Constructor: Daniel Grinberg
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ? (untimed)
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THEME:"Partnerships"— ___ AND ___ phrases, clued (punnily) as some kind of "partners":
Theme answers:
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Hello, all. Can't spend long on this because I'm watching "Christmas in Connecticut" with friends in about an hour, and thank god, because I need something to gladden me after the dreariness of this puzzle. I remain baffled by how corny dull and dated the Sunday puzzle is, almost every week. Today, all the ... interest? cleverness? ... is in the clues. I guess you think of a bunch of types of "partners" (i.e. phrases that run "___ partners" or "partners in ___") and then you think of ___ AND ___ phrases that fall in the general category of whatever type of partners you're dealing with. So [Restaurant partners] could be SOUP AND SALAD or SALT AND PEPPER or HAM AND EGGS, [Dance partners] could be BUMP AND GRIND, etc. Yes, there is a coherent concept here, but the results are very tepid. Like dad jokes on simmer. And the fill is a real millstone; I can deal with a slightly ho-hum theme if there's lots of non-theme things to enjoy about the puzzle. But there aren't. The fill is frequently painful, with stuff like BIENNIA (?!) and SPECIE really stinking up the joint. QIN ISSO NTHS. ONO ONEG ROES. ADES + OGEES. Etc. IN REPAIR (?) and IN BETA :( ... It's no worse than your average Sunday, I guess, but the average Sunday is so much worse than it oughta be. This is the puzzle billing itself as the Best Puzzle in the World, and this is the marquee puzzle, the biggie, the one with the most cachet: the Sunday. And week after week, it's thud after thud. If I sound like a broken record, I'm just echoing the puzzle itself. It's stuck. Stuck. Stuck.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ? (untimed)
Theme answers:
- JUDGE AND JURY (Law partners)
- PEACE AND QUIET (Silent partners)
- PEN AND PAPER (Writing partners)
- BREAKING AND ENTERING (Partners in crime)
- BOOM AND BUST (Business partners)
- HUGS AND KISSES (Romantic partners)
- ROOM AND BOARD (110A: Domestic partners)
: a widely cultivated sweet red grape used especially in wine makingalso : a varietal wine made from this grape (merriam-webster.com)
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There's not really much to say about this. Things I didn't know: GRENACHE. I guess I don't really drink dessert wines, red or otherwise. I had YTD before QTR (41D: Fiscal year div.), which means I didn't really read the clue very closely. Wanted ATTENDANCE but got ATTENDEES (14D: Event organizer's count). Am never going to know allllll the Chinese dynasties. Thought the clue on AFAR was pretty bad (100A: How Phileas Fogg traveled). Love GIMLETs, but only the kind you drink (91D: Small hole-drilling tool). Best thing in the grid is GOON SQUAD (1D: Group of heavies). That's all. Maybe you have other things you'd like to talk about, but I SOURedON this puzzle pretty early on, and nothing in the puzzle did much to change that. Will never understand why Sundays are such throwaway days. Seems a waste.