John Farmer brings HASHEESH to the crossword party for the first time. He also introduces the wonderful word SOJOURNERS and then JAM PACKS 9 other fresh answers into this creative Friday, July 25 puzzle (answers.) It’s a big jump up from yesterday’s difficulty level. Welcome to Friday.
Don’t touch the AREOLE because today it’s the “prickly area of a prickly pear.” It’s such a useful combination of letters but it needs to be clued carefully lest anyone accidentally think of nipples.
ROB ROY MacGregor was a famous 18th Century outlaw known as the Robin Hood of Scotland. Liam Neeson played him in the 1995 movie.
NAN Britton developed a teenage crush on President Warren G. Harding and, as they say, one thing led to another. After Mr. Harding died and the Harding family refused to honor the president’s wish to support the child Nan claimed Warren had fathered, Ms. Britton wrote The President’s Daughter starting a tradition of kiss-and-tell books that is still popular today. It includes a scandalous sex scene taking place in the coat closet in the executive office of the White House. There’s nothing new under the sun.
I’m a fan of Jessica Williams and was happy to confidently enter her name for “jazz pianist/composer Williams” at 9 Down. Unfortunately, MARY LOU Williams also fits the description and has the same number of letters in her two-part first name. It’s a nice coincidence that they’re both very fine performers and composers.
APOLLO ONE could have broken the back of the American space program. Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died while conducting an on- the-ground “plugs-out” test. It was such a shock after the previous Gemini and Mercury successes. NASA always uses numerals not spelled out numbers but it’s legitimate crossword transliteration.
I loved “inclusive words, fittingly” for ALL SIZES. The APNEA specialist is an Ear Nose and Throat doctor. The only long Stones hit I could think of happened to be correct or I would have been in big trouble. I don’t know why UP A CREEK is Dutch-like but it’s presumably some expression I don’t know and I’m hoping someone can enlighten me.
Introducing Quick Search
There’s a new module in the top right of this page, pushing Quick Clues down a notch. Quick Search automatically searches both XWord Blog and XWord Info for any string you type. I don’t index clues, but Google does that for me so you can type in a clue and see where it’s been used before. It sometimes misses references here or there but it’s amazingly good.
Google includes sponsored ads and it’s fun to discover what it comes up with sometimes. I’ve amused myself by typing in random clues and seeing what commercial sites pop up in response to one or another of the words entered.