Greetings from another guess-where-Brian-is-this-week location! I’ll drop clues throughout the blog entry, and I’ll start off with a Canadian-related one: this American city has a special relationship with the city of Halifax that goes back to 1917. Drop your guesses in the comments. This will be a short entry as I am at the airport heading home, so let’s get to this week’s puzzle.
- Name: Caught with No GH
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 72
- Difficulty: Medium (my solve time: 7:33)
The title is a big clue to the theme for this one – the themers are common phrases where the first word is normally spelled with GH in it, but a homonym of that word that does not have GH in it is used instead, and punnily clued to match the phrase with the replacement word:
- 20A: [They keep an eye on the queue?]: WAIT WATCHERS – Maybe they’re keeping an eye on a line of folks trying to lose weight?
- 27A: [Didn’t use a relief pitcher?]: THREW AND THREW – Unfortunately that’s what a distant relative of mine did in his debut pitching appearance for the Washington Nationals last night. They did use a reliever, and his game was through.
- 46A: [Email the fraternity club?]: WRITE BROTHERS – Well, you couldn’t email the Wright Brothers, could you?
- 52A: [Casual greeting, per Wiktionary?]: HI DEFINITION – Well, hi to you as well! It’s high time we wrapped this one up.
This was a pretty smooth solve, working from NW (natch) pretty much down the middle and back up both sides. No real difficulties or snags, though it took a while for me to see what the themer phrases were. Solve time was just below my average so called this one medium, though It could have gone medium easy.
Canadian content
- 15A: [Part of M.P.: Abbr]: MEM – There are 338 Members of the Canadian Parliament.
- 16A: [Image on a Canucks jersey]: ORCA – The Vancouver Canucks use an image of a local large animal that frequently appears in crossword puzzles.
- 27D: [Coin some called a doubloon): TOONIE – I tried to think of another term for doubloon like piece-of-eight, but then realized I was thinking too far in the past, and too far away from home.
- 37A: [Summer hrs. in Que.]: EDT – Or should it be HAE (Heure avancée de l’Est)?
- 49D: [_______ Ed’s (famous discount store until 2016)]: HONEST – Must have been a fun place to visit.
- 50A: [Dragon-turned-Shark Kevin]: OLEARY – I thought this had something to do with NHL teams, but I wasn’t familiar with a team named the Dragons so I found out about the television shows “Dragon’s Den” and “Shark Tank.”
- 62A [Fed. tax collector]: CRA – I’m learning this one as it’s been in at least three other puzzles in the last year or so.
Other stuff:
I’m at the airport using my phone wifi and don’t want to use up my data allowance, so going to cut this short this week. Feel free to drop your thoughts about the puzzle and other stuff in the comments. Here’s another clue as to my whereabouts: The airport I am writing this from was named after an American lawyer, judge, military officer, and politician. As a student, He enlisted in the state infantry during the Spanish–American War. Upon returning from war, he ran successfully for a seat on the City Council in 1899, and subsequently won election to the state legislature as a representative, and later as a state senator. Rising to the rank of major general following World War I, he was given command of the 26th Infantry Division of the United States Army.
Quote of the week:
“______ is just a village, sprawling far and wide, more human than New York City.”
– Frederick Engels