I’m back from my road trip – I packed a lot of activity (and a lot of miles) into 5 days. The weather wasn’t great, but it didn’t interfere much with my enjoyment (though the boat ride in the pouring rain would have been better were it a tad drier). As part of my whirlwind tour, I attended an event where the grandson of US President Jimmy Carter was in attendance. He spoke of his grandfather and mentioned one of his favorite quotations, which I use as this week’s quote. Solve the puzzle first, then read the blog entry and get to the quote at the end.
- Name: C-grade Crossword
- Size: 15×15
- Entries: 74
- Difficulty: Very Easy (my solve time: 5:20)
I nearly laughed when I read the title “C-grade Crossword” – the idea of having grades of crosswords just struck me as funny. Though I guess I kind of “grade” crosswords by difficulty, though I don’t assign them a letter. I listen to a podcast where the host gives warning in the introduction about the content, such as “there are 2 Class A and three Class B swears in this podcast” so that strikes me as kind of funny as well. In any event, the “C-grade” in the title hints at the theme – the themers are phrases (all grid spanners!) that use the letter “C” at least twice; if the C is in the first half of the answer, it is a pronounced hard, if in the latter half of the answer it is pronounced soft:
- 20A: [Political media event]: PRESS CONFERENCE – I’m not a big fan of press conferences, especially where the press are hand picked and they lob softball questions to the politician.
- 29A: [Like a very near success, casually]: CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR – This phrase comes from old fairs and carnivals that would have games of “skill” where players would attempt to toss a ring on a peg, or knock over a stack of bottles, or other such feat. If they were successful the prize would often be a cigar. Apparently the guy running the game would shout “close but no cigar” if a player was unsuccessful. The phrase reminds me of this song.
- 40A: [Guilt-free state of mind]: CLEAR CONSCIENCE – The idiom is pretty straightforward – if you don’t feel guilty about something, your conscience is clear.
- 51A: [Flaws in a witness testimony, say]: INCONSISTENCIES – Not only a grid spanner but a single word grid spanner! I have a hunch this may be the entry that sparked the whole theme. It’s a tasty entry – 15 letters long, lots of useful letters, and has those two Cs. And they are inconsistent Cs as well – one hard, one soft! I’ll show myself out…
- 66A: [Like all the Cs on the left side of the grid]: HARD – First half of the revealer.
- 68A: [Like all the Cs on the right side of the grid]: SOFT – Second half of the revealer.
On opening the grid I was initially struck by the amount of white space – those grid spanners leave a lot of blanks to fill. Usually, lots of white space means a harder solve, but that sure wasn’t my experience. While it took me a while to get the themers, I sped through most of the fill and my solve time is easily in my top 20 of all time, shaking out in the 95th percentile of speedy solve times out of 324 that I have solved. There was one headscratcher that I still don’t know what it means, but it was easy enough to get the crosses so no problem.
Canadian content:
- 3D: [“Insensitive” singer Jann]: ARDEN – Jann Arden was born in Calgary and her song “Insensitive” is her most successful single, reaching number one in Canada and Australia and number 12 in the United States.
- 11D: [CAA and NRA, e.g.]: ASSNS – The Canadian Automobile Association is indeed an association; I have no idea what the NRA is in Canada, but it’s the National Recovery Administration here in the US. 🤷♂️
- 19A: [Ottawa-based spy agcy.]: CSIS – The Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigates activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada and reports on these to the Government of Canada.
- 31D: [Loonies]: ONES – This one had me for a while – I was trying to think of a four-letter word for “crazy people,” but had to get a couple of letters to realize I should have been thinking of money.
- 41D: [Vancouver-born actor Reynolds]: RYAN – Ryan Reynolds has starred in films including the “Deadpool” series and other films I haven’t seen.
- 67A: [Shell Canada rivals]: ESSOS – I vaguely remember when there were Esso gas stations in the US, but then they all changed over to Exxon.
Other stuff:
- 12D: [“It’s been a ___!”]: SLICE – I have never heard this phrase before. It apparently means “I’ve had a good time” – as in a period of time being a “slice of life.” There is some indication that it originated in Canada, but I can’t confirm that so I’m not flagging it as Canadian content yet.
- 35D: [Deliver back?]: ANCE – It took me a long time to realize that this wasn’t a word that meant “deliver” but the “back” of deliverance.
- 46A: [Bronx ball team]: YANKEES – boo!
- 50D: [Bases counterparts]: ACIDS – I had the military meaning of “base” in mind for a long time so was trying to think what the counterpart to an Army or Air Force installation might be.
Quote of the week:
“We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”
– Jimmy Carter (quoting his grade school teacher Julia Coleman)