LAT tk (Gareth) 
[3.06 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
NYT 15:26 (Eric) 
[2.53 avg; 19 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) 
[2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 9:34 (Jim P) [2.17 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 6:32 (Matt G) 
[3.33 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Danny J. Rooney’s New York Times Crossword “A Man of Character” — Eric’s Review
Danny J. Rooney’s New York Times Crossword “A Man of Character”— 8/31/25
Congratulations to Danny J. Rooney on his New York Times puzzle debut! It’s also apparently his debut puzzle in any venue covered by Diary of a Crossword Fiend.
The puzzle is a nice tribute to everyone’s favorite MI6 agent and the guy who most memorably played him. Circles in the grid add a level to the theme that mostly plays out in answers that at first appeared to me to be somewhat random puns:
- 22A [“Don’t flick that cigarette over here!”] MOVE YOUR ASH
- 24A [“Incredible! This mosquito net didn’t let in even one bug!”] WHAT A MESH
- 52a [“Dear Lord! His Majesty’s beard is out of control!”] GOD SHAVE THE KING
- 63A [“Just dropped off some of your newly buffed knight’s protection!”] SHINED, SHIELD, DELIVERED (“I’m yours”)
- 74A [“Can you offer me anything bigger than skiffs, dinghies and pontoons?”] COULD I HAVE A SHIP?
- 111A [Secret agent first introduced in 1953] JAMES BOND
- 113A [Classic 111-Across portrayer, whose iconic accent is suggested by the answers to the italicized clues] SEAN CONNERY
- 120A [School attended by both 111-Across and his creator] ETON Finally, someone’s worked ETON into the theme instead of it being random fill.
- 33D [Favorite drink of 111-Across] MARTINI
- 66D [Feature of this puzzle’s circled squares that, when connected by a single line, visually represents 111-Across] DOUBLE O
Sean Connery on location for “Goldfinger” (1964)
The Connery-isms are on the silly side, but sometimes that’s OK. I can imagine Connery saying “ash” for “ass” or “mesh” for “mess,” so that works. But I’ve been a Bond fan since around 1970, and I wonder how this theme plays for solvers who don’t know or don’t care for the character.
Having elements of the theme like the two theme answers that run Down, and especially the doubled O’s that have to fall in the right place for the overlaid 7, sometimes compromises the fill, but I didn’t see too much that vexed me.
Other stuff:
- 1A [Maximum extent, in an idiom] HILT I couldn’t think of anything for a bit, and when the crosses gave me HIL, I put a second L. That cost me half a minute at the end because I didn’t immediately notice that LOERR was nonsense.
- 27A [Non-free-range farm fixture] FEEDLOT Readers of The New York Times Wordplay comments will know that such fixtures are sometimes enclosed by a chain-link fence.
- 35A [Went from 0 to 60, say] AGED The NYT used virtually the same clue a little over a month ago, yet I still had SPED for a while. Maybe I’m in denial (not that I’ll see 60 again.)
- 45A [More in need of a sticky roller] LINTIER OK, I guess so.
- 58A [___ code] AREA I know “bro code” and wondered if it had devolved into “bruh code” or “brah code.”
- 91A [Hero’s partner in myth] LEANDER I blanked on that name.
- 2D [“That doesn’t bother me anymore”] I’M OVER IT I’m better at forgiving than forgetting.
- 8D [Whiled away the hours] LOAFED Not LOLLED.
- 16D [Part of a personal air filtration system] NOSE HAIR Clever clue, but that’s not what I want to be thinking about over breakfast. Or pretty much any time. (See 35A.)
- 49D [Port on the Adriatic] BARI I know one four-letter Adriatic port. The city’s history in WW II is pretty gruesome.
- 64D [Williamson who played Merlin in “Excalibur”] NICOL Pure gimme. For a while in my early 20s, I was enamored of the Arthurian legend, probably because of John Boorman’s gorgeous 1981 movie.
- 77D [Obergefell v. ___, milestone case for marriage equality] HODGES Another gimme, as it should have been. My husband is convinced the current court will overrule it; I try to be more optimistic about such stuff.
- 84D [Greaves and cuisses, but not gauntlets and helmets] LEG ARMOR There’s a couple of words you can use to piss off your next Scrabble opponent (though you can probably make better use of three esses than “cuisses”).
- 88D [Feature of many a gloating movie villain] EVIL GRIN Surely one of the Bond villains could’ve been used in that clue.
