Saturday's New York Times puzzle solved: May 26, 2018

My time: 15:43.

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Pete Wentz constructed this themeless that had me saying, "NERTS!" every time I got some answers wrong.  Some nice novel and fun though, like THE LEGO MOVIE, CROWD PLEASER, STARBASE, POP A PILL ("easy way to ease pain"), PHONE SEX, and PLAY THE PONIES.

For "about a third of South America" I wanted to put Patagonia but that makes up about 1/18th of South America's land area and anyway it doesn't fit.  It's actually AMAZONIA, a word I'm not familiar with but which refers to the river and its rainforest, plus other regions.  It's also called the Amazon biome.

The capital of TONGA is Nuku'alofa, which I shall endeavor to remember, I guess?  It is located on the island of Togatapu.

The Beatles had their last US TOUR in 1966.  It was their last major tour at all, and was overshadowed by the infamous "more popular than Jesus" comment.

The three states in Nineteen Eighty-Four are Oceania, Eurasia, and the one I forgot about, EASTASIA.  This is the newest and smallest of the three powers.  We have always been at war with Oceania.

I'm not sure that "Republican politico George" is enough of a hint for George PATAKI.  He was the governor of New York from 1995 to 2006.  What about "He followed Cuomo"?

Retrovir is a trade name for Zidovudine, an HIV drug also branded as AZT, which stands for azidothymidine.  There will be a quiz on this tomorrow.

In music, LARGO means "slow and dignified."  Literally "broad," it indicates the slowest of tempos, although others in previous eras placed LARGO between adagio and andante.

ED ASNER was born to play Warren Buffett, in the HBO movie Too Big to Fail.

I forgot that Margaret Thatcher's husband's name was DENIS.

"Never stop improving" is a slogan used by LOWE'S.  It replaced "Let's build something together," which, let's face it, is kind of blah.

Clever clues: "Part of some shortcuts" is ALT --- that's some programming humor there.  "Bottom of the sea?' is KEEL.  "Typing center" is HOME ROW.  "Not leave at the end of the line" is REEL IN (I had a hard time thinking about leaving people waiting in a queue).  "End of a presidential address" is DOT GOV (I initially put *AVENUE).

Well, this wasn't a record-breaking time, but I didn't do too badly for a Saturday.  And I quite enjoyed the clues and fill.  LET'S BE honest, they can't all be speedy times.