Budget airline of Ireland, informally / WED 7-15-26 / Narrator on "Euphoria" / Liam Neeson action trilogy / Ben Jonson wrote one to himself / Bold way to go when bluffing / Name repeated in a hit 1963 rock song / Giving up one's amateur status / Mork's planet on an old sitcom

Constructor: Jonathan Raksin and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: SPEEDCUBER (56A: Competitor suggested by 17-, 23- and 45-Across) — three theme answers are punny descriptions of speedcubing (i.e. competitive Rubik's Cube solving), and then there's a kind of mock-up of a Rubik's Cube in the middle of the grid, with nine letters forming a 3x3 square (one side of an implied "cube"), with those letters unscrambling to spell the name of the Cube's creator: ERNO RUBIK. You have to "solve" the "cube" in the middle yourself, I guess:

Theme answers:

• TURNING PRO (17A: Giving up one's amateur status) (speedcubers are professional turners, of a sort)
• MAD SCRAMBLES (23A: Frantic rushes) (speedcubers ... well, I would've said they 'unscramble' madly, but whatever, close enough)
• FLYING COLORS (45A: Something it's good to pass with) (Rubik's Cubes have brightly-colored sides, so presumably the colors "fly" when you solve them quickly)

Word of the Day: SPEEDCUBER (56A) —

Speedcubing or speedsolving is a competitive mind sport centered around the rapid solving of various combination puzzles. ^[3] The most prominent puzzle in this category is the 3x3x3 puzzle, commonly known as the Rubik's Cube. Participants in this sport are called "speedcubers" (or simply "cubers"), who focus specifically on solving these puzzles at high speeds to get low clock times and/or fewest moves. The essential aspect of solving these puzzles typically involves executing a series of predefined algorithms in a particular sequence with pattern recognition and finger tricks. // Competitive speedcubing is predominantly overseen by the World Cube Association (WCA), which officially recognizes 17 distinct speedcubing events.^[5] These events encompass a range of puzzles, including NxNxN puzzles of sizes varying from 2x2x2 to 7x7x7, and other puzzle forms such as the Pyraminx, Megaminx, Skewb, Square-1, and Rubik's Clock (until 2027). Additionally, specialized formats such as 3×3×3, 4×4×4, and 5×5×5 blindfolded, 3×3×3 one-handed (OH), 3×3×3 Fewest Moves, and 3×3×3 multi-blind are also regulated and hosted in competitions.

As of February 2026, the world record for the fastest single solve of a 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube in a competitive setting stands at 2.76 seconds. (wikipedia)

• • •

Did the makers of Rubik's Cube pay for this puzzle? What a weird niche thing to build a puzzle around. I knew there were speed-solving competitions, but SPEEDCUBER? Yeah, I'm not familiar with your slang, fellas. Not that that held me up at all today. I didn't solve the puzzle in 2.76 seconds (the world record for ... speedcubing, is it?), but it went by pretty fast, as most of it was composed of incredibly boring, completely ordinary fill. An avalanche (I'm gonna need new metaphors here) ... a landslide? ... of the most dull-as-ecru 3-4-5s I've ever seen. IPA ARIA TESSA UAE ISAY ERIE ADO RARER ODE ASTO ICET EST ALLIN ALIT ORATE OMIT APED IBIS OVA  ... its' like the puzzle was trying to put me to sleep. Hardly. There are only four non-theme answers longer than 6 letters. For me, this was like solving the world's plainest and easiest themeless, except for the revealer, which did its job, but ... it hardly seems worth it. The theme answers are kind of cute as punny descriptions of what speedcubing must be like, though MAD SCRAMBLES feels a little less apt than the others. Is the solver "scrambling" to solve it? Is the idea that the colored squares on the Cube are all "scrambled" up and the solver has to unscramble them? The exact meaning of that one feels ambiguous and slightly off in a way that the other two do not. Anyway, if you just take the thematic bones of this puzzle, I think it's OK. But the bulk of the puzzle felt like an afterthought. Total snooze.

