Added Notepad
Default - 324319 Words

Transposal: POWERGAINS / SPIROAGNEW

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     HARRYTURTLEDOVE (60)

I read a news item recently about a terminal cancer patient who contacted a favorite author and asked him to privately reveal the ending of a yet unfinished book series. The series was Harry Turtledove’s alternative history epic The War that Came Early, which was new to me. I jotted the name and series into Notepad while I thought about fictional epics whose endings I would want to be told in the event that I had a month to live — Breaking Bad comes to mind, as well as The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. I also wondered about other famous people with last names that are Twelve Days of Christmas gifts: Shirley Partridge, Bella Swan, uh…Mother Goose? What are some unfinished stories that you would want to know the endings of?

     HERMAJ (65)

I picked up this slang term for Queen Elizabeth II by watching QI and other BBC television series via the Internet. It’s inferable when spoken but might be tricky to parse in a crossword diagram — tricky in a good way :-)

     JUVEDERM (65)

I’ve been proofreading print ads over the last few days. It’s not my primary job but I’m helping the auditing team. It’s easy work and I occasionally find some Notepad-worthy entries in the ad copy. The injectable “facial filler” JUVEDERM came up in a few ads for cosmetic surgeons. It could be interesting crossword fill, though my primary attraction was as a potential clue for the entry BOTOX. The product is probably unfamiliar to most but its name (suggesting “youthful” and “skin”) carries enough information to put a crossword solver in the right area. So the clue {Juvéderm alternative} (5) could fall in the same category as {Petro-Canada competitor} (4) or {Shopping.com’s parent company} (4).