opened in 1904. The city took over ownership of the system in 1940, but the original lines operated by the IRT are still known by the IRT moniker.
Adlai Stevenson ran for president unsuccessfully against Eisenhower in 1952. Some years later he served under President Kennedy as Ambassador to the United Nations. He was always noted for his eloquence, and had a famous exchange in a Security Council meeting during the Cuban missile crisis: “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over!”
119. Actress Graynor : ARI
Ari Graynor is an American actress who first came to national attention playing the character of Caitlin Rucker in a few episodes of the HBO series “The Sopranos”.
121. Big stretch? : EON
In astronomical terms, an eon is defined as one thousand million years.
I love NYT crosswords and marvel at the cleverness. Not this one. Just an author trying to prove how much smarter he is than the rest with esoteric, uninteresting clues and answers.
Hi there, anonymous visitor,
Thanks for stopping by.
There are good puzzles and not so good ones, I find. I do agree that this wasn't a stellar offering which is a shame, because I always look forward to Brendan Emmet Quigley's puzzles. This one took longer to solve than usual, which is usually a good thing. But today, it just got a little tedious.
Still, I am sure we'll back on top again tomorrow!
For 114 across – Split is also a major city in Croatia
Thank you, anonymous visitor!
That "Split" reference went completely over my head!