google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, July 29, 2011, Chris A. McGlothlin

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Jul 29, 2011

Friday, July 29, 2011, Chris A. McGlothlin

Theme: C you later. The letter "C" is removed from in the language expressions to create a new and witty thought-provoking phrase.The puzzle had lots of new fill and tons of themeage. Our second puzzle from this constructor, whose last effort also was a letter puzzle. Lots of French and lots of music, grab your wine and some brie.

Lemonade, back in the Friday saddle; let's ride!

18A. Sailing attire for 1-Across?: (C)ARGO PANTS. More Jason and his ship the Argo drawn from those 90's favorite stylin pants with all those damn pockets.

23A. Dearth of frost?: LOW (C)RIME RATE. Rime the fancy way to say frost, coming from Crime. Dearth not like in Vader.

38A. Celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day?: USED (C)ARS. ARRGGGH.

40A. Regional poem?: AREA (C)ODE. man we have so many odes these days, let's call them off.

50A. Do some tweezing?: PULL UP A (C)HAIR. I am not a big tweezer, and think of it as pulling out not up. Another example of women being tougher than men.

61A. "I've completed the flag"? : (C)ROSS WORDS. Betsy and self promotion for cross word puzzles, or maybe all those cross words people should not say.

The three part unifier:

10A. With 42- and 66-Across, words to an old friend, whose end is a hint this puzzle's grid and theme: LONG. 42. See 10-Across: TIME. Across 66. See 10-Across: NO SEE.

Across:

1. Golden Fleece seeker: JASON. Well, since everyone knows my name it is fitting the puzzle after my short vacation starts with me.

6. Disputed strip: GAZA. No politics here.

14. Nimble: AGILE. Jack be ....but why over a candlestick?

15. Offenbach's okays: OUIS. This is tricky, as you have to know the composer, who pioneered the can can, and obviously spoke French, where OUI mean yes.

16. Kentucky border river: OHIO. That part of the country always confuses me, you land in Kentucky at Cincinnati, Ohio airport.

17. The world according to Arp: MONDE. More French (pay attention Jeannie) MONDE means WORLD, to Jean ARP the artist; interesting pun with GARP. My favorite clue.

20. Miracle Mets star: AGEE. Tommie, the flamboyant center fielder.

21. "From __ Zinc": vitamin slogan : A TO. Centrum I believe.

22. Gives a facelift : REDOES. Any work out there ladies, or gents? A little Botox? A nip, a tuck?

26. Rowan Atkinson character: MR. BEAN. I like him in Black Adder, Bean leaves me cold.

27. Understood KNOWN.

32. Antenna shelter: RADOME. A portmanteau of RADAR and DOME.

35. Hosp. test: EKG. Electrocardiogram.

37. PayPal owner: EBAY.

43. Funnyman Kinison: SAM. One of the screaming comedians, who wore his beret and died young.

45. Run in: ARREST. You boys go home or I'm goin' run you in.

46. Comes down hard?: HAILS. Not where my head was going.

48. Sole man: HERMIT. My ex-wife's great grandfather ended up living in a cabin as a hermit. I thought of this IMAGE instead.

55. Players try to hit triples with them: Q TILES. I like this scrabble reference.

59. Mama bear, in Madrid: OSA. OSO male.

60. First name in courtroom fiction: ERLE. Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, my role model (not).

63. Had a home cooked meal: ATE IN.

64. Smack: SWAT. Sounds like Adam West.

65. Pâté base: FOIE. French for liver. Pate de Foie Gras is also a fine short story by Asimov.

67. Sounds of disapproval: TSKS. Tsk.Lots of those around.

68. Cans: AXES. Again, I was thinking of this IMAGE.

69. Touch and shuffle: IPODS. I have never owned an Apple product, except when I used to eat them.

Down:

1. Jazz pianist Ahmad __: JAMAL. Not familiar with this jazz PIANIST.

2. Disco era suffix: A GO GO. Any of you left coasters go to Whiskey A Go Go?

3. Tough tissue: SINEW. It's a new way to clue this.

4. It's often traded in: OLDER MODEL. Remember this TRADE IN.

5. Alumna identifier, perhaps: NEE. More French, referring to the birth name of a female.

6. Chin hider: GOATEE. Because you look like a billy goat, how sweet.

7. Sky lights: AURORAE.. Do you all go to watch the Aurora Borealis?

8. Turn sharply: ZIG. Why not ZAG?

9. "__ of Homecoming": U2 song: A SORT. A nice SONG.