- 99D [Late jazz singer ___ Laine] CLEO I know the name but not her music. So let’s learn something:
Dylan Schiff’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Mind Your Manors”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar(ish) phrases that hide types of houses. These houses are turned in the Down direction before the entry finishes back in the Across direction. The two-part revealer is BRINGS THE / HOUSE DOWN (45d, [With 50-Down, slays at a comedy show … or a hint to understanding the starred clues]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Mind Your Manors” · Dylan Schiff · 8.31.25
- 32a. [*Report with profits and losses] INCOME STATEMENT with 5d BOISE STATE.
- 35a. [*”Mwahahaha!,” “Bwahahaha!” and such] EVIL LAUGHTER with 13d BOND VILLAIN.
- 71a. [*Advice from another doctor] SECOND OPINION with 73d CONDOR.
- 105a. [*”Unleaded” coffeehouse orders] DECAF LATTES with 96d INFLATE.
- 109a. [*Certain Protestant denomination] LUTHERAN CHURCH. with 62d LIBRARY BRANCH.
Nice theme that kept me engaged with its long lively entries. I especially liked the EVIL LAUGHTER/BOND VILLAIN combo (granted, “evil laugh” sounds more in-the-language than EVIL LAUGHTER).
The puzzle is mostly symmetrical, but isn’t quite, though it’s only with a close inspection that I notice some of the black squares don’t have corresponding partners. And with theme entries in both directions, there isn’t much room for long fill. LASAGNA seems to be about the only highlight, and SHENZI [Hyena voiced by Whoopi Goldberg] feels like a deep cut. Too deep, in my opinion, but straightforward enough with the crosses.
3.5 stars.
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword “A Way With Words” — Matt’s Review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post crossword solution, “A Way With Words,” 8/31/2024
Before I get into the review, a two-week-late congratulations to Evan: the 8/17 puzzle was the 500th Sunday crossword published in the Washington Post since he started writing puzzles for them in Dec. 2015. There have been guest constructors in that mix, obviously, but Evan tells me “just like Matt Gaffney counts guest constructors’ puzzles towards his overall MGWCC total, I’m doing the same.” Evan’s time at the Post predates my time as an avid solver, so I’ve never know different at the post, but 10 years of anything is worth celebrating.
Congrats and thanks to Evan for such a run, and looking forward to more!
Trickier one this week – certainly the hardest for me from Evan this year. But it’s a nicely consistent them with a typical “Evan” payoff.
We have an asymmetrical grid and circles in a few places. Including four in the first four rows. So pretty quickly, solvers find that something is up with across entries that (appear to) end on a circle and don’t fit into their slots. The two-par revealer is in an unconventional spot, at 25-Across and 32-Across, so we’ll start there
- 25a [With 32 Across, do as you’re told … and what you must do while solving the answers to the starred clues?] FOLLOW / DIRECTIONS
Looking more closely, each of the theme clues are common phrases ending in “up” or “down,” pointing us in the correct direction to find the rest of the entry satisfying the clue in the crossing down entry. Other than providing direction, “up” and “down” are ignored in getting from clue to its complete entry.
- 24a [Help up] PITCH (IN)
- 26a [Come on down] GET (REAL)
- 27a [Double down] STAN (D IN)
- 29a [Fire up] PINKS (LIP)
- 49a [Write down] DROP (A LINE)
- 56a [Go up] BEA (T IT)
- 66a [Cool down] FAR (OUT)
- 76a [Break down] TIME (OFF)
- 89a [Read up] GO O (VER)
- 90a [First down] NUMBER (ONE)
- 106a [Mark up] BEAU (TY SPOT)
- 113a [Walk up] HOOF (IT)
And a final revealer to make sense of the circled letters at the pivot points:
- 103d [Figure of speech … and a synonym of the puzzle’s alternate title, spelled left to right in the circled squares] IDIOM
That left-to-right reading of the circled squares gives us TURN OF PHRASE, apt as expected.
I did not enjoy this puzzle during the solve, but I’m a big fan now that I’ve had to break it down for a recap. Even with the early revealer, I didn’t fully get the theme — including that “up” and “down” were the only two directions showing up in the clues – until I was done. And while none of the fill is too strained to make this work, some of the downs that contribute to the theme entries have some funky letter combinations.
But each theme clue is plenty in-the-language, as are the theme entries, if maybe a shade less common. My favorite? BEAUTY SPOT, with the last seven letters hiding in TOPSY TURVY coming down.