I haven't cared about the Rubik's Cube since it first came out, when I was about 11. I think of it as a fad toy that stopped being popular years ago, but ... apparently there's this whole world of competitive solving I know nothing about. By "whole world" ... I don't know how big we're talking. But the Speedcubing wikipedia page is astonishingly, painfully long and detailed, so however niche that world is, it appears to be, uh, well established. I know something about niche hobbies, and niche competitions. I have the trophies to prove it. Nothing wrong with nerdy niche worlds. It's just ... I don't expect speedcubers (or anyone, really) to know about crossword speedsolving, and yet this puzzle expects me to know and care about speedcubing. That's a no on both counts for me. Still, I know what a Rubik's Cube is, so the basic concept here wasn't mysterious. The theme answer placement felt a little weird to me. It's not—it's just a arrangement of long Across answers, but that's the thing: because the puzzle centers around a cube and its turning sides, I wanted those long Downs to be themers, so that there'd be one themer on each side, evoking the square shape of a cube. In fact, when I was done, for a few seconds, I thought those long Downs were theme answers, and I was struggling to understand what PEDAL POWER or POETRY SLAM had to do with speedcubing. "I guess there's 'power' involved ... and maybe you 'slam' the cube down when you're done? Is speedcubing supposed to be 'poetry' in motion? Is the act of turning the cube sides called 'pedaling'?" So many questions flashing through my brain. Then I realized the themers were just arranged in a standard all-Across way, and those long Downs were ... irrelevant.

The only answer that held me up at all today was RYAN (42A: Budget airline of Ireland, informally). I have almost nothing written on my printed-out grid today except for next to the clue for RYAN, where I have scrawled a double-underlined "TF?" (that's the "TF" from "WTF"). I'm supposed to know a discount Irish airline? Sorry, the informal nickname for a discount Irish airline? Apparently, yes, I am. It seems that RYANair is a way, way bigger enterprise than I could've imagined: 

Ryanair is an Irish ultra-low-cost airline headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. It is the largest airline in Europe by scheduled passengers carried, fleet size, and total flights. Globally, it is the largest airline by international passengers carried, the third-largest by market capitalisation behind Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, and the fifth-most profitable by net income. In 2025, the company sold 208 million airline tickets, averaging €70 in total revenue against €62 in costs per ticket sold. It is widely considered to be the cheapest airline operating in Europe. (wikipedia)

So I learned something today. I learned about a popular business that "consistently scores poorly in customer satisfaction ratings" but thrives nonetheless. Inspiring.

Bullets:

• 14A: One of approximately three million in Finland (for a population of less than six million) (SAUNA) — when I say America should follow more of a European social model, this is what I mean. You gotta admire a country this committed to health and relaxation. 
• 21A: Name repeated in a hit 1963 rock song (LOUIE) — wrote in "LAYLA" here (seven years off).

• 20A: Ben Jonson wrote one to himself (ODE) — it's a poem in which he takes himself to task for ... not writing poetry. Writing about how he's not writing. The poem opens with him beating himself up for not being more productive—basically a version of the voice in every self-loathing writer's head: "Where dost thou careless lie / Buried in ease and sloth?"
• 31D: Narrator on "Euphoria" (RUE) — I "know" this only from crosswords. It gets kind of densely pop-culturey in the middle of that damned cube: RUE, ORK, TAKEN clued as the Liam Neeson franchise. I doubt there's enough pop culture confusion there to scuttle someone's solve, but still, you might've taken RUE or TAKEN in a different, less name-y direction, just to be sure.

• 55A: One flying in to the coast, maybe (GULL) — so glad to find out this was just a bird and not some person flying into California to do business or take a vacation or whatever.
• 37D: Vampire double feature? (FANG) — A great clue, but maybe a better clue for FANGS, plural. I mean, yes, you can lawyer your way to a defense of singular FANG, but that "double" really wants FANGS. One FANG, double it, now you've got FANGS. Man, that word looks weirder and weirder the more you type it, so I'm gonna stop.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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