New York Times Mini Crossword ⚔

41 secs. Would’ve been way quicker but I spelt EASEL wrong :cry:

36s.

Imagine me singing the chorus to Bowie’s* It Ain’t Easy but replacing ‘easy’ with your misspelling of easel, and singing it in your face while laughing

*yes, I know it’s a cover

1:13

thought I’d smashed the acrosses but my guess of GIMME for the high five was misguided. Then went to the downs and took a while fixing it all

Annoyingly I’m THIS close to completing today’s big crossword (which is possibly my first or second time without any aid, ie hitting ‘check puzzle’ and/or looking up gen knowledge stuff I don’t recall) but it’s completely eluding me :frowning:

Edit: looked again and it immediately clicked
image

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30s

29s

I did it in 7:44 today

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Fuck you. :smiley:

(I definitely am improving somewhat, certainly beginning to spot the same ones that come up over and over and so forth. Today I also managed to fix two big mistakes on my acrosses using my downs - Baked Alaska for 16A and Chocolate Log for 50A, which is good to see as often these intersections are where I end up confused and doing ‘check puzzle’ to get the nod.)

Also I had no idea the robin was a sign of spring. I always considered it a standard winter bird, hence it being all over Christmas cards

Haha. It’s taken me a while to get there. Today was pretty quick – my average time for a Monday crossword is about 10 minutes. I also thought the same about the bird, and I had fluffed instead of flubbed so took me a while to figure that one out

Yeah, I had the bird from the start as it was the only thing I could think to guess as I did my first pass. Then, like you, I saw that answer for 10 down but when 20 down fitted too well and made no sense for 19A it clicked. Ah well. I’m impressed with myself.

Also, will they ever NOT have a SPA answer?

Just remembered I also stuck in Lime Wedge for 34A

55s on Monday 2023-03-20.

Edit: moved to PlusWord thread.

1m48s on Tuesday 2023-03-21.

30s at the end on the second letter in 8A.

1:11.

Took a while. Never knowingly heard 1D before and 3D was a while coming even with four letters of each

42s. Lots of stumbling around. Never heard of 1D at all

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36 secs, piece of piss.

that was a shambles! no idea how youse managed it so quickly, actually.

1A is a fish, never heard of it as complain!
1D doesn’t exist
6A not sure why folk in Iraq are Arabs, but maybe I don’t get it
3D is a puzzle type? had to google afterwards

why are some in circles on the board?