Long words (Sunday brunch: March 30, 2014)

Apologies for the late post, I was down in Maryland most of the day yesterday and am running a tournament today.  —Braze

Congratulations to Bangle, who finished second in the Morris Open skating competition yesterday: second in her preliminary flight even though she went the wrong direction after a spin and had to adjust on the fly, and then second in the championship round.  Kid sports are a good place to learn resiliency.

The week’s puzzles include a diagramless from Ed Stein and Paula Gamache (fun--a double byline) in the New York Times (behind the paywall, comments [and spoilers] from Deb Amlen).

It’s a weekend for long words in puzzle grids.  Hex’s block cryptic in the National Post is a picture frame of 15s, and the rest of the grid is nicely interlocked.  Falcon was impressed.

See the reflection of the skate way down there?

The Wall Street Journal has a Spell Weaving by Mike Shenk.  He must have had fun with this one: there’s a 19-letter answer, a 16, and some other long ones too.

From large to small.  Nathan Curtis’s weekly puzzle is a Mini Rows Garden.  Go over and read the whole post for more news about what Nathan is up to.

Master Rows Gardner Andrew Ries has announced a weekly straight crossword to go with his Rows Garden series.

And the regular weekly Brit-style cryptic from Fraser Simpson can be found at the Globe and Mail in Java and print formats.