The Globe and Mail crosswords: Breaking down the Weekender’s ‘You’ve Earned It,’ cryptic clues and more

Today’s Weekender puzzle, You’ve Earned It, is one I constructed myself, so I’ll skip the usual “A note from today’s constructor” section. Big thanks to Will Nediger for stepping in as guest editor.

As always, spoilers ahead for our Saturday crosswords, and remember that CAPS represent letters entered in the grid and [square brackets] represent clues.

Favourite moments in today’s crossword

My favourite thing about working on the Weekender for The Globe and Mail is the chance to weave in Canadian references. Our weekday crossword is syndicated for a broader North American audience, but the Weekender is where Canada shines! (We’re working to expand our lineup of custom Canadian crosswords over time, so stay tuned. And don’t forget our daily Globe Mini, which is 100 per cent Canadian-made. Actually 100 per cent yours-truly-made.)

This puzzle mentions Inuit women (53A), Drake’s OVO brand (75A), the Jeff Healey Band (79A), SHA SHA ginger snaps (83A), the Jays mascot ACE (101A), the West Coast Trail (124A), the Ottawa Rough Riders (7D), Joe the Molson Canadian guy (48D), Cirque du Soleil (100D) and the Ottawa airport (123D). Will suggested the clue for DEP at 95A, [Casual word for a convenience store in Quebec], replacing my original clue about the hair gel brand. Cancon for the win!

And I’m showing my age at 73D and I don’t care: [Degrassi Junior High character nicknamed for her hairstyle, through whom the show made history in 1987 for tackling teen pregnancy]. That entire series, including SPIKE’s storyline, occupies a special place in my preteen heart. I love it when a crossword constructor’s personal faves make it into their puzzles. I hope some of you remember Degrassi Junior High as fondly as I do, but for those who don’t, we gave the extra hairdo hint to help you along.

Breaking down today’s theme

(If you’re new to crossword themes, check out my introduction from a few weeks ago.)

Today’s theme is a bit of a tricky one, with parts of words being removed from the grid. I hope you got a kick out of it when it clicked. Or, you know, that you will once I explain it.

The big reveal comes at 121A: [Stay home tomorrow, perhaps, or an instruction followed in the answers to the starred clues]. To “stay home tomorrow, perhaps” is to TAKE A DAY OFF, and that’s exactly what the theme answers do.

The starred clues start at 23A [*AAA Locksmith Inc., perhaps?], continue at 35A [*One marking a student’s horse-training exam?] and 55A [*Small mark against a house of worship?], and run for seven entries in total.

In each answer, a day of the week has been “taken off” of a known thing or phrase, starting with Mon., then Tue., then Wed. and so on down the grid. The clues describe what’s left behind: (mon)KEY BUSINESS, EQUESTRIAN STA(tue) (the resulting answer reading as EQUESTRIAN’S TA to answer the clue), and CHURCH (wed)DING.

I especially laughed at my own joke in 65A [*Handling govt. affairs from the bath?]: TUB(thu)MP’ING. There are very few words or phrases that contain a “thu” that can be yanked out and leave anything remotely intelligible, let me tell you! Finding one that also produced a Canadian reference left me absurdly pleased with myself.

The rest of the week continues with:

• 76A: BEST (fri)ENDS … [*Record-setting periods in a curling bonspiel?]
• 86A: RINGS OF (sat)URN … [*Stains left by a caterer’s coffee dispenser?]
• 105A: (sun)KEN LIVING ROOM … [*Man-cave in Barbie’s Dreamhouse?]

Cryptic clue of the week

Each week in this segment, I pick one clue from Fraser Simpson’s Weekender cryptic and explain how to solve it. I’ve been featuring different cryptic mechanisms so that over time, we’ll cover them all. I truly believe anyone can learn to solve cryptic crosswords; it just takes a little time to understand how they work. This piece that Fraser wrote in 2023 gives a great overview.

Last week, we looked at a charade clue, where the answer is built by separately cluing its components. That was a simple example, but many cryptic clues combine multiple mechanisms. Today, let’s look at a charade with a twist.

Our clue is 1D: [Members of a classic TV family act up a lot (7)].

As always, one end is the definition and the other is the wordplay. Members of a classic TV family feels like it’s defining something specific, but it could also be wordplay. If so, we’d need a TV family name that’s shorter than seven letters that could be the first part of a longer word…the Bradys? I don’t think that works. The Bluths? Nope (and are they “classic”?). Nothing else comes to mind.

So let’s look at act up a lot.

The word “up” catches my eye because this is a Down clue. In Down clues, “up” can suggest “write these letters going upward,” a special case of a reversal mechanism. So can words such as “rising,” “lifted” and “going north.” (In any clue, Across or Down, a reversal can be indicated by words like “running back,” “returned” or “flipped.”)

A synonym for act is law, so “act up” could mean law written upward, giving WAL. A synonym for a lot is TONS. Put them together and we get WALTONS, members of a classic TV family. Those of us who were preteens during Degrassi Junior High definitely missed The Waltons, but I know enough about it to close with this: Good night, Fraser.