10. Put in a clip: LOAD. Ammunition into your Sig Sauer 9mm. Pretty violent.

11. "Think I'm kidding?": OH NO. Mr. Bill where are you?

12. Evening, in ads: NITE.

13. Former CIA director Porter __ : GOSS. Information, not POLITICS.

19. Glance: PEEK. Why does peek sound so much more salacious? Carol, Lois, our experts, please explain.

21. Some ales: AMBERS. Now the weekly beer reference; any Amber Bock drinkers?

24. "__ la Douce": IRMA. Shirley McClain was quite PRETTY.

25. "Diana" crooner: ANKA. When I was a kid this was a HIT.

28. Second or third, for instance: NEAR THE TOP. A toughie to parse.

29. The orchestra tunes to one: OBOE. We will let JzB explain this.

30. Bankrolls: WADS. A very visual word if you see someone pull a lot of 100's from a pocket.

31. Dmitri's denial: NYET. The Russian No.

32. "The Book of __": Jane Hamilton novel: RUTH. A novel not to be confused with the Biblical Story.

33. Aral Sea locale: ASIA. Between the World Cup Soccer and the LPGA, Japan's ladies have done much to bring joy back after the tragedies.

34. Starting half?: DEMI. More French, the prefix for half, not a suggestion that Demi Moore play half back for the Jets.

36. The old man's old man: GRAMPA. Did I mention I am GRUNCLE Jason?

39. "Is there any group I haven't offended?" satirist: SAHL. Mort Sahl, a 60's stand up icon.

41. Ranch addition?: ERIA. A Spanish concept RANCHERIA.

44. French art song: MELODIE. More French, not to be confused with a CHANSON.

47. Erupt: SPEW. I am reading Harris' book on Pompeii.

49. Ballets __: early 20th-century dance company: RUSSES. Do we have any fans of BALLET?

51. Yank's home, briefly: US OF A. Oh, all of us, got it, not the evil empire.

52. Playground retort: ARE SO. Are not!

53. "Well ... not exactly": I LIED.

54. Magritte and Descartes: RENES. The surrealist and the philosopher.

55. Queue before U : QRST. The old letter string clue, with a new twist for its list.

56. Pulls along: TOWS.

57. Writer Dinesen: ISAK. The pseudonym for an interesting WOMAN who wrote great books which became great movies, like Out of Africa and Babbette's Feast.

58. WWII craft: LSTS. Landing Ship Tanks

62. Colorado sports nickname, with "the": ROX. I guess the Rockies get this so it rhymes with SOX.

63. Singer DiFranco : ANI.This feminist icon sings this SONG.

Answer grid.

Well the month is almost gone, the week as well and we survived, so onward and upward.

Lemonade

51 comments:

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. I liked today's offer much better than yesterday's even though this had some cross-referencing. the theme finally hit me with ROSS WORDS.

My favorite clue was also the World According to Arp. I had M---E, so the state of Maine briefly went through my mind, but I knew John Irving is more "arped" to reference New Hampshire.

I much prefer the Black Adder to MR. BEAN, but that character didn't fit into the spaces.

I knew Jane Hamilton's Book of RUTH, as I read is a few years ago.

Sole Man = HERMIT was a good clue. I was initially thinking of a cobbler.

I hope I don't offend anyone one with Mort SAHL's (LOL) QOD: I found people looked better when they laughed. ~ Mort Sahl

Hahtoolah said...

Clear Ayes: How was Snowflower and the Secret Fan? I loved the book, but the movie isn't showing in my area yet.

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

It took me awhile to get the theme (it didn't help that the reveal was spread across three different answers), but once I did it helped immensely. Overall, it was a fun and challenging puzzle.

I finally finished but didn't get the all important *tada* sound letting me know I had finished correctly. It took me a few more minutes to track down my error. I'm sure we've had RADOME before, but it certainly didn't stick in my brain and, as a result, I had HEMI instead of DEMI at 34D, which gave me RAHOME. That was the only word in the grid that I wasn't sure about, so I tried putting in SEMI/RASOME instead. Still no luck, but the third time was the charm...

