I described my last midi as “coming together quickly” and this week the puzzle gods got their karmic retribution in that this one never seemed to come together at all. I had an idea that I executed in the grid spanning answers and had a revealer that I stuck in 14-Down with a general idea of how it was all going to fit. But when it came to cluing the reveal and why everything worked the way it did, I just couldn’t make it work.

Now this is normally when your typical constructor tells a heroic tale of ripping the grid apart, changing entries left and right and saving the metaphorical day with a witty new revealer that makes everything better than it ever was in the first place. Alas, read no further for that tale because I have a young puppy in my charge and thus had very little constructing time this month. Yes, the dog did literally eat my puzzling time.

For the past five months or so, I have been holding myself to a schedule of a new midi or 15x puzzle every three weeks (along with a GenX mini every week) and so I am shipping today’s puzzle on my self-imposed schedule. I’m happy with the grid, happy with the cluing and hope you find it otherwise up to whatever standards you hold me to. But the theme is more -ish than I’d like. It happens.

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compass