"Interior Design" January 13, 2023

[chriscross]

Still waiting to confirm our winner so stay tuned...

Time to check the spam folders everyone.

[mheberlingx100]

Still waiting to confirm our winner so stay tuned...

Time to check the spam folders everyone.

Nothing in my spam folder. Rats!

[escapeartist]

My Hail Mary would have been "DECOR" but I didn't see it.

[MikeMillerwsj]

And now belated congrats to this week's winner: James Egan of Benicia, Calif.!

[b4alltime]

Holy Cow!
My Grail Quest has ended.
Figured I had an even chance of winning the mug after around 15-20 years of submitting correct entries every week. I am grateful but acknowledge that many deserved it more or at least as much. Thanks to those who have encouraged and nudged along the way, including Cruise Director Bob whose advice to me in October of ‘20 to “keep slogging along” despite discouragement was a good reminder that a learning curve can be painful. (Still is!)
However, I guess that I should have known that I would win with a Friday the 13th submission based on the obvious two sub-metas. Firstly, the answer to 60 across is my own surname. Secondly, the meta solution was “heart”, the internal organ I have devoted many years of medical practice to.
Regards to all,
Jim Egan

[DBMiller]

The only interesting diversion this time were the five 3-letter words starting with A, contained (interior) in the themers (A-frame, as in house design?)

clARKgable, glASSjars, jawAHArlalnehru, mARCopolo, and riftvALLey. The last letters of each would anagram to SLACK, but didn't match the numbers in parentheses, nor having anything really to do with interior design.

[Hidden in 3D]

Holy Cow!
My Grail Quest has ended.
Figured I had an even chance of winning the mug after around 15-20 years of submitting correct entries every week. I am grateful but acknowledge that many deserved it more or at least as much. Thanks to those who have encouraged and nudged along the way, including Cruise Director Bob whose advice to me in October of ‘20 to “keep slogging along” despite discouragement was a good reminder that a learning curve can be painful. (Still is!)
However, I guess that I should have known that I would win with a Friday the 13th submission based on the obvious two sub-metas. Firstly, the answer to 60 across is my own surname. Secondly, the meta solution was “heart”, the internal organ I have devoted many years of medical practice to.
Regards to all,
Jim Egan

I’d say this was meant to be!! I believe I speak for all MUGgles when I say I am so happy for you! Congratulations!

[Deb F]

Holy Cow!
My Grail Quest has ended.
Figured I had an even chance of winning the mug after around 15-20 years of submitting correct entries every week. I am grateful but acknowledge that many deserved it more or at least as much. Thanks to those who have encouraged and nudged along the way, including Cruise Director Bob whose advice to me in October of ‘20 to “keep slogging along” despite discouragement was a good reminder that a learning curve can be painful. (Still is!)
However, I guess that I should have known that I would win with a Friday the 13th submission based on the obvious two sub-metas. Firstly, the answer to 60 across is my own surname. Secondly, the meta solution was “heart”, the internal organ I have devoted many years of medical practice to.
Regards to all,
Jim Egan

So exciting to see a fellow Muggle win the mug. When I saw how few submissions there were, I was sure hoping the odds were in our favor. A very big congratulations!!!

[The XWord Rabbit]

As guest rabbit filling in for my big brother, I scoured the Forum posts for the best rabbit holes and writeups as a potential nominee for The X-Word Rabbit to approve. Big brother gave me a particularly tough challenge with this week’s “Interior Design” puzzle, which produced a low turnout and low percentage on both the Forum and the WSJ contest in this SAD (Simple and Devious) meta – “sad” being the operative word for most Muggles.

There were some common squirrel holes (shallow and very frequent) such as the misleading number of references to parts of a house like Els, Gable, and Valley (an ELL of a challenge). And then there were the sequences buried in the answers like Harlal (a character in Star Wars), which ties in with 24D (HALAL) using the famous “extra letter” rabbit hole that we are all familiar with. This and similar one-letter-off squirrel holes in the themers created a disturbance in the force that threw many Muggles into a black hole (and a black mood).


And finally we have the sartorial squirrel hole with Nehru jackets (for those of the right age) and Polo shirts but, alas, nothing further.

Left to right: George, John, Ringo, Paul. Not pictured: Stu.


So what does this mean to Hutch? Not much!! I am going to ask The X-Word Rabbit for another chance and put this week in the “better off forgotten” category – except, of course, for the Mug Winner.