And yes, "sole man" was a devious clue. I couldn't figure out if it meant lone, the bottom of your foot or the fish...

Tinbeni said...

Nice, FUN Friday.

AREA-ODE got me the 3 reveals, LONG TIME NO-SEE ("C") ... and yup, there is not one "C" in the grid.

Of course, being a Yanks fan, I put in BRONX at
51-D. Boy, did that take a while to parse out.

With all the French (the Nice reference), my perps were working overtime.

Last to fall was RADOME, todays learning moment.

But that was OKAY since I was watching CNBC (at 5:00 am) with the up-lifting news about our budget melt-down.

Hmmm, those AURORAS don't show-up much here in Tampa Bay.

Cheers to all at Sunset.

HeartRx said...

Good Morning Lemonade, C.C et al.

Thanks for the great write-up, Lemon! . Lots of fun links and very informative, as always! I do like ballet (so RUSSES was a gimme). I saw “Te Black Swan” a while ago, and have a new appreciation of what those dancers go through!

I have to say, I wasn’t a fan of this puzzle. The “unifier” was scattered all over the grid, which turned me off right at the start. The theme entries were OK, but not really “sparkling”.

I liked “The world according to Arp” for MONDE. But otherwise, it just added to the bunch of French in this puzzle. And the clue for OUIS did not look remotely like a French name to me, so I was trying to fit the plural of “nein” into a four-letter space. Oh and then we got the NYET with Dmitri, which at least looked like a Russian name....

Did not like the four-letter alphabet run, ugh.

Tomorrow is another day, though. TGIF!!

HeartRx said...

Oops - typo1 "The Black Swan"...

I forgot to mention that I did appreciate how there were no "C's" in the rest of the grid. That tied nicely into the unifier LONG TIME, NO SEE...

But it would have been great if Chris could have fit that unifier into one 13-letter across or down entry, IMHO.

Grumpy 1 said...

Good morning, Lemonade and Friday peeps. Good blog and links. As soon as I got to the cross-referential clue at the top I dropped down to the bottom, got enough traction there to get NO SEE, then went back and filled the other parts. I could "C" the theme with ARGO PANTS and it wasn't too difficult from there.

I worked with RADOMEs on antennae for 30 or more years, so that was a gimme. US OF A was the hardest to parse.

I was going to cry "foul" on the ranch ending, thinking ranchERIA was strictly a Spanish word and no indication of Spanish in the clue. I looked it up, though, and see that it's pretty common in the southwest and has been "adopted" into the English language over time. Never heard of it before though.

Fun Friday puzzle.

kazie said...

Spent two hours on this with much googling and still didn't ace it. Had SEMI, never heard of RADOME or most of the names. Definitely no fun, despite finally catching on to the theme that C didn't appear anywhere and was missing from the theme answers. Like that paragraph with no "e". But I couldn't "see" some of the theme phrases with the "c"--I couldn't see where to put it in 23A because I guessed JAMAN (1D) and NO WRIME RATE made no sense.

sherry said...

Tough too french!Not fun

Anonymous said...

Chin hider: GOATEE Singer of my favourite band Metallica sports a goatee from time to time.

James Hetfield

Yanks home I wanted Bronx

Bronx Zoo

The old man's old man: GRAMPA Never heard of this I always said Grandpa

Starting half?: DEMI

Demi tasse cappuccino

cappuccino

Playground retort: ARE SO I wanted am too.

Fun Facts by Dave Letterman

Coincidentally, like the cartoon cat, the former president James Garfield loved lasagna and hated Mondays.

A stranger is just a friend you haven't met.

Lemonade714 said...

The puzzle had no V either which made me think it might have started out with some Curriculum Vitae theme. It is very rare for a puzzle to have Q X and Z and no C and V.

No complaints about Q Tile crossing QRST?

Anonymous said...

Orange gave 2.5 stars to this flawed puzzle.

Tinbeni said...

Lemon:
oops, I forgot to say "NICE write-up."

Letter runs, which "usually" only come in 3's, are IMHO always a sign of 'no imagination' (or lazy).

The letter run, Queue before U = "QRST" at least was clued NICEly.

It crossing Q-TILES redeemed the usage.
Hey, "Pull along" HAD to be TOWS.
A "Q" without a "U" makes me think a-bit.

