Shetland sweater style / FRI 1-23-15 / Tonic for tired blood / Phishing fodder / Onetime dwellers along Big Blue River / Starting point of train trip to Timbuktu in song / Hill historic home of Theodore Roosevelt / Filaments in wrought iron / Shepherd of old movies

Constructor: Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: FAIR ISLE (40D: Shetland sweater style) —

Fair Isle is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. It is named after Fair Isle, a tiny island in the north of Scotland, that forms part of the Shetlandislands. Fair Isle knitting gained a considerable popularity when the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular colour.

Some people use the term "Fair Isle" to refer to any colourwork knitting where stitches are knit alternately in various colours, with the unused colours stranded across the back of the work. Others use the term "stranded colourwork" for the generic technique, and reserve the term "Fair Isle" for the characteristic patterns of the Shetland Islands.

Other techniques for knitting in colour include intarsia, slip-stitch colour (also known as mosaic knitting). (wikipedia)

• • •

I didn't enjoy this much, but it's definitely not as bad as I thought it was about 1/3 of the way in. I didn't get FACE PALM, KILOHERTZ or (toughly, nicely clued) GEOCACHING (9D: Coordinated activity?) til very late, and what I got early … wasn't pretty. This isn't terribly surprising, as I tend to need to hack at the short stuff (more likely to be ugly) before I can uncover the long stuff. It's just that I went a considerable amount of time today with virtually no long stuff. ONA. NON and ICI.  EFILE OLEO MEWL ROM TERI. EMTS. And I was missing old stuff that was way out of my wheelhouse. A song about Timbuktu … a partial about Teddy Roosevelt (really mad at myself there, as I watched all that damned Ken Burns documentary and apparently it did me virtually no good) … a sweater type (which, it turns out, was popularized by a Prince of Wales from a century ago…?). I actually developed open antipathy for this puzzle just reading the clue at 12D: Joe of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman", which only increased when I realized that could've had a "Star Wars"-related clue (LANDO). GERITOL, indeed.

["Got another lover in Timbuktu…"]
But as I say, the ship righted itself somewhat in the latter half of the solve, as more interesting fill started to show up. I had some early-morning gunk in my head, apparently, as I not only had SILL for SLAT (2D: Blind spot?) (right idea, wrong answer), but had -OBS and just stared, too lazy even to run the alphabet properly. COBS, of course. Ears of corn. Also had MI-ER at 18A: One likely to take an elevator to work and wondered why a MISER wouldn't want to take the stairs … but of course, MINERs take an elevator to and (if they're lucky) from work.


There are some things that shouldn't be plurals, and EEKS and (especially!) CIAOS are among those things. [Inuit companion] should be "qimmiq" (aka the Canadian ESKIMO DOG). Also, they aren't Inuit "companions" much any more since the breed is virtually extinct. The American ESKIMO DOG originated in Germany (go figure) and as a breed is very much alive and well, thank you.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Fencing thrust / THU 1-22-15 / Part of Scottish accent / Nonlethal ammo brand / Quaint preposition / Lab assistant for Dr. Frederick Frankenstein / James Bond portrayer / WWII noncombatant

Constructor: Timothy Polin

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: FIFTH / COLUMNS (15D: With 45-Down, subversive groups … or what the answers in the circled squares comprise?) — all the circled Downs (five "columns" in all) have an implied / missing "Fifth" at the beginning of their clues:

Your "Columns":

• JUPITER (1D: Planet) / BORON (46D: Chemical element)
• SOL (4D: Note on the musical scale) / DEUTERONOMY (25D: Book of the Bible)
• PIERCE BROSNAN (6D: James Bond portrayer)
• AUGEAN STABLES (18D: Labor of Hercules)
• ALAN SHEPARD (9D: Man who walked on the moon) / MAY (59D: Month)

Word of the Day: BURR (46A: Part of a Scottish accent) —

noun

1. 1. 

   a rough sounding of the sound r, especially with a uvular trill (a “French r ”) as in certain Northern England accents.
2. 2. 

   a rough edge or ridge left on an object (especially of metal) by the action of a tool or machine. (google)

• • •

Well this is certainly the nicest puzzle of the week thus far, and far and away the best filled. There's a groaner here and there, but way too much solid, interesting stuff for the lesser stuff to become a real distraction. Themewise, I like that the pentacular (it's a word now) theme has two components—the missing "Fifth"s as well as the five total "columns" that are involved. The main problem, as I see it, is one of entertainment value. The cluing offered no opportunities for anything but the most literal approach. Most of the time, the missing "Fifth" wasn't relevant or even noticeable; I got all the longer theme answers with virtually no crosses in place (though having the "AU-" in place on the Herclues one definitely helped) (also of help—having some longstanding familiarity with that guy's labors). Cluing was just blah, and missing "Fifth" wasn't noticeable / couldn't be registered in any kind of compelling way. So I love the idea, and the look of the grid, and I think it's nicely filled, but between the puzzle's overall easiness (under five minutes?!) and the aggressive straightforwardness of the cluing, there was somewhat less scintillation that I would've liked in my Thursday puzzle. Still, I'll take it over any of this week's M-W stuff.


I only learned the term "fifth column" a few years back, when I was looking for theme answers for my marijuana / "THC"-themed puzzle "Inside Dope." That puzzle also contained BIRTH CANAL. Edgy! Anyway, knowing the term allowed me to get the revealer without even looking at the clue. I got COLUMNS from crosses and then … I dunno, I just never even looked at 15-Down. My main issue up there was going with RADII for 19A: Neighbors of ulnae (CARPI). CARPI is probably my least favorite thing in the grid (and keep in mind this grid has ESS and YERS). It's a real plural, but I've never seen it (that I can remember). TARSI, I've seen. CARPI sounds like it would describe a fish-like odor. At any rate, I was playing around with my dog's FOREPAWs earlier in the evening, so that answer came to me easily and helped me straighten out that corner (the only part of the puzzle that gave me the slightest trouble). Stuff like NIA, ENYA, NAOMI, OREO, all just came too easily. Middle of the grid might've been harder had not the long themers there been a total cinch. PASSADO and GAG RULE make a really lovely center "column." This puzzle definitely has more pluses than minuses.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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