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pds_lit and I, in a display of sheer lexicographical wizardry, dazzling joint intellectual endeavour, and straightforward gawdamighty old-fashioned grit, spent part of Boxing Day solving between us the New York Times puzzle spectacular.
We did much of this, it should be noted, without the use of artificial stimulants, performance enhancers, whatever. Only later on, once the battle had to all intents and purposes been won, did we dig out, to aid us in our toils, the by-now-slightly-vinegarish wine left over from our visitors on Christmas Eve.
The sole use of Google was to find a table of past Indy 500 winners. I would have expected to have to use Google also to discover the names of sporting teams based in Houston, but here my lady wife dumbfounded me with her hitherto unknown expertise.
No, no, thank you for the thought, but applause would be superfluous. It's enough for pds_lit and I that we, ourselves, know of our unmuted triumph.
ETA: There was one mystery answer in all this. The clue was ". . . commonly served with a lemon pip" and the answer, finally achieved because we got all the cross-letters, was "LULU". We have no idea why this should be so, and later Googling has left us no wiser. We agreed that "commonly served with a bottle of Coca Cola" might have been a better clue, and moved on to the next word puzzle (of five) in the series.
ETA (2): Further in-depth research by pds_lit suggests the "commonly served with a lemon" bit could (assuming sloppy definition) belong to the first half of the clue, leaving just "pip" -- which is of course a legitimate old-time slang synonym for the old-time slang noun "lulu".
ETA (3): Oh, and there was also an example of the your/you're illiteracy, with a clue whose answer was "your" having to be filled in as "you're". Shoddy, shoddy, NYT.
pds_lit and I, in a display of sheer lexicographical wizardry, dazzling joint intellectual endeavour, and straightforward gawdamighty old-fashioned grit, spent part of Boxing Day solving between us the New York Times puzzle spectacular.We did much of this, it should be noted, without the use of artificial stimulants, performance enhancers, whatever. Only later on, once the battle had to all intents and purposes been won, did we dig out, to aid us in our toils, the by-now-slightly-vinegarish wine left over from our visitors on Christmas Eve.
The sole use of Google was to find a table of past Indy 500 winners. I would have expected to have to use Google also to discover the names of sporting teams based in Houston, but here my lady wife dumbfounded me with her hitherto unknown expertise.
No, no, thank you for the thought, but applause would be superfluous. It's enough for pds_lit and I that we, ourselves, know of our unmuted triumph.
ETA: There was one mystery answer in all this. The clue was ". . . commonly served with a lemon pip" and the answer, finally achieved because we got all the cross-letters, was "LULU". We have no idea why this should be so, and later Googling has left us no wiser. We agreed that "commonly served with a bottle of Coca Cola" might have been a better clue, and moved on to the next word puzzle (of five) in the series.
ETA (2): Further in-depth research by pds_lit suggests the "commonly served with a lemon" bit could (assuming sloppy definition) belong to the first half of the clue, leaving just "pip" -- which is of course a legitimate old-time slang synonym for the old-time slang noun "lulu".
ETA (3): Oh, and there was also an example of the your/you're illiteracy, with a clue whose answer was "your" having to be filled in as "you're". Shoddy, shoddy, NYT.
