Crossword from Alex Boisvert

Head to my Google Group if you'd like to solve Alex Boisvert's crossword, "Stat!" It's available in both Across Lite (.puz) and .pdf form. (If you have trouble downloading, try switching to another browser—that seems to do the trick.)

This puzzle appears in the August 2008 issue of Games Magazine, albeit there the theme has been edited out. (Spoilers after the cut.)

Alex's crossword took me 4 minutes and change. The theme is a subtle one—as hinted by the "Hurry up!" aspect of the title, the theme is speed. But rather than appearing in the theme entries themselves, fast and its synonyms begin each of four question-marked theme clues. The clues all merit the question mark—"ARRIBA, ARRIBA" is clued as [Speedy delivery?] because it's a line delivered by Speedy Gonzales (cartoon mouse). [Swift characters?] aren't swift, they're written by Jonathan Swift—who coined many words for his characters, including LILLIPUTIANS. RAMADANS are [Fast times?] because that's the month when Muslims fast during the daylight hours. And [Fleet people?] include ADMIRALS in the Navy.

I learned something new—that the French spell that noted European river RHIN. Why didn't I know this?? I am not up on my sports slang, so I also didn't know that [Superior jumping ability, in slang] is MAD HOPS.

(The glitch in the Games version is that the RAMADANS clue was changed and no longer began with the word fast.)