IPB Puzzles… Some More

We have complained in this space over the last few weeks that Saturday puzzles were getting soft, that the “bitch mother of all puzzles” had lost her teeth. But this week we think we’ve found the source of our problem: we’re just too focused on it. Time used to be that, as we crept into the final 100 mL of our bottle of wine, we’d look up from the grid and drunkenly expound on some vital issue or another, or let ourselves get lost in whatever DVD we’d put on in the background (more often than not “Master and Commander”). But now the competition is just too fierce. We daren’t look up to complain about Scott Burnside’s dismissal of the free agent signings the Devils have made this summer because what if neither of the other two denizens of stately IPB Manor are willing to stop working on their puzzles long enough to discuss it? It’s always a competition, people.

And in the competition tonight, all was right in the world. Schnookie kicked ass, Pookie finished several minutes later, and Boomer lagged far, far behind. But it was a good puzzle, just the kind we like best (although a little more snarl from it would have been welcome), where there aren’t any obscure names or county seats. Every clue was one a solver could eventually suss out. (That said, Schnookie was disappointed that, on her first swing through the clues, she was able to fill in a lot of letters. We all prefer a Saturday where the first go-round yields a few three-letter answers and “S”s in the plurals; that happened in yesterday’s puzzle, but not tonight’s.)

The first part of the grid to go down the NE corner, cracked by Schnookie on her own. She got 14D (”Relinquishes control” — “steps aside”) on the first run through the clues, with none of the across clues. 13D, “Show tune sung by a stevedore named Joe” (”Ol Man River”) followed shortly thereafter, and the rest went down easy. Pookie took down the NW corner fastest, having nailed 8D (”___-Tab [PC window-switching shortcut” — “ALT”), and then drawing on her Wodehouse readings to extrapolate 15A (”Enthusiastic welcome” — “Hello Hello”). That led to her getting “chuck” for 6D (”Toss”) and the rest went down easy, with a little spotting from Schnookie for the “‘V for Vendetta’ actor, 2006″ in 7D (”Rea”).

The center of the grid was collaborative. Schnookie got all of it but the box with the number 33 in it, and had to wait for Pookie to help her out with 33A (”Many a Degas portrait” — “Pastel”) before moving on to the bottom corners. Boomer got things rolling in the SW corner with her mad Bond actor trivia knowledge (60A, “Frobe who played Goldfinger” — “Gert”), and Schnookie broke the corner with 27D, “Did a dog trick” (”Rolled over”). And again it was Boomer’s heroics on 54D (”Sourdough’s dream” — “Lode”) that kick-started the SE corner, followed by Pookie spotting everyone a clue for 61A, “Cosmopolitan alternative” (”pina colada”). But as much as Boomer and Pookie were getting the ball rolling, it was Schnookie who capped her pen first, having to spot her boon companions an assist on 46A, “Whizzes” (”Adepts”), to get them both home.

In short, it was a good one this week. Not quite as mean as Friday’s, but an encouragingly nasty little Saturday. And any puzzle that includes the word “Junta” (37D, “Pre-election group”) is a puzzle worth solving.