I looked at the calendar and said “It’s Thursday already!? So apologies for the delayed post. Let’s get to this one quickly.
- Name: Workplace Bias
- Grid size: 15×15
- Entries: 74
- Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 7:27)
Well, this is an unusual puzzle all around – the grid is asymmetrical and doesn’t really have any themers, though it does have a theme of sorts. There are 8 circled letters running diagonally through the center of the grid that spell out “stepping” and there is a revealer that kind of explains why “stepping” is at an angle downward – if you’re leaving your job you are stepping down from it. It looks kind of like a staircase, and at an angle it is on a bias, so I think that’s the theme? I may be entirely missing something here – I’m sure Barb will weigh in if I am, but please feel free to add your own comments below.
This was a pretty difficult solve and I was actually quite surprised when I got the “Congratulations!” pop up. NE and SW were the hardest – I had to take complete guesses at 11D/16A and 59D/62A. Otherwise fairly smooth, though there were a few mild headscratchers that slowed me down a bit.
Canadian content:
- 37A: [Event for Canadian ski pro James Crawford]: SUPER G – James “Jack” Crawford was born in Toronto and won the 2023 World Championship Super-G in Courchevel-Méribel, France.
- 35D: [Brian Mulroney’s wife]: MILA – Milica “Mila” Mulroney was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and married the future Prime Minister in 1973.
- 59D: [___ Mégantic, Quebec]: LAC – Lac Mégantic is located in southeastern Quebec and is the location of one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history.
- 66A: [Figures on TSN]: STATS – The Sports Network is a Canadian English language sports specialty channel owned by CTV Specialty Television, a joint venture of Bell Media (80%) and ESPN Inc. (20%).
Other stuff:
- 1A: [Captors of Frodo Baggins]: ORCS – Everything I know about “The Lord of the Rings” I have learned from crosswords.
- 3D: [Bad hires at a Cadbury factory, maybe]: CHOCOHOLICS – “I’m like a chocoholic, but for booze.”
- 11D: [South American rodent]: COYPU – OK – I’ve heard of capybaras and agoutis but what is this letter salad?
- 14A: [M*A*S*H drink]: NEHI– The only thing I could think of was whatever hooch Hawkeye and BJ cooked up in their still in the Swamp, not what Radar’s favorite drink was. M*A*S*H was my favorite show when I was growing up, so it gets this week’s quote.
- 16A: [Rectangular shape: Abbr.]: OBL – I was really wracking my brains on this – I mean a rectangular shape is a rectangle. I guess a square is a specific type of rectangle but SQU didn’t work here. I guess OBL is short for oblong, which a non-equal length rectangle is.
- 26A: [“Mutiny on the Bounty” isle]: TAHITI – The first thing that came to mind was Pitcairn, and then after a while I got Tahiti.
Quote of the week:
Hawkeye: “War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: “How do you figure, Hawkeye?”
Hawkeye: “Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: “Sinners, I believe.”
Hawkeye: “Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.”
M*A*S*H Season 5, Episode 20. “The General’s Practitioner”