Explicit subject for her? / FRI 7-18-25 / Akkadian or Phoenician / Certain fraternity guy, informally / Whiskey distiller's mixture / Psycho screenwriter Joseph / Place to put a pin / Luang Prabang native / Congressional record? / ___ the Jairite, biblical minster to King David

Constructor: Kelly Morenus

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none — DESCRIPTION

Word of the Day: David Lloyd George (30A: "___ is the most convenient time to tax rich people": David Lloyd George (DEATH)) —

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, for social-reform policies, for his role in the Paris Peace Conference, and for negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. [...] In 1915, Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions and expanded artillery shell production for the war. In 1916, he was appointed Secretary of State for War but was frustrated by his limited power and clashes with Army commanders over strategy. Asquith proved ineffective as prime minister and was replaced by Lloyd George in December 1916. He centralised authority by creating a smaller war cabinet. To combat food shortages caused by u-boats, he implemented the convoy system, established rationing, and stimulated farming. After supporting the disastrous French Nivelle Offensive in 1917, he had to reluctantly approve Field Marshal Douglas Haig's plans for the Battle of Passchendaele, which resulted in huge casualties with little strategic benefit. Against British military commanders, he was finally able to see the Allies brought under one command in March 1918. The war effort turned in Allied favour and was won in November. Following the December 1918 "Coupon" election, he and the Conservatives maintained their coalition with popular support. // Lloyd George was a leading proponent at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, but the situation in Ireland worsened, erupting into the Irish War of Independence, which lasted until Lloyd George negotiated independence for the Irish Free State in 1921.

• • •

This one had solid marquee answers, and it put up a bit of a fight, which is all I really want from a Friday puzzle. Bottom half way, way harder than the top for me. I did struggle at the beginning, but that was due almost entirely to my putting in O'ER instead of OFT at 3D: Poetic adverb). O'ER can be an adverb, as well as a preposition, and I've seen O'ER clued as "poetic" so many times that my instincts just kicked in there. Good example of how a teeny word can really gunk things up if you whiff it. The main obstacle to ditching O'ER was the Psycho screenwriter's name, which I really should've remembered, but didn't. I've taught that movie multiple times and read about its production so much that you'd think Joseph STEFANO's name would've stuck. But the only name I could think of there was Robert BLOCH, who wrote the novel Psycho was based on. Forgetting STEFANO + writing in O'ER = clumsy, awkward beginning. But eventually the lovely "THAT'S JUST TOO BAD" came swooping in and fixed up my mistake, and off I went, soaring through even things I didn't know like "ONE DAY MORE" (still never seen Les Mis, in any form). But once I hit the bottom half of the grid, things slowed Way down for a bit. I had real trouble descending into that bottom third, largely because ANTECEDENT formed such a strong barrier. Or, rather, its absence formed a strong barrier. Hardest clue in the puzzle for me (41A: Explicit subject for her?) ("her" is a pronoun, and pronouns require clear ANTECEDENTs, i.e. you need to know what the "explicit subject" of a pronoun is in order for it to make sense). Four different ANTECEDENT crosses ended up giving me grief. I had GEODES for GNEISS (?) (35D: Rock with bands); I couldn't remember which song Irving Berlin did and figured it must be one of them patriotic ones (he wrote "God Bless America," but nothing "glistens" in that one, whereas the TREETOPS definitely "glisten" in "White Christmas," Berlin's other very famous song); I had no idea what the Akkadian or Phoenician was supposed to be (SEMITE), nor what I was supposed to be seeing in the tomato patch. You've also got the MAA v. BAA kealoa* down there. For me, a real mess.

More trouble in the west of the puzzle where the David Lloyd George quotation clue was unclear (always hate quotation clues, as the answers never seem intuitive and I assume the clue writer just looked them up in some database of quotations—who goes around quoting David Lloyd George?? I mean, tax the (dead) rich, for sure, but SPARE US me the obscure quotations). I tried to go underneath that quotation word to get going again, but ended up writing in HENCE instead of SINCE at 32A: Between then and now. HENCE was a bad guess, but it does end in -NCE, you can't argue with that! Pffft. "X" marks the spot where I finished up, at the crossing of two clues that were both befuddling to me. I had no idea an AXLE had a pin—I thought it was the pin (the shaft around which wheels revolve). But apparently there's a pin that holds the AXLE in place, called an AXLE-pin. As for SEX TAPE, I forgot that the puzzle likes to hide sex behind the old-timey / clinical term "congress," which of course makes you think politics, not, uh, doing it. Anyway, a SEX TAPE is a "record" of "congressional" (i.e. sexual) activity. So, two troublesome clues come together with an emphatic "X" to end the puzzle. Put a stiff rod and a SEX TAPE together and you get a satisfying climax, you might say. *I* wouldn't say that, as it's an abhorrent sexual pun, but one might say it, is what I'm saying.

Big highlights of the day, beyond the SEX TAPE revelation, were "THAT'S JUST TOO BAD" (nice grid-spanning colloquial phrase) and LAYING IT ON THICK (ditto). I also enjoyed the MUD WRESTLE-ing and the emphasis on treachery (TRAITOR, DISLOYAL). "Quisling" will always be one of my favorite words because I learned it as a teenager. I loved the idea that one guy was such a traitor that his name actually came to mean traitor. I mean, he took the TRAITOR title right out of Benedict Arnold's hands. The lesson there is: don't betray Norway to the Nazis, especially if you have a super-funny-sounding name. People are gonna turn that against you.

Miscellaneous:

• 20A: Certain fraternity guy, informally (SIG) — one of my least fav things in the grid. I don't refer to "fraternity guy"s unless absolutely necessary, and this particular abbr. is a big meh. Also not a fan of the plural TADAS, which I can't believe people keep putting in their grids. Certain things are unpluralizable and that is one of them. Other than those answers, though, the grid is relatively free of cringe and ugh.
• 35A: Receiving end? (GEE) — the "end" of the word "Receiving" is the letter "g" (GEE). If you do a lot of cryptic crosswords (guilty), this one was transparent. 
• 33A: Shepherd's warning (GROWL) — when the shepherd is particularly drunk and surly .... or German.
• 6D: Whiskey distiller's mixture (SOUR MASH) — another one that I liked, but then I like whiskey. And whisky. And bourbon. Brown. I like the brown. I keep waiting for the term MASHBILL to appear in the grid ("The mash bill of a whisky is the grain combination used when making multigrain spirits such as bourbons. Unlike single malt these do not consist of a single grain, but are instead produced using a mixture of different grains such as corn, rye, wheat and barley" (Whiskipedia).
• 25A: "My Old ___" (2024 coming-of-age film) ("ASS") — this was a lovely, funny, sad, bittersweet movie. Well worth seeing. Aubrey Plaza is magical.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.    

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