A Puzzle for the Ages

The local newspaper runs a mammoth crossword puzzle each year at Christmas (solutions on New Year's). I normally don't bother with it. It's mammoth, but is it clever? But this year I am tackling all 1,600 of its clues. My granddaughter Ann-DuPree saw it in the paper and thought it would be great fun (for me to do). So I am doing it. It's largely fill-in-the-blank but there are a few I'm having a tough time with (mainly contemporary "personalities" such as the young starlet who died the other day and whose name I can't recall because I'd never heard of her before anyway). So my idle time will be filled for the next few days. I just wish the numbers were easier to read. The puzzle takes up two full pages but even so the inky smudges are at times hard to read. I've resorted to using a magnifying glass.