IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:
www.mgwcc.com
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Fun crossword weekend for me last week, for two reasons: 1) I got to see a lot of xword folk at the Indie 500 in DC, and 2) last week’s puzzle was one of the best-received metas of the series.
Instructions stated: This week’s contest answer is a secret word that can be formed by anagramming an entry in this puzzle’s fill.
Our four theme entries each came with a parenthetical number:
17-A [He had his own mother assassinated (1)] = EMPEROR NERO
11-D [Event of February 5, 2006 (2)] = SUPER BOWL XL
25-D [Power roll (3)] = DOUBLE SIXES
61-A [Philanthropist who started the Imagination Library (4)] = DOLLY PARTON
The key insight here is that each of these theme answers suggests a “number-to-number” phrase. In order of obviousness:
DOLLY PARTON had a big hit with “9 to 5”
The score of SUPER BOWL XL was 21 to 10
EMPEROR NERO ruled from A.D. 54 to 68
The odds of rolling DOUBLE SIXES is 35 to 1
If you travel from the first number to the second number of each in the grid, as illustrated in the solution diagram above and following the parenthetical numbers, you get CODE WORD AESOPIC LOSER. Aesop’s most famous loser was that overconfident HARE, our meta answer, who took a nap while underestimating that plucky tortoise. And there’s the required anagram at 49-A, RHEA, to seal the deal.
pgw liked it:
[11 to 37]!
Stribbs points out:
I love how the key find ‘aesopic’ has the trickiest #-# connection of the four, isn’t easily reverse-solved and doesn’t cause any creaky fill despite being diagonal.
My first try at this had SANDED at 5-across and EX-PUPIL along the 35-to-1 diagonal, with BART as the meta answer (and BRAT somewhere in the fill). But I couldn’t make the fill fit, so kept looking for other possibilities.
Several solvers mentioned miscalculating 1 in 36 odds as 36 to 1 instead of 35 to 1. Even AKO got tripped up:
Wow. Couldn’t get past “1 in 36”. You’d think the math major would have gotten that one first!
And Jared Dashoff only entered on Tuesday morning:
Just under the wire…good thing I didn’t take a nap in the middle of it all.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 117 correct entries received, is Marcia Rose of Mequon, Wisc. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Marcia will also receive a signed copy of my book Pocket Posh Easy Crosswords.
MGWCC FOR FATHER’S DAY:
A subscriber just bought his Dad a MGWCC subscription for Father’s Day. I find that very cool.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a well-known restaurant chain.
IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 2015 MGWCC is a subscribers-only crossword. The cost is $26 per year, and you can subscribe (or get a free trial month first) here:
www.mgwcc.com
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.