Parisian girlfriend / MON 3-3-14 / Complimentary road service in Sierra Leone's capital / America's Most Wanted host John / New Jersey governor whose first name starts his last name

Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Blake

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (**For A Monday**)


THEME: "N" the middle — semi-wacky two-word phrases where the first word ends in "N" and the  second word is identical, but minus the "N":
Theme answers:

• DIVAN DIVA
• PATTERN PATTER
• FREETOWN FREETOW
• EASTERN EASTER
• LEARN LEAR

Word of the Day:"THE X Factor" (13D: TV's "___ Factor") —

The X Factor is a television music competition franchise created by Simon Cowell. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for Pop Idol. It is now held in various countries. The contestants are aspiring pop singers drawn from public competitive auditions. The programmes are produced by executive producer Simon Cowell and his company SYCOtv. The "X Factor" of the title refers to the undefinable "something" that makes for star quality.^[1] The prize is usually a recording contract, in addition to the publicity that appearance in the later stages of the show itself generates, not only for the winner but also for other highly ranked contestants. (wikipedia)

This one's a bit bland. Central answer has a lovely wackiness to it, but the rest seem like afterthoughts—mostly RLSTNEA (in fact, the final two theme answers are composed *only* of those letters), and just flat. The simplicity of the theme made all the answers supremely easy to get with just a few crosses. The puzzle did have a couple of long-answer highlights—a timely CHRISTIE answer, a much-needed ESTROGEN injection—but the fill here is, once again, not good. EENYNATLERSE all 1-2-3 like that? There's not the polish that you used to see in Andrea's puzzle many years ago. She helped me polish one of the very first grids I made, and that attention to detail really, really helped. Not sure why she's not holding herself to those same high standards any more. Also not sure why all the Scrabble-f***ing. Anyone can see that the NE corner, for instance, is diminished by that "X."THEX? If that's the cost of your "X," it's too expensive.


Since it's an easy-puzzle day, I want to take a second to plug Liz Gorski's "Crossword Nation" puzzle—a weekly M/T-level puzzle by one of the greatest constructors in the country. High-quality work every time out. Subscription info here. Also, check out the puzzle I awarded Puzzle of the Week for last week—Matt Jones's "Letter Chop" (get it from the Jonesin' Crossword Google Group, here). Matt shows how entertaining a very simple theme can be.

Had a great time at the Finger Lakes Crossword Competition over the weekend. Got to meet constructor Adam Perl, who made the tournament puzzles all himself, including a wicked, grid-busting puzzle for the Expert division. Not many tournaments feature all-original puzzles. I was really impressed. Plus I got to reconnect with some old students who showed up, do a little Q-and-A about The World of Crosswords, and meet a bunch of friendly people (including volunteers from a Cornell service fraternity, pictured right). Fun fact: the tournament champion came all the way from Ohio. He'd heard about the tourney on my website, and since he couldn't make this upcoming weekend's ACPT, he decided he'd get his tourney experience some other way. Turns out lots of central NY'ers either didn't know the tourney was happening or found out too late to plan for it, so next year I'm gonna work with the tournament organizers to do a little more planning and promotion, and maybe we can turn it into a regular regional tournament, accessible to all skill levels. That's the idea, anyway.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld