So here we are. It’s been very cold this past week and looks to remain this way at least into the weekend. It’s been nearly two years since we had a “real” winter and I’m fine with the cold weather but apparently my heating system isn’t. On the coldest night in several years, it decided to only work intermittently, requiring me to stay up most of the night monitoring it and resetting it if it shut down. I also kept a fire going in the fireplace, which required waking up every hour to stoke the fire. The boiler has been working more steadily, but we’ll have a tech look at it and make sure it won’t do that again. So that’s how this new era started for me. Time for more distraction – let’s get to this week’s puzzle.

  • Name: Home Building Project
  • Grid size: 15×15
  • Entries: 72
  • Difficulty: Medium Hard (my solve time: 7:24)

Filled in crossword grid for ClassiCanadian Crosswords 22 January 2025

“Home Building Project” made me think there may be some sort of progressive connection between the themers, like a word ladder, or something else that needed to be “built” as you solved the puzzle. Nope – the themers are two-word phrases, clued straight, where the second word is part of a house, so I guess you could start building a home with these words:

  • 17A: [Imaginary separation that may be “broken” on stage]: FOURTH WALL – In theater, the fourth wall is the imaginary separation between the actors on stage and the audience. “Breaking the fourth wall” happens when a character acknowledges or addresses the audience, such as during an aside. Unlike a nation, you can’t have a home without walls, certainly not with this weather we’ve been having.
  • 23A: [Advancement barrier for some women]: GLASS CEILING – Sadly, even when some women are able to attain places of high station in business, the government, or the military, they have not truly broken the glass ceiling. Once you have your walls, you’re going to need a ceiling to keep the rain out and the heat in.
  • 33A: [High personnel turnover]: REVOLVING DOOR – Maybe it’s an Americanism, but revolving door is often used to refer to the situation where someone in government leaves public service to take a lucrative job in the private sector, often in a sector they previously regulated, and only offered because of the access their previous job gives them. Not that that happens all that often. If you have walls and a ceiling, now you need a door or two to be able to get in and out of the house.
  • 44A: [Limited takeoff period at Nasa]: LAUNCH WINDOW – Often when a spacecraft is being sent to space, it needs to be launched within a particular time period in order to reach a particular orbit or deploy a satellite to cover a certain area. This time may span several minutes or even hours, and this period is called a launch window. Sometimes the launch needs to be at an exact time, such as for a rendezvous with another spacecraft, that is called an “instantaneous launch window.” Some people need an infinite launch window to yeet them into the sun, or Mars if they prefer. We need something to let in natural light and to look out of and enjoy the view from our new house, so let’s add a window or two.
  • 53A: [Type of scandalous intrigue]: BACK STAIRS – I initially put “back stage” in here, but back stairs intrigue is probably more broadly used, as back stage would be limited to the theatre (nice connection with the first themer, though). Funny, “backstairs intrigue” has an oddly specific historical reference, apropos of nothing these days, really. A house needs stairs if it’s more than one story, has a basement, or the main floor is substantially higher than the surrounding ground level.

I had a very similar feeling of the puzzle’s difficulty while solving as I did with last week’s puzzle, and guess what – my solve time was just two seconds different from last week. There were a lot of entries I had no clue about, but other than diverting me to other sections of the puzzle to solve, it was overall a fairly smooth solve and I was pleasantly surprised when the “congratulations” banner popped up.

Canadian content:

  • 1A: [Alberta corn-growing town]: TABER – I am pretty sure this entry appeared in a previous puzzle, but I wan’t able to remember it, so started off the solve with an entry needing all the crosses. Indeed it has appeared, once as an entry and once in a clue.
  • 1D: [300-pound president]: TAFT – Kind of funny that 1A is a solidly Canadian entry, and 1D is solidly American. I knew Taft was a big guy from a childhood engrossed by the Guinness Book of World Records, from which I distinctly remember (probably incorrectly) that Taft was so big he had to be buried in a piano case. That’s a fact too good to look up.
  • 31A: [Tries reaching via post]: MAILS TO – Calling this Canadian content, because it’s clued as “tries“.
  • 38A: [Calgary’s C-Train syst., e.g.]: LRT – The C-Train is a light rail transit system operated by Calgary Transit.
  • 47A: [“If ___ falls” (Bruce Cockburn song]: A TREEBruce Cockburn was born in Ottawa. “If a Tree Falls” came out in 1989 on the album “Big Circumstance.”
  • 48A: [Butter ___ (Canadian treat)]: TART – I have a vague recollection of hearing about butter tarts, but I don’t think I’ve ever had one.
  • 58A: [Ontario home of a famous gorge]: ELORA – The Elora Gorge is located about 85 km west of Toronto.
  • 59A: [Ottawa NHLers, to fans]: SENS – The Ottawa Senators play at Canadian Tire Centre, which also hosts various other events.

Other stuff:

  • 61A: [From Oslo, to Oslo natives]: NORSK – I initially put in “Norse,” but before I even saw 51D I wondered why the clue included “to Oslo natives” and corrected it to the Norwegian spelling.
  • 31D: [“Peace,” to Putin]: MIR – I believe mir (мир) also means “world” and I remember my Russian history professor in college saying that you had to keep that in mind when Khruschev said “All we want is мир” (which I couldn’t find that he actually said, or it may have been someone else, or it may be entirely apocryphal).
  • 35D: [It gets plastered on the job]: LATH – I got a chuckle out of this clue. As an owner of a house that’s over 100 years old, we have lots of walls that are plaster over lath that we are gradually replacing.
  • 42D: [Adm.’s subordinated]: CDRS – Commanders are indeed subordinate to Admirals, but so is pretty much everyone else in a naval service Coincidentally, I had lunch today with a retired Rear Admiral who I first worked with when he was a Commander.

Quote of the week:
“He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister. For rapes and ravishments, he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of oaths. In breaking ’em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.”
– William Shakespeare, “All’s Well That Ends Well,” Act 4, scene 3