Happy New Year everybody! I've just crawled out of bed from last night's revelry, so sorry for the late posting. The first Listener for 2010 is hot off the press, but we've got three more weeks to catch up with the last ones of 2009.
And this week it's Hedge-Sparrow. There have been two Hedge-sparrow Listeners in this blog - last year's Travel Agents had wormholes popping in and out all over, and early this year there was acknowledgment of Charles Darwin turning 200 with S. So I have a perfect score thus far with Hedge-Sparrow, let's see if that continues.
Preamble says that all across entries have to be modified, so real words for the down entries. There's some extra letters from wordplay to give two phrases. And since the last two have had some sort of science theme, let's hope that Hedge-sparrow continues on to be the anti-Dipper and keep brings on the techie stuff.
To cut a short story short and get me to lunch - I almost completely finished this over three pints at lunch the Friday it came out. I was very much on the wavelength with the clues, and they seemed to fall into place nicely.
This was my grid (and my lovely personal mug at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company) at the end of my extended lunch break. First thing I figured out was that there were a bunch of T's in the wrong spot, and that a lot of the across answers had LL in them and there was only room for one L in the answer. EINSTEIN at the bottom becoming EINSTTEIN dropped a not-too subtle hint, and soon I had TIME DILATION and LENGTH CONTRACTION from the extra letters. So it is relativity - and there's SPECIAL RELATIVITY in the shape of a C.
All that was left to do when I got back from the bar was to gind entries for 32 down and 37 across (VILLIAGO sounded like it would fit the wordplay but I didn't have a dictionary on me).
Sorry about the short blog, Hedge-sparrow, but I'm hungry and my house-guest is moaning that we need to go find something to eat. I really loved this crossword, and can't wait for the next installment of science with Hedge-Sparrow (now watch it be a Listener based on the fourth act of Henry V).
Victory to George!!! 2009 tally: George 32, Listener 18. Current streak: George 2.
If you're a fan of American-style crosswords, you need to check out Brendan Quigley's blog and bonus puzzles. This week he did one themed around his favorite albums of the 00s, and declared #1 to be one of my favorites as well - here's "Frontier Psychiatrist" by the Avalanches
Feel free to comment below and see you next week for a word with Pilcrow's X.
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