Snow! We had actual snow! And it’s cold enough that it’s sticking around and we may get more later this week. I feel like we’re finally having winter for the first time in nearly two years. Apparently it’s cold all over North America – hopefully you are enjoying the weather in your area or at least not negatively impacted by it.
- Name: Tweet, Tweet!
- Size: 15×15
- Entries: 78
- Difficulty: Very Easy (my solve time: 5:50)
Okay, I admit that I figured the theme would have something to do with birds, or Twitter “X” (psst – I’m shifting here), or something else avian, but didn’t see anything during the solve and had to figure it out just before finishing when I got the revealer. In six locations (highlighted in the image above) an across entry in the grid includes the letters PAR and the entry directly below it includes the letters ONE aligned immediately underneath PAR – hence “one under par” which, in golf lingo, is a “birdie.” Birdies go “tweet, tweet!” ergo, the puzzle title.
I think it’d be a little tedious to go through the twelve entries that make up this theme – since they aren’t really related to each other I think it would be a kind of boring enumeration, so I think I’ll just focus on the Canadian content and other stuff I think is worth mentioning. Let me know in the comments below if you disagree or have other thoughts about what I should comment on in this blog.
This was a pretty speedy solve for me, in the fastest 15 percent of all time. I think that’s part of why I didn’t really catch the theme, though I’m not to quick on the uptake for grid-position-based themes like this one. No real snags, except I couldn’t remember the Canadian shoe company, and blanked on 27D/33A. 53D is a new one for me – still not sure what it means but will look it up and include my findings below.
Canadian content:
- 1D: [Worksite trailer brand]: ATCO – I’ve seen ATCO trailers all over the place, but didn’t know until now that the company is based in Calgary.
- 11A: [Rockies hrs.]: MST – Mountain Standard Time is what they observe in the summer in the Canadian Rockies.
- 22D: [Workers on The Hill, for short]: POLS – Some may argue that calling the politicians on Parliament Hill “workers” may be overly generous…
- 23A: [Canadian shoe company]: ALDO – I didn’t remember this company right off, so shame on me. I have visited the Bata Shoe Museum, however, so I think I still have some Canadian shoe cred.
- 47D: [Signs at the end of les rues]: ARRETS – Interesting that some “arrêt” signs in France say STOP. And this sign at the end of a road in Quebec doesn’t say arrêt – at least as far as I can see through the stickers.
- 56D: [TSX co. launches]: IPOS – Launch your initial public offering at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Other stuff:
- 27D: [Wistful one’s word]: AGO – I had A_O and still had no idea what this was. I had words like rue and alas and lament in my head, but obviously none of those would work. I finally had to figure out what 33A was to get it.
- 33A: [Ice and Iron, for two]: AGES – I missed the capitalization of the clue words, and for some reason thought it might be ACES (some nickname for playing cards I’d never heard of?). But I knew ACO made no sense for 27D and finally caught on to the historic eras.
- 53D: [Mtge.-based security]: REIT – On review, I think I’ve seen this used in crosswords before, maybe even in this one. But I was winging it, especially since I wasn’t 100% sure I had 63A correct. Luckily when I finally guessed correctly at 27D/33A I got the “congrats!” pop up.
Quote of the week:
“Golf is a good walk spoiled”
– Who knows?