Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Caustic alkalis

Constructor: Robert Cirillo

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: LUCK (52D: Word that can follow the starts of 20-, 26-, 43- and 52-Across)

BEGINNER'S GUIDE (20A: Help for newbies)
DUMB QUESTION (26A: There's no such thing as this, according to a saying)
TOUGH AS NAILS (43A: Really strong)
LADY NANCY ASTOR (52A: First woman to sit in the British House of Commons)

Word of the Day: LADY NANCY ASTOR —

Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH, (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was the first woman to sit as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons.^{[Note 1]} She was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor. (wikipedia)

• • •

I say all of the following in the context of having finished the puzzle in roughly 3 and a half minutes.

Of all the ladies in the world, dear lord. No idea who LADY NANCY ASTOR is, so that alone made this tougher than usual. DUMB QUESTION is a good answer, but not Monday-easy to get to today. But I could've just been in some kind of Pimm's & Cider stupor because I couldn't see BEGINNER'S GUIDE until I had about 12/14 of it filled in. So it was on the tough side for a Monday, theme-wise. Otherwise, fairly normal I guess. Several long Downs, none of them interesting. Ordinary fill all around. Adequate, but a bit subpar as "Word That Can Follow" puzzles go.

I have to get back to enjoying the public roasting that Todd Akin is getting right now on all social media. His comments about "legitimate rape" were abhorrent, but the resulting push back has been tremendous, not to mention hilarious. Heartening to know there are apparently *some* limits to the nonsensical shit you can say with impunity. Here's a pic (re-)tweeted by actress Rashida Jones earlier this evening, marked "Akin's knowledge of science extends to this..."

Bullets:

5D: Former German chancellor Konrad (ADENAUER) — "der ALTE" to crossword aficionados everywhere.
57A: Home of Lima and Toledo (OHIO) — I was the sucker whose first thought was "they're in totally different countries!"
60A: The Who's "___ Get Fooled Again" ("WON'T") — embarrassingly, I waffled between WON'T and DON'T for a while. I knew the lyric was WON'T, but ... bah. I have no excuse.
63A: Caustic alkalis (LYES) — had -YES and ... and ... wanted DYES, I think. OK, now I'm starting to think it was damn miracle I finished this as fast as I did. Clearly at least one cylinder was not firing. Ah well. Tomorrow is another day and all of that.

Reminder: still reviewing the grids / theme ideas of aspiring crossword constructors thru Aug. 25. No charge. Got a nice little team of constructors helping me out. We've fielded submissions from somewhere between 15-20 constructors so far. They seem pleased with the feedback. Submissions to rexparker at mac dot com.

OK, bye for now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld