[This is a rewrite of my original post.]
I learn a lot of things from crosswords. Most recently I learned that I shouldn't attempt to a David Quarfoot puzzle while I'm feeling under the weather. When I tried this last night I got about 3/4 of the way through and became hopelessly stuck. After a good night's rest, I'm in a much better position to appreciate the poetry and ingenuity.
The Friday puzzle by David "Q" (answers) is, in fact, brilliant. I more or less assumed that even when I couldn't finish, but fits the very definition of an excellent puzzle for me. I even forgive the D NATURAL reference since I was unable to make the subtle point I intended, and it may not even make sense. In fact, it's just the kind of clue I especially like, the kind where I have to solve a puzzle within the puzzle and wij explains the logic in a comment to this post. It's the same reason that I do like Peter Gordon's Roman numeral math puzzles. By the way, the very first Will Shortz edited puzzle was by Mr. Gordon and he included the math clue "One-fifth of MMV" so he's been doing that for a while.
The rest of this post is from the original version:
Merl Reagle's on the radio! He's one of the true characters in crosswords and he gave this interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
What else? Oh, my stats site www.xwordinfo.com now has data going back to the beginning of the Will Shortz era thanks to Barry Haldiman. The stats changed a little with the new info. Manny Nosowsky still has the most (by far) but Rich Norris finished in second place. Lots more on both Mr. Haldiman and the new data in a future post.
Update: It's nice to have friends. Several people, all smarter than me, sent answers. I'd like to use the excuse that I'm getting over my winter cold (see, I'm even slow there, it's Spring already!) but I think this one would have bested me anyway. There were too many facts I didn't know.
I hope everyone put "_ M _ _ OR" right away for 23 Across, right? It was directly out of my music post. It seems I didn't call the 6th Symphony Pastoral (although a commenter did) so you would have had to be paying very close attention to get the rest of that clue just from my blog. It's a great piece, and there's a strangely wonderful recording of Glenn Gould playing his own piano transcription.
I loved "Burger replacement" being REHNQUIST and the queue of Qs was beautiful to behold. Any idea who Ngaio is? The QUEEN MUM lived from 1900 to 2002, but still not quite long enough to see her Times debut. May each of my readers become famous enough to be so immortalized well within 108 years of their birth.
