My time: 6:03, not great but two minutes faster than average.
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A timeless question plagues today's constructor David Alfred Bywaters: TO BE / OR NOT / TO BE. Or, to put it another way, two B or not two B. This means that in the puzzle, the letter B is added or removed from one of four well-known phrases and then clued literally.
In the two B's department, "one who cheats on a weight-reduction plan" is DIETARY FIBBER. And "one who's taking a polar vortex pretty hard?" is COLD SOBBER. When one B is elimated, we get CHINESE CAN AGE ("heyday of taxis in Beijing?") and WE WAS ROBED ('defense against a charge of public nudity?"), both genuinely funny.
GOYA has come up a few times, but I don't think we've looked at his Maja Vestida yet.
I like YAWNS for "they might precede 'well, we must be going.'"
For "fix up, for a building" I put *REFAB at first, because I don't think of REHAB as being a construction term.
IMPECUNIOUS is a great word, but I don't think it belongs in a Tuesday grid.
"Province between Man. and Que." is ONT. A good mnemonic for the southern provinces west to east is "British Albert Sasses Man On Queen."
The Rock-OLA corporation was founded in 1927 and manufactured jukeboxes and later other machines like shuffleboard. Two astounding bits of trivia about this company: it still exists, and its name is not some wannabe-hip fauxmanteau but is the name of its founder, David Rockola. That's too crazy, man.
Clever clue: "Producer of the Jacksons?" is ATM.
This was a fun puzzle. Challenging and education. Well, seeya LTR.
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