Mind the Gap

[TeamDoubleTow]

Wow! Congratulations on this achievement.

We clearly weren't following the title because we fell... A lot. But Alex solved quickly when he applied the nudges tonight. Confirmed on Crosshare.

[Dow Jones]

Off the couch. Excellent grid and meta. There is plenty of talent contributing to this site. Thanks to everyone for sharing your art.

[DrTom]

Great inaugural effort, another constructor joins the growing club!

Thanks for the puzzle and a memory jolt!

[CPJohnson]

Got it with a nudge from Mark, then Cinny. Thanks for the puzzle, Mark!

[Al Sisti]

Just as a good third base coach makes sure to retrieve a MLB rookie's first hit, I thought you might be interested in seeing your name in print... here's one, in a daily list of crossword links that's mailed out to anyone who wants it.

[MarkWoychick]

Just as a good third base coach makes sure to retrieve a MLB rookie's first hit, I thought you might be interested in seeing your name in print... here's one, in a daily list of crossword links that's mailed out to anyone who wants it.

Thank you for sharing this, @Al Sisti! This is very cool, and I would have definitely missed it without your heads up. And thanks again for your help with the puzzle!

[CromsFury]

Off the couch?


I destroyed the couch!!

That was fun!!!

[MarkWoychick]

Additions to the solvers list, solution reveal tomorrow:

54. minimuggle
55. Cindy Heisler
56. Cinny
57. Dow Jones
58. Teamdoubletow
59. bhamren
60. jhseeman
61. CromsFury
62. DrTom
63. CPJohnson

[MarkWoychick]

Hello Muggles, and thanks to everyone for solving and for all the kind comments about the puzzle. Based on 60+ solvers, it seems the puzzle was challenging enough but not overwhelming, which I was happy to see.

Between the Mind the Gap title and a few grid answers, many solvers picked up on the British connection, which may have been enough to solve (or at least try an answer in Crosshare). The gaps to mind were between the words in the four theme answers, from which you might have seen an alphabet run. Filling in that gap led to the answer, TUBE:

TEAMSTERS_UNION —> s_u —> T
ROOT_VEGGIE —> t_v —> U
IOWA_CAUCUS —> a_c —> B
SHERWOOD_FOREST —> d_f —> E

A major hat tip to @Al Sisti for several fun additions in the clueing, which really took the puzzle to a new level:

• The clue for PEPSI (Its red, white and blue logo is universally recognized) also describes the London Underground logo

• The examples provided in the clue for ROOTVEGGIE were tubers

• The clue for ELIHU (Root of many crosswords?) also might have made you think of tubers

Thanks again for the help, support, and encouragement. I have several ideas for new puzzles, and perhaps I’ll have the chance to share them on MMM in the future!

[DIS]

There is a city in Iowa called Waterloo, which is also a line on the Tube -- at one point I thought that was relevant.

[MarkWoychick]

There is a city in Iowa called Waterloo, which is also a line on the Tube -- at one point I thought that was relevant.

My initial plan was to see if I could spell TUBE with stop names using the same mechanism, but I couldn’t make it work.