I said my peace (yesterday) re: the split-referenced clues.
At least they weren't at 1-Across or 1-Down.

HeartRx said it best:
LONG TIME NO-SEE "should have been a 13-letter across or down."

Nice Cuppa said...

Thanks Lemonade, and nice job, Mr McGlothlin - I'd like to try to say that after a few AMBERS.

I found this to be a "Nice Uppa" for a Friday morning, as you might expect. The unifier was a write-in which helped. NO RIME (and REASON) led me to the theme.

I only had to quaver over HEMI-DEMI-SEMI before the TADA!. (I think that joke only works in Brit&C'wealth. JAZZ, what do you call a hemi-demi-semi-quaver?)

We've commented on Mr. Bean before. Is there ANYONE OUT THERE (OUI-JA?) who actually likes the character?

I prefer the concept of pulling UP a hair - nice image of uprooting the pesky weed.

Lemonade: PEEK's rhyming with SNEAK - and SNEAK A PEEK - would be my guess - salaciousness by association.

TTFN

NC

Lucina said...

Good day, Lemonade, C.C. et al.

It's so nice to have you back, Lemon.

This started out NICEly until 10A but I forged ahead and managed to fill most of the middle then it became a muddle.

Did not know RADOME so RAHOME stayed, JAMAL was unKNOWN and NOWRIMERATE seemed ok.

Otherwise I skipped and jumped around until it was finished. We have seen ISAK a few times and I have read some of her works.

The Book of RUTH was also familiar as I read it a few years ago when it was an Oprah selection.

This was doable, but just, as some have said, not too much sparkle. It is a clever no C theme, though.

Have a wonder-filled Friday, everyone!

Spitzboov said...

Good afternoon, all.

Finally got it done after several breaks. Had to use Mr G to get the M in Mr Bean. The DEMI/HAIL cross was slow in coming, too, which hid OLDER MODEL until the very end. The theme revealed itself early and was useful elsewhere in the solve. I thought Q TILES was clever and liked the shout out for (C)ROSS WORDS. Good job, Chris

Enjoy your weekend.

Zcarguy said...

Good morning ,
I always do the puzzle on paper, I start with the across clues and write my answers next to it and do the same with the downs, The finished result always looks neat.
At 40A I had guessed AREAODE right of the bat, that led me to realize what the theme might be about.
I went back to 18A and sure enough the C is missing

That made the rest of theme answers a bit easier, I'm not great with proper names, so I do visit Mr G on a regular basis, and today was no exception , MRBEAN was the main suspect.
Being a car man I liked how USEDARS crossed OLDERMODEL.

Not to be a nit pik but I think The world in French is LE MONDE.
What's QTILES ?? Anybody?

Anonymous said...

Nice Cuppa

I think Mr Bean is hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Zcarguy

Q tiles are from the board game scrabble.

kazie said...

Dodo,
Thanks for the undeserved compliment last night--I was in a snit because I didn't like someone explaining grammar they knew so little about.

Camille,
'Q-tiles' refers to the tiles used to play the game of Scrabble--the Q is worth a lot of points, so if you can place it on the squares with triple points or a triple word score, you really luck out!
You're right about le monde, though I'm not sure why you mention it.

JD said...

Good morning Lemonade, C.C. et al,

There was more pzazz in your write up, Lemonade, than in the puzzle.. not very enjoyable-lots of "huhs?"
redoes? really? Have to admit argopants was fun.

Kazie, I was surprised and a little disappointed with the movie, Snowflower and the Secret Fan.They added a parallel story set in modern day Shanghai about 2 girls (descendants of Lily..) who were struggling to maintain their childhood friendship. The story in the book was shown in flashbacks and I think a bit disjointed. There were some touching scenes though; Li Bingbing and Jun Ji-hyun are lovely. Hugh Jackman had a 10 minute part, a surprise.

Lucina said...

JD:
Now I understand why our local movie critic gave Snowflower and the Secret Fan only two stars.

I shall wait for the DVD to see it.

Thank you.

Jayce said...

Hello everybody. Wow, I loved this puzzle. Beautifully constructed and filled. When I started it, I thought there must be something wrong because it seemed so easy at first. JASON, gimme; GAZA, gimme; JAMAL, gimme; NEE, gimme; OHIO, gimme; GOSS, gimme; MONDE, gimme; MRBEAN, gimme; RADOME, gimme. Then wham, it started to get harder, and as I worked it I realized not only was it clever as all heck, it was of Friday difficulty level after all.

