My time: 9:34, twenty seconds faster than average.
Theme: several linking four-word phrases going around the perimeter of the puzzle clockwise, starting in the northwest corner. LIFE / BOAT, BOAT / SHOW, SHOW / DOWN, DOWN / PLAY, PLAY / DEAD, DEAD / HEAD, HEAD / HOME, and so on, until we get to TIME / LIFE.
Oh, and CYCLE is in the middle, connected to LIFE.
This is the first time I have ever seen the same word twice in the same puzzle, let alone sharing a letter. It seems like it would have been so much neater to have the final two-word phrase end with the first LIFE. Maybe with love life or something.
Anyhoo.
I don't think I've heard of Sun Valley, a ski and golf resort in IDAHO.
We're all familiar with Mt. ETNA, but can we say that we knew it destroyed the town of Nicolosi in 1669? Probably not, unless we're professors of Italian history.
Claire FOY played Queen Elizabeth in seasons 1 and 2 of "The Crown," after which Olivia Colman took over.
The sneaker brand FILA ("Puma competitor") has been in the puzzle before.
Clever clues: "It's a stretch" for EON. "Centipede producer" for ATARI. "Sound from a pen" is OINK (pretty simple, but I just kept thinking about writing pens. So they go scrrtch?)
There was very little new to me in this puzzle, but maybe it took me too long to catch on to the linking phrases theme. I kept wondering why they were listed backwards, before the penny dropped and I realized they went clockwise. Well, that's LIFE. And LIFE.
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