Theme: Two-word phrases each word of which begins with the next letter of the alphabet ---
all 26 letters appear in alphabetical order!Good Ones:Rival of Cassio IAGO [I thought watches, of course]
Odysseus trio, to Homer SIGMAS [I thought some monster, but shouldn’t the Greek plural be used since it’s “to Homer”?]
Hangs on a line DRIES [not “the line”]
Who knew?:UPPERVOLTA is no more, and that it is now Burkina Faso, which sounds like an Olympics female gymnast.
GLENNE Headly was in
Dick Tracy, or that there was a GLENNE Headly. Actually, I’m sad to know that there was a
Dick Tracy.
Lisa LOEB sang "Stay." And I doubt "Stay" is the Maurice Williams rock & roll goodie.
NER Tamid is a synagogue lamp.
By the Way:To eliminate NER, which I would want to do, I’d change 31-Across to NOR making NER become NOA, which could be read “no A.” The clue could be “What’s wrong with ‘tht’ but not ‘hat’?” Or maybe something like "What the mediocre report card had." Or not.
A few months back I remember YURTS --- didn’t like it then and still don’t. When and where might Mongolian tents be mentioned --- okay,
National Geographic and
Smithsonian. Still don’t like it.
Some Nits to Pick:Without dissent ASONEMAN [“to a man” or “as one” are okay --- this is not an idiom and seems an amalgam made up for the occasion]
RATING:
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun
