Saturday, September 30, 2023 - Like SPUMONI, this crossword had many layers 😀

This is the second Christina Iverson - Scott Hogan collaboration, and the first NYTimes crossword ever to include WORCESTERSHIRE as an answer. It usually takes us several takes before we can pronounce...

12 Nov 20256min

This was an excellent crossword by a prolific cruciverbalist. It was a Monday, and as far as being fun and appropriate for novice puzzle solvers, a smashing success. We enjoyed the challenge of how to...

11 Nov 20257min

If crosswords had moods, we'd classify this one as feisty. It took both cohosts, working independently as always, longer than usual to get to the happy music. But the journey is the reward, as they sa...

10 Nov 202519min

This was a good Saturday workout: not the hardest Saturday ever, but engaging, with some truly effervescent cluing. We covered the best-of-the-best in today's episode, but we would also like to note 2...

9 Nov 20258min

This was a challenging crossword for both cohosts, as both -- solving independently as is their custom -- ended up in the same area of the grid, temporary waylaid by the crossing of 40A, The Brady hou...

8 Nov 202512min

For you polyglots out there, the NYTimes has written a love letter, cleverly disguised as a crossword -- today's, to be precise, a magnificent opus by Sam Brody. For the rest of us, the crossword was ...

7 Nov 202512min

The first author of today's crossword, Chad Hazen, had over 40 rejections before finally getting a crossword published -- but when he did get it published it was in the New York Times, so there is tha...

6 Nov 202513min

This was a debut crossword by Patrick Hayden, and a very nice one, to boot. The theme was sly, and the author has a knack for writing novel clues for common answers. We covered many of them in the pod...

5 Nov 202515min