Now I'll read your comments.

Jayce said...

Having now read all your comments, I have to say you all express yourselves so very well. I agree with some of you and disagree with some of you (of course.)

Like Hahtool, I thought the world according to Arp was a fabulous clue, and was my favorite also.

For a minute I forgot Offenbach was French, so tried, like HeartRx did, to somehow squeeze some form of nein in for 15A. I had AURORAS instead of AURORAE for 7D, and wondered what kind of hosp test an SK_ might be. Then, ding ding ding the light dawned (to mix metaphors), I changed the S to an E, and, zut alors, all was once again right with the monde.

Like Barry, it took me a while to figure out whether 'sole' referred to a fish, the bottom of a shoe or foot, or what, so, like Hahtool again, I wanted COBBLER or even shudder! SHOER, even though neither of which has the right number of letters, of course.

Husker Gary said...

I agree with Jayce that this was a great puzzle full of fun cluing and entertaining puns! ROSSWORDS first clue tipoff. Well done Chris!

Musings
-Liked cluing for QTILES, HERMIT, NEE, QRST
-We flew to Rome out of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport!
-Monde, Monde. Can’t trust that word because I remember Mondo Cane.
-Grandkids know Mr. Bean and want to see his next movie
-Hemi, Semi, Demi…
-Lemon, Oh those cans
-I always thought GOGO predated Disco
-Irma and Miss Kitty were just sympathetic girls, not garden implements
-Belushi as A Soul Man, WOW! Where have you gone John Belushi, John Candy and Chris Farley?
-Remaking Blues Brothers was a crime.

Jayce said...

Lemonade, thanks for your writeup today. As for liking ballet, I like a lot of the music but don't like the dancing at all. So I'm happy to listen to it at home whenever I'm in the mood.

Some of those beers have such funny names! I'd love to be able to taste them, though.

Cannot stand anything Rowan Atkinson did.

Grumpy1, I'm with you in regard to RANCHERIA.

Kazie, I remember struggling with all those declensions and conjugations years ago. Sometimes I wonder how anybody could actually have spoken that language in real life. It sure has had a profound and lasting influence, though.

Enough ramblings for now.

kazie said...

JD,
I think it must have been someone else who commented on that film--I haven't seen it.

Jayce,
I agree about speaking Latin. I wonder how they always waited until the end of sentences to get what was going on: the main verbs were always at the end, even after a string of dependent clauses.

I do appreciate ballet. Having studied it for seven years, I can admire the difficulty of so much that they make appear easy. I especially like the spirited leaps performed by the male dancers. However, it does make me sleepy to watch a whole ballet for too long. My DH once thought he'd make a real hit by getting me the film of Swan Lake, but I've been unable to sit through it all without eventually snoring.

Zcarguy said...

Kazie, thanks for QTILES explanation,
Never played the game tho.

Lucina said...

I forgot about ballet RUSSES. Both my daughter and granddaughter have studied ballet and I love it. We go occasionally and saw a Russian ballet when they performed locally. It was wonderful! What energy they exhibited!

Karma kicks ass said...

If Mort Sahl was correct then I must have looked like George Clooney today!

I've had a devilish giggle all day today.

C'mon admit it. You all had to think of it also.

Hee hee hee

JD said...

Sorry Kazie,I quickly skimmed this morning before I wrote. Hahtool asked about the film

Lemonade714 said...

I guess my reference to scrabble was too obtuse to explain Q TILE, and while there always is a balancing when you have lots of themeage, I enjoyed the puzzle. I think he does more NYT work.

Chickie said...

Hola Everyone, I thought I was going to sail through today as I had the first two across items in very quickly. With doing the downs in the NE corner I filled in the unifier.

I did well with some Googling until I hit the Middle west section with the crosses of Radome, Used ars, and Hails.
I just couldn't get my head around the clues. so this was a DNF for me today. But I did give it a good run for the money. I realized the missing C's with the C in Argo pants.

My favorites today were Sole man, and the new clueing for the alphabet run of QRST. Radomes was my learning moment for today. Thanks for the informative blogging, Lemonade.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers - I ran into trouble over uncertainty over whether clues with question marks were related to themage, or general trickiness.

