Morning all! Steve here today subbing for Lemonade - don't get confused and think we've gone back a day to Wednesday.
Super crunchy puzzle from Jack Mac - after my first pass I had precisely four words and one letter filled, and one of those words turned out to be wrong anyway! I finally got a toehold in the south-east and worked backwards. I definitely needed to see the theme to make progress, and SEVEN YEAR PITCH saved my bacon. For some reason, I decided that Bonnie spelled her last name RAITE and that left me staring at NES wondering how there was a computer manufacturer I'd never heard of until the penny dropped. Great stuff, Jack!
16A. Be a part of treaty negotiations? : GET IN ON THE PACT.
 |
| Helping to ratify the START treaty |
24A. Unexpected political upheaval? : SUDDEN PURGE
The UK House of Commons after a particularly far-reaching purge
36A. "White Fang," for example? : WILD PROSE. This clue/answer was my absolute favorite. The subject of Jack London's novel was a wild wolfdog. Great stuff!
52A. One that keeps bumping into senators? : AWKWARD PAGE
 |
| "Thank you for not knocking anyone over today" |
60A. Endless spiel? : SEVEN YEAR PITCH. I've been working some of my deals for so long that it feels like it's been seven years.
That wraps up the theme entries. Let's see what else needs some 'splaining.
Across:
1. Trick or treat, e.g. : VERB. My second-to-last fill, and only because the checho at 29A gave me a clue.
5. Center of authority : SEAT. The seat of power.
9. One on the lam, perhaps : PERP. And speaking of which, I needed all the perps I could get today.
13. DH, usually : ALER. In Major League Baseball's American League, teams are allowed to send a designated hitter to bat in the place of the pitcher. In the National League, the pitchers have to take their own cuts.
14. Novelist Jaffe : RONA
15. Mixed bag : OLIO. One of the first words C.C. taught me when I started blogging here.
19. "Silver Lining" album maker : RAITT. Spelling this with an "E" wasn't a great idea. Here's Bonnie.
20. Tulsa sch. : ORU. Oral Roberts University. We've had it a couple of times recently.
21. Satisfied sound : AAH
23. Bay State cape : ANN
29. Trick or treat, e.g. : NOUN. This gave me 1A when I finally cracked this.
31. Irish __ : SEA. Of course, my first thought here was "Miss"!
32. It helps smooth things out : SANDER
33. Palm Pre predecessor : TREO. This was a trawl through the old memory banks. It had quite some heft to it.
34. Like "la" in Fr. : FEM. A noun's feminine gender indicated by 'la' in French. Masculine nouns are 'le'. Tricky clue.
35. Smelting waste : DROSS
40. Words after give or take : A HINT
43. Nice setting : MER. Quite a lot of foreign lingo today. Nice is on the Mediterranean Ocean, so a nitpicker would tell you that "mer" means "sea" and so strictly speaking this isn't correct. Today's Owen's Law?
44. Touch : ABUT
48. Humorous : JOCOSE. Word of the day. I'm going to use it.
50. Item tied with a decorative knot : OBI
51. Shore thing : DUNE
55. Réunion, par exemple : ILE. Island under French control off the coast of Madagascar. Nice beaches!
56. Midnight indicator, maybe : XII. The roman numerals on a clock face.
57. W, for one : DIR. Because "Luxury hotel brand marketed by the Starwood Group" doesn't fit. Took me ages to see this one.
58. Champagne toast? : SALUT! And a Pinch toast - Salut, Monsieur Tinbeni!
65. Yu the Great's dynasty : HSIA. 夏 Quite some time ago.
66. "No problem" : EASY
67. Coach K's team : DUKE. It's easier than writing out Krzyzewski (and double-checking the spelling) when you want to write about Mike.
68. Bibliog. term : ET AL "Et alia", "and the rest".
69. Trick : RUSE
70. 1974 CIA spoof : SPYS. I don't recall this movie. Looking at the reviews