Other highlights: [Bane for Batman] is a fun clue given… the character BANE could be a plausible answer. Here, it’s CRIME // [Lipton competitor] is TETLEY, in the realm of bagged tea, rather than Nestea and bottled iced tea. I got there eventually // Needed a post-solve Google to confirm that XENA’s chakram is a ring-shaped weapon. Fun Wikipedia read, there
Cheers!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I thought this one flirted with being offensive. Once I figured out the theme, I had to read up and make sure the -sh sounds were from Sean Connery’s accent and not a lisp. Still didn’t feel great as I finished it, though.
Yes, I wasn’t fond of the “Connery-isms.” I haven’t seen one of his films in a while, but never had the impression that he sounded like that.
I felt these were more like “Darrell Hammond does Sean Connery in Celebrity Jeopardy on SNL”-isms. Can’t say that I enjoyed this very much in either case.
I don’t think Connery sounded much like that when he was playing James Bond. But in other roles, e.g., John Mason in “The Rock,” and in interviews, just being himself, the s/sh thing is definitely there.
I don’t think it’s any sort of speech impediment (or accent, really) – it’s just the way he spoke.
Ah! That’s possible. I’ve only seen him in the Bond films and the Untouchables film.
Offensive? How so? Just curious …
The reason why I wasn’t fond of it and I assume Jamie thought it flirted with being offensive is that it COULD be construed as making fun of a person’s accent or manner of speaking, which isn’t the nicest thing to do. I tend to assume that it was meant in a nice homage kind of way, but it COULD be thought not that.
That, and try getting away with this theme using almost any other accent.
Well, if I were the creator (and I’ve never created a crossword puzzle in my life), I would have made the longer entries the films Connery was in or something else other than the manner of speaking.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
I don’t think it is offensive to use Sean Connery’s accent as a theme, though I don’t find it funny either.
There is an obscene amount of naticks and side-by-side names in the grid. Not really justifiable because the theme isn’t that constraining.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
This NYT plays like the pun-per-week early 2010s, where every Sunday long answer was a series of punny variations, whose full was equally varied. NICOL may be a gimme for some, but for me that’s well before my time and plenty of Arthurian media since then made that one a “fill by crossings only” entry. I guess i have to IMDB this one! I thought the longer, non-theme entries were pretty fresh and in the language, but I can’t shake the idea that this puzzle was a stencil of a 2013 puzzle whose entries were modernized to fit 2025… so not outstanding but certainly not dreadful either, I think a solid 3 stars .
Edit: on a second look at the puzzle, I actually really like the Connery-isms, but they’re not so demanding on the setter that a lot of the fill in the middle of the puzzle is really inexcusably crosswordy and forced. Great theme, less than stellar fill…2.5 stars
NYT:
Congratulations to Danny J. Rooney on your first puzzle in the NYT.
By way of (hopefully constructive) feedback:
1- The 007 bit at the end is very cool. I didn’t quite tumble to it until I saw it and it definitely helped make better sense of all the double 00s.
2- The theme answers were, to me, typical of a Sunday jokey puzzle. It’s not my favorite genre, and I never associated that accent with 007, so it sort of fell a little flat but was definitely gettable. My favorite was GOD SHAVE THE KING!
3- The big theme answer did not come easily to me because to my mind the expression is “Signed, Sealed AND Delivered”. So I had DELIVERED and was scratching my head.
4- The fill was heterogeneous (to use a nerdy adjective). There were some great entries, such as CASANOVA, EVIL GRIN, and NOSE HAIR. But there were little corners with obscure fill or just too many options to get a toe hold.
Overall, a nice Sunday with points for creativity and a great AHA moment at the end!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours. Also used many other times.
Didn’t get the theme answers tied to Connery’s accent.
https://youtu.be/6To0fvX_wFA?si=NgG7vc7vvhYj-25L
Cool, thank you both!!!
NYT: Really fun NYT Sunday! I loved trying to work out the theme answers in Sean Connery’s accent; I listed to the podcast Blank Check about filmographies, and a running gag was about how Sean Connery says “the moviesh” in this bit from the Oscars:
https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/9sg047/sean_connery_opens_the_76th_oscars_skip_to_055/
Anyway, really like SHINED SHIELD DELIVERED and GOD, SHAVE THE KING! Even liked the double-O’s in the shape of a 7 at the end. Great Sunday, and great debut!
NYT: “The Connery-isms are on the silly side” writes Eric. That’s for sure! A little too silly for my taste, but overall, not bad for a debut puzzle. This was the easiest Sunday in several months for me, so I’ll look forward to Mr. Rooney’s next puzzle and hope he amps up the difficulty a couple of notches.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4.5 stars
re NYT: Jonny Lee Millers’s spot-on send-up of Sean Connery in Trainspotting helped me with this.
re Sunday WSJ : Joy Division was such a great band
I still have trouble getting my head around Connery as an accent to himself causing real changes in pronunciation. Part of it is having grown up with Bond as the emblem of British sophistication, so easy to assume as just king’s English. I played it in my head several times and sure enough it does introduce that H, but I couldn’t decide if it’s worth a punning theme. But oh, go ahead.
