Thursday, June 25, 2026

BEQ untimed (Eric) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball tk (Jenni) rate it
LAT 5:13 (Gareth) [2.83 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT tk (ZDL) [3.57 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:54 (Eric) [2.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 10:03 (Emily) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WSJ untimed (Jim Q) [2.30 avg; 5 ratings] rate it

Matthew Sherman’s Universal Crossword “One for All, and All for One” — Eric’s Review

Matthew Sherman’s Universal Crossword “One for All, and All for One” — 6/25/26

Congratulations to Matthew Sherman, who appears to be making his crossword constructing debut in a venue covered by Fiend! Have a beer or two in celebration, sir!

Actually, considering the source of the quote that makes up today’s theme, a glass of a nice Côtes du Rhône or Cabernet Sauvignon might be more appropriate. Les Trois Mousquetaires have us twice switching ONE for ALL twice and ALL for ONE:

• 20A [Slipped up while assembling a dinosaur skeleton?] DROPPED THE BONE I’ve been watching bits and pieces of the World Cup. As most people know, goalkeepers are the only players who generally speaking are permitted to touch the ball with their hands. Consequently, you don’t see much ball-dropping on the pitch.
• 32A [Decision about which route to take on a road trip?] TRAFFIC CALL
• 43A [Manner of speaking] WALKING TONE
• 

  Left to right: Time, Power, Space, Mind, Reality, and Soul

  52A [Boundless restroom features?] INFINITY STALLS I lost a bit here with INFINITE ____. (I don’t spend much time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and don’t remember these gems.)

Three somewhat goofy theme answers and one (traffic call) that’s sort of like something that is really a thing.

Other stuff:

• 28A [Like playing the song “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” at a wedding] INAPT I’d call something like that tasteless or at best pessimistic.
• 4D [___ the trail (mislead)] THROW OFF This kind of “partial” never sits well with me. It seems like you can take any semi-well-known phrase and slice it into pieces to create an entry. (That said, it’s only a partial because of how it’s clued. A quick look at crossword tracker.com reminds me that THROW OFF is perfectly legit for a clue like [Confuse] or [Mislead].
• 9D [Nickname for Alexander] SASHA I only learned that a few years ago.
• 56D [A wise Jedi he was] YODA Also in the last few years, I learned that Yoda’s characteristic speech pattern is an example of anastrophe, a rhetorical device in which the the usual order of words or clauses are inverted.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1899 “Going Too Far” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1899 “Going Too Far” — 6/25/26 (Click to Enlarge)

Once in a while, I will remember to read whatever note appears at the top of the puzzle. I remembered today and it confirmed what I had thought the title meant: Twenty-nine of the answers in this crossword are too long and won’t fit in the spaces provided. Each of these answers will either begin or end in the gray square immediately before or after it, or appear in both. When the puzzle is done, all the gray squares will have been used exactly once, and the letters in them (reading left to right, line by line) will spell out a quote by Stewart Francis. (Actually, it’s only a separate note in the .puz version; if you solve on Brendan’s website, that text appears in a gray box below the grid.)

AcrossLite showed the gray boxes as black and wouldn’t let me type in them. So I solved on Brendan’s site, where, oddly, I couldn’t see the entire clue list (to pick out things I was sure of) until I made my browser window smaller than full-screen. If there is ever a puzzle style that depends on a few things you can be sure of, it’s something like this.

It doesn’t help that when you hit a gray square, the solving interface treats it as black, meaning that it’s very easy to type over a letter. Maybe the best medium for solving something like this is pencil and paper.

The quote, if you haven’t pieced it together, is “I wanna write a mystery novel — or do I?” Ha ha.

Throw in the usual quota of proper names, not all of which I’d heard, and I didn’t much enjoy this. Though my solving pace picked up for a bit after a while, I used a few checks to finish.

Brendan thoughtfully included a video of the quoted Stewart Francis. I didn’t find him all that funny.