Anything "A Go Go" seems much older than Disco, to me. I connect the phrase with Laugh-In, for instance.

All right, let's see if we can work this out. I have a friend who thinks pirates say "AARGH" all the time. I firmly believe they say "AARR". So which is it? And how do we know anyway? :-)

Hahtoolah said...

And I was confused thinking that Clear Ayes asked about the movie. Thanks for the Heads-up on Snowflower and the Secret Fan, JD.

Dudley: I had the same thought about A-Go-GO, that it predated the Disco era.

Dudley said...

Great minds! So what do you think about pirates?

Jayce said...

Avast tharrrr, maties! Get abaft, alee, atop, alow, abeam, and askew, ye scurvy dogs, or I'll keelhaul ye all! Arrrrr!

Jayce said...

I dare say Robert Newton, as Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film of Treasure Island, single-handedly invented the way of talking we now refer to as talking like a pirate. Bugging one eye out, too. What a creative actor he was!

Dudley said...

What Jayce said!!!

Anonymous said...

Still would like to know: If you have been disbarred and are not allowed to practice law, are you still a lawyer?

Clear Ayes said...

Good Evening All, Phew...it's hot here and we've had company since yesterday afternoon. I haven't had time to do the puzzle, so I just opted to read Lemonade's blogging and the comments.

I agree with Lemonade that we've had enough ODES, AREA and otherwise.

Hahtool, it wasn't me, but I did like the book "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan". I haven't seen the movie and I'm somewhat disappointed that a movie with Hugh Jackman isn't getting good reviews.

Liked "The Black Adder" series a lot, MR BEAN, not so much.

Gotta go. GAH's sister is waving a bottle of wine in my direction.

Have a good evening.

Anonymous said...

What did the french man say to the german? I surrender. Since ithink i have an opinion. Thought puzzle was stupid. Whats with all the french lately? Every other day its french. Why not yiddish or greek? Favorite clue 18a and 69a. Love Mr. Bean and love "Eating In" American...Hot dog!

HeartRx said...

Dudley, I have to agree with Jayce: If you are speaking "pirate", then it is "ARRRR" (add however many "R's" you want). If you are really frustrated with a puzzle, e.g., then it would be ARRRGGGGHHHH (however many r's, g's and h's suit your mood. Or, the puzzle fill...)

HeartRx said...

Oh, and BTW, "A-Go-Go" is late 60's, while "disco" was more of a 70's thing. Although they overlapped, I think disco was more of an evolution of a-go-go. I should know, I lived through both of them!

windhover said...

Whiskey a go go on Sunset Blvd. In the Promised Land. There's a little Chuck Berry reference for you, live from the Shakey Ground in Nicholasville, Ky.
Let's do it again tomorrow nite.

Lemonade714 said...

WH:

What a nice way to finish the day; thank you all for stopping bye and saying hi. Have a great week end all, even all you new friends so worried about me and my life.

Peace out; over to you Splynter

Dudley said...

Hearti - That's how I've always seen it! ARRRRRR just makes more sense for a pirate. AAARRGH makes more sense as a wail of frustration.

Clear Ayes said...

I'm stopping back by...after dinner and a nice hour or two of lounging on the patio. It is still warm here, but a nice breeze has come up over the hill.

My brother-in-law is a longtime sailor and considers himself to be a pirate aficionado. He told me about the official Talk Like A Pirate website. There's a lot of funny stuff on it, as well as an official list of pirate lingo.

WH, Those were the days.... twenty-three years old. I went to the Whisky a Go Go once. It was 1965 and we saw Johnny Rivers. Totally fabulous.

windhover said...

ClearAyes:
Yes, those were the days, but so are these. We're not done yet, you and I. ;-}

dodo said...

Hello

Well it's Friday and I've tried but again sworn off!

However, I'm with Jayce. I just plain don't think Rowan Atkinson is funny. Can't stand him.Even though I'm an avowed Anglophile!

OTh, it's been a vry nice week crosswordise. Too bad Friday had to apoil it!

Oh, I thought Kineson and Dinesen were kinda cute!

Anonymous said...

Been out of country for a while, and I'm curious - where's the 'top' dog, Dennis? I always liked how he set the tone for the day.