I’m still not sure it makes a fun puzzle, and the rest of the fill was no great shakes, though BARI is familiar enough that I’ll blame the lapse in stumbling over that section on me. But having a second H with the Stevie Wonder themer did feel inconsistent.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
NYT: I had Ideal Date crossed with DomP which sunk me. Didn’t know Moet was only half of the brand name so I went far more informal. Other than that block, not really impressed with the rest of it.
WAPO: Sorry to be commenting so late in the day. Thanks, Matt, for your nice and thorough write-up of Evan’s 502nd (?) Post puzzle. Thank heavens that with all of the real mess the Post is in due to J.B., Evan keeps creating little wonders each Sunday. Multiple levels of meaning to enjoy with 25A and 103D. I agree with Matt that 113A is a real “beauty spot” which one must go “topsy turvy” to complete. Matt highlighted how the theme clues ending in “up” or “down” are all in-the-language phrases. Very impressive. Keep up the great work, Evan. Your Sunday gems are one of the few joys to counteract the continual bad news in the Sunday newspapers. David
Thanks, David (and Matt for mentioning the milestone)!
The really neat thing for me about BEAUTY SPOT wasn’t just that the last letters reversed to TOPSY-TURVY, although that was very fun to find. It’s that when I found it, I didn’t know how it or any other theme answer should be clued. Only when I started thinking of clues for BEAUTY SPOT did I realize that it could be loosely defined as a “mark,” and that made me think of “mark up,” and that gave me the idea for how to signal the directions. The entire way of building the clues flowed from that answer. That alone makes it one of the luckiest finds of my puzzle life.
Congratulations on your milestone, Evan!
Like Matt, I found this challenging and not as much fun as I would have liked. There seemed to be a lot of short fill that I needed to get before I could figure out the theme answers. (Maybe there weren’t any more three- or four-letter answers than a typical 21×21 grid, but it felt like there were when I was solving it.)
Also, I quickly got the down part of the trick, but somehow missed the up part until well into the grid. That’s on me. (I was solving in bed during a bout of insomnia.)
Congratulations! This was a really fun solve for me; I noticed the theme clues all had “up” or “down” and made a quick guess as to the trick; the FOLLOW DIRECTIONS cemented it. And when I got to the IDIOM revealer, I was able to fill in TURN OF PHRASE for the missing circles I didn’t have. Really great puzzle, very fun to solve. And I loved TOPSY TURVY going backwards too. Great work—keep it up!
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 5 stars
Congrats to you Evan… after grasping the significance of UP and DOWN, the only issue that tripped me up was the instruction “spelled left to right” . I spelled it left to right BY ROW until I tried left to right BY COLUMN.
All in all, an excellent challenging puzzle.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
I recommend it.
Thanks for the recommendation. That was a fun theme, even though the phrase is not really part of my vocabulary. The fill was wonderful and there were some great clues throughout the grid.
It’s too bad that the PuzzleMe interface is such junk for a 21×21 grid, at least on an iPad.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 3 stars
LAT has an interesting theme that points to the letters that can be arranged to spell “BINGO” but I’m having trouble making sense out of that clue (3d) that seems to be an explainer but the most I could see was the word “BINGO” is in the answer (as part of 70d) so what am I missing?
The highlighted Down answers (other than the revealer) all begin with homophones of the BINGO letters — BE, EYE, EN, GEE and OH.
The EN may be a bit of a stretch. I don’t know the band well enough to know whether it’s pronounced “en” or something closer to the original French, which would be closer to “on.”
Eric… thanks for your answer. Actually, I figured out the homophones part but couldn’t see the relevance of the word “BINGO” to the title “Get the Ball Rolling” nor the clue 3d “what can be said about the first word of the answer to the to each starred clue?” except that they are homophones. I had to use Mr Google to tell me about Bingo Balls. Just ignorant, I guess.
I agree on the pronunciation problem with 50 down. Obviously the author decided to favor the American pronunciation because the band is from L.A. but it grates a bit on the ears of those few who are fluent in French.
You’re welcome. Sorry I misread your earlier comment.
Bingo balls are not part of my experience. (Hell, bingo itself isn’t really part of my experience, except for having to draft some awful legislation to allow companies that run bingo halls to make even more money.)
“A fool and his money are soon parted!”