A Real Hot Mess

“A Real Hot Mess” is both the title of this crossword and an accurate description of Edmonton’s summer so far. It’s either been real hot (and smoky) or a mess (rainy). What happened to a nice mid-twenties day? That’s not to say this summer hasn’t had its great moments.

A great moment to look forward to is my next workshop! The great folks over at Bent Stick Brewing are letting me take over their space on Tuesday, August 11 for a night of crosswords & chill. I’ll teach you tips and tricks to make constructing crosswords for your friends and family (and the world?) easier and more approachable.

Based on previous events, it will sell out! Secure your spot here!

And based on previous crosswords, this week’s will be a fun time! And there are unlimited spots for that, so enjoy and share with a friend if you feel so inclined :)

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

A Real Hot Mess by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

This theme came from a little brainstorm sesh last Friday with YEGwords delivery helper and friend of the crossword Francis. Usually your first idea isn’t your best idea - I had “spill the tea” as a revealer in my notes app, but Francis suggested this fun visual depiction of the phrase, and the rest is (very recent) history.

Let’s do the Time Warp again! If you haven’t seen a screening of Rocky Horror at your local indie theatre, find out when they’re next airing it and go have a blast. Fun fact - we dressed as Brad and Janet for a costume contest at a screening and came second 😎

Today’s Theme

A bit of visual wordplay helps us with our theme today. There are a smattering of circled letters roughly going from the top left to bottom right of the grid. Our revealer is 28-Across, [Dish some hot goss... as visualized by the circled letters]. The answer to that is SPILL THE TEA, which is what the circled letters represent - the letters T E A being “spilled” across the puzzle :)

Behind the Clues

11A. [Recover lost hearts] maybe should have had “, in video games” to give it more context. But, I decided to leave it as is, and YEGwords doesn’t have an editor to stop me from doing that. In video games, recovering lost hearts is another way of saying you HEAL your character.

18A. When I did a classic post-uni Europe trip, I visited a smattering of countries with different languages. I made my best attempt, on the train ride between them, to Duolingo my way through a few basics of their language - a phrase or two, numbers, etc. As such, I learned to count to 10 in German, but I figured most people wouldn’t know the German word for ONE. So I ended up reclueing it as [German number that anagrams to SINE], or EINS.

33A. [Movers and sleepers] is meant to be a fun little play on “Movers and shakers.” Both movers and sleepers describe a type of DOZERS - ones that move dirt around, and ones that take naps.

2D. I don’t have kids, but I know that [Peppa Pig and Bluey, for two] are TOONS. And having watched several episodes of Bluey over the years with other people’s children, I can say it lives up to the hype. The writing is fantastic and surprisingly real-feeling. We pass on Peppa Pig, though.

3D. I don’t have TikTok, but I pretend to for the sake of crosswords. I just ingest enough other internet-sphere content that I catch bits and pieces of it. Even if you haven’t heard of this [Painters and drawers' corner of a popular video platform], I hope you were able to put together that it’s ART [Painters and drawers'] TOK [corner of a popular video platform].

24D. I was thinking about statistics recently, which is maybe why [___ dev: Measure of variation, shortly] made it into the crossword. I’m referring to Standard Deviation, or STD DEV for short. I was complaining to myself that my average crossword solve time was wildly inflated because of a few times when I accidentally left one open for 18+ hours before finishing it, so my “average” is like 10 hours but my median is more like 20-30 mins.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon

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