Jake Halperin’s Wall Street Journal crossword “As a Rule” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Phrases with AS in them are re-parsed and wackiness ensues

WSJ • 6/25/26 • Thur • “As a Rule” • Jake Halperin • solution • 20260625

THEME ANSWERS:

• [Minor injury?] JUST A SWELL. Just as well. 
• [Handed over some cabbage?] PASSED A SLAW. Passed as law. 
• [Enjoying Broadway?] SEEING A SHOW. Seeing as how…
• [Bribed one’s sibling?] BOUGHT A SIS. Bought as is. 

My favorite theme type- this kind of word play. These ones mostly landed for me. SEEING A SHOW is the first one I uncovered, and that felt odd simply because SEEING A SHOW is a thing I actually do say frequently. I mean, it is a boring phrase that I wouldn’t expect to see in a standard crossword, but it’s not out of the question. Seeing as how didn’t jump out at me either as a base phrase.

Some excellent fill- especially the longer answers. “LISTEN TO ME!”, NINJA STAR, LIFE LESSON, HAS IT EASY, “I’LL CHECK!” NBA STORE. I mean, all of these are entries I’d expect to see in a themeless. Impressive.

4 stars from me.

Tarun Krishnamurthy’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 8m24s

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Working on it (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Tarun Krishnamurthy’s New York Times crossword, 6/25/26, 0625

Today’s theme: INSIDER / TRADING (With 65-Across, market no-no … or a hint to entering the answers to the starred clues)

• BAD RAPS / BRA PADS
• WEE LASS / WEASELS
• TRAINERS / TERRAINS
• FEMINIST / FINE MIST
• STEP ON IT / STONE PIT
• WEBINARS / WINE BARS

I think I’m missing something — the theme makes sense, but I don’t quite understand the black vertical bars in the theme answers.  They don’t seem to indicate numeration for either the sham answers or the real answers, and they don’t mark the midpoint of the entry.  Someone throw me a lifeline in the comments.

Cracking: don’t OVERTHINK it

Slacking: TSP cued as (Medicinal amt.)  I think of “medicinal” amounts as MGS or CCS

Sidetracking: YUKON Ho!

Winston Emmons’ USA Today Crossword, “Service Centers” — Emily’s write-up

You’re up!

USA Today, June 25, 2026, “Service Centers” by Winston Emmons

Theme: the middle portion of each themer (the “center”) is a type of service

Themers:

• 16a. [Kirsch-flavored German dessert], BLACKFORESTCAKE
• 36a. [YouTube channel with overdubbed content], BADLIPREADING
• 57a. [You’ll never get over it!], BARBEDWIREFENCE

A variety of themers in today’s set with BLACKFORESTCAKE, BADLIPREADING, and BARBEDWIREFENCE. I needed a few crossings for each, though maybe for some the cluing made for easier fills. With the theme, we get: FOREST SERVICE, LIP SERVICE, and WIRE SERVICE.

Favorite fill: SEASALT, CHARMS, and DECAL

Stumpers: BABE (misdirected by cluing–lovely!), AHEM (needed crossing), and APSE (new to me)

A great puzzle with a fun grid though a trickier solve for me today. I found the cluing more difficult so it took me longer to solve. The delightful cluing and overall fill still made for an enjoyable solve.

4.0 stars

~Emily

Jeffrey Wechsler’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s summary

Jeffrey Wechsler’s puzzle gives us an uncommon theme variant, uncommon because it’s quite difficult to pull off and it doesn’t create a lot of interesting answers on its own. The two central across answers spell out CUTTING/CORNERS; all four corners spell out cutting implements using circles: KNIFE, BLADE, SWORD and SNIPS. I feel snips is some word I’ve heard Americans use for a scissors variant of sorts?

The design features no long answers, but many 7s. None of the opening stack of IFEELOK/KNAVERY/NUTLIKE seemed to sit quite right with me. I guess my favourite entry was… PARSNIP? I’m a sucker for a parsnip, even though they’re astonishingly priced for a root vegetable.

Gareth