John Bennett's crossword in today's Daily News includes six symetrically-placed circles, each of which overlaps four squares of the grid. The answer to "Living it up" is JUSTHAVINGABALL and the letters within the circles, when read in clockwise order, form words which can precede "ball": SOUR, HAIR, FOOT, BASE, MEAT and POOL. To steal a line from someone else here whom we all know and love, DOS, ETE and PESOS are not used in English. And "Not the sharing type" is PIG. I think either the word should be changed to HOG or the clue should be changed to "Slovenly person." Maybe a pig farmer can say if the clue is accurate.
The clue for SCRATCHANDSNIFF in today's Los Angeles Times crossword by Mark Bickham is "Like stickers that smell when rubbed." I think "Things that dogs do" would have been a better clue. The other long answers are SUGARANDSPICE, SHORTANDSWEET and STARSANDSTRIPES. "Metaphor for time" is SANDS, as in "the sands of time" (referring to an hourglass), and the word can be divided into three parts to define the theme: S AND S. Our old familiar friends OBOE and OREO also make an appearance today.
The Universal crossword includes ACTINTHEPLACEOF, DISAPPEARINGACT and ACTOFPOLITENESS. There is not really a theme, just three phrases containing the word "act." Here is today's suggestion, offered free of charge to anyone who wants to create such a puzzle: Compose a crossword with theme answers that are phrases which normally include the letter sequence ACT. In the grid, those letters will be omitted. The theme will be, literally, "Disappearing ACT." An example of an answer: LOSEINTOLERANT, which is LACTOSEINTOLERANT minus the ACT. I can come up with plenty of ideas for crossword themes---I just can't seem to make the fershlugginer puzzles!
