Tuesday, 12/29/09

NYT 1:55 ... LAT 1:58 ... CS 1:56 ... ND 1:34 ... BT 2:43 ... TO 2:49

4 comments:

Alex said...

All right, since you and Tyler aren't doing it anymore, let's play "What's wrong with this puzzle theme?" courtesy of today's Universal puzzle.

Title: PRESIDENTIAL AFFAIRS
Theme entries and clues:
JACKSONS FIVE 12 = [Bill belonging to Rev. Jesse?]
MONROES DOCTRINE 15 = ["Diamonds are a girl's best friend"]
LINCOLNS LOGS 12 = [Abe's building materials?]

I count at least three things wrong with that, two of which should have been fixed in editing.

Dan said...

C'mon, spoiler alert! I'm still a week behind!

Just kidding. Let's see, missing "?"... inconsistent references... Wait, did you say "editing"? What's that?

Gareth Bain said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gareth Bain said...

Puzzles I have had published by Timothy Parker have all been changed radically, and many have had clever lively clues inserted... Admittedly one of my few puzzles had the title "I Give" lose its "give" making the theme utterly incomprehensible...

Having said that this puzzle was godawful, on so many levels. Why do I suspect all 3 were originally clued with presidents in the title but reworded to make it easier, trampling on the theme in the process (I've seen this happen before in TP puzzles.) Never mind that 2 of the 3 entries in their original context were already about the president in question... A real headscratcher that one!