Greetings solvers! Though I’m not technically traveling (i.e., staying overnight), my new job has me commuting to Washington, DC several times a week. So I’ve spent a lot of time on the train between Baltimore and DC. If only they had wifi on the train, I could solve and post the blog from the train… I’m sure I can work something out – stay tuned. In the meantime, let’s take a look at this week’s puzzle.
- Name: It’s Hard to Find Good Help
- Grid size: 15×15
- Number of entries: 74
- Difficulty: Easy (my solve time: 5:45)
With a title like that I had a hunch there would be something to do with jobs and I was not disappointed. The themers are all phrases usually used to criticize someone and clued “The incompetent (occupation) [fill-in-the-blank]:”
- 17A: [The incompetent obstetrician ……..]: FAILED TO DELIVER – That would be a big failure, for sure.
- 25A: [The incompetent pilot ……..]: COULDN’T KEEP UP – Hopefully they came down somewhere safe.
- 46A: [The incompetent tailor ……..]: LOST THE THREAD – At least they kept the needle; or did they?
- 60A: [The incompetent restaurant critic ……..]: SHOWED POOR TASTE – Maybe the critic is recovering from Covid?
This solved easy for me, but I have a feeling others may find it harder, as there are some less well-known entries and some oblique cluing. I solved fairly smoothly, from N to S for the most part.
Canadian content
- 21A: [Yukon’s Saint _____ Mountains]: ELIAS – I recall seeing Mt. St. Elias and others in this range several times while aboard a ship far out in the Gulf of Alaska – quite an impressive sight even from a hundred or more miles away. Although often the weather was too bad to be able to see anything.
- 22A: [Canadian bubbly bar]: AERO – I wasn’t sure if this referred to a candy bar or a drinking establishment. Now I’m hungry.
- 24D: [Quebec premier Lévesque, ’76-85]: RENE – I believe Quebec was in the news quite often during his time in office, as I recalled the name quite quickly.
- 56D: [Financial ____ (Ottawa paper)]: POST – Well, TIMES didn’t fit in and it’s from a different world capitol anyway, so what’s another common newspaper name?
- 65A; [Pierre and Justin Trudeau]: PMS – The names of these Prime Ministers are quite well known.
Other stuff:
- 3D: [German opposite of “ja”]: NEIN – Another word where I can never remember in which order the middle letters go.
- 7D: [Two-quark particle (and anagram of 7-Across)]: KAON – I knew of a subatomic particle called a MUON, but the only Hawaiian coffee I’m familiar with is KONA, so KAON it is.
- 18D: [Thomas the Tank Engine sound]: TOOT – Initially thought of CHUG or CHOO and couldn’t get the thought that it was an engine sound rather than the whistle sound out of my head.
- 23A: [Non-kosher]: TREF – I have also seen this spelled treyf, which I think is more along the lines of its pronunciation.
- 59D: [Brazilian soccer great]: PELE – Even having born and raised in North America, where what the rest of the world calls football wasn’t all that popular, I knew about Pelé from a very young age. So I chose him as the source of this week’s quote.
- 66A: [Left on a ship]: PORT – This clue was a clever misdirection, making me try to think a a word for something that remained aboard a ship, rather than a direction.
Quote of the week:
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”