Iain S. Padley author page
1 puzzle by Iain S. Padley
with Jeff Chen comments
| M | A | L | E | T | E | A | M | F | U | N | D | S | ||
| A | R | I | A | O | S | L | O | O | H | Y | O | U | ||
| A | C | E | R | W | A | I | T | A | R | O | U | N | D | |
| M | O | U | N | T | A | I | N | H | I | G | H | |||
| S | O | W | E | S | M | E | W | S | J | |||||
| A | T | F | R | A | F | S | T | P | E | T | E | |||
| V | A | L | L | E | Y | L | O | W | S | L | E | E | T | |
| A | B | A | R | S | O | B | E | R | O | N | E | S | ||
| T | U | T | O | R | R | I | V | E | R | W | I | D | E | |
| A | L | L | N | E | W | E | N | E | E | S | T | |||
| R | A | Y | F | A | S | T | E | S | P | |||||
| G | E | T | T | I | N | G | T | O | Y | O | U | |||
| R | O | B | E | R | T | E | L | E | E | L | O | T | S | |
| A | R | E | N | T | E | L | M | O | A | K | I | N | ||
| M | O | T | T | O | L | Y | O | N | R | O | S | A |
Debut! Iain takes the Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and parses out the barriers. It takes some implied words to make it work — (ain't no) MOUNTAIN HIGH (enough), (ain't no) VALLEY LOW (enough), (ain't no) RIVER WIDE (enough), to keep me from GETTING TO YOU (babe) — but there's enough there that I started humming the catchy tune. Good pick me up.
Many debut constructors are simply happy to complete a filled grid, so I like what Iain does here, leaving a couple of 7 and 8-letter slots for additional pizzazz. At first I wasn't sure about TOWAWAYS, but Google says it's a legit term. I can imagine it being used in conversation, as well. RENEGE ON is a perfectly fine answer, although I don't know that I'd call it a huge asset to the puzzle. AVATAR and JETSET do sparkle things up a bit.
Check out the west section, where AVATAR also jazzes up the joint. ALL NEW is also pretty darn good. Those 6x3 sections can be tricky though, which is why constructors usually stick to 4x3 and 5x3 sections around the perimeter. Not ideal to highlight two partials — A BAR and L RON — by crossing them with each other.
Other than that though, just minor gluey bits like ENE, EST, OBI, etc. Not bad. FLOR is pretty deep into Spanish, but it is similar enough to "flora" that it's not unreasonable.
Neat clue for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). "The daily diary of the American dream" sounds like something only an MBA-type would dream up. I bet one of them (us) did a SWOT analysis and then a Five Forces study to evaluate the synergies and proactivity of the slogan.
I would have liked the lyrics either more fully integrated into the puzzle (with AINT NO / ENOUGH in there somehow), or something trickier done to imply the missing words. But overall, a nice idea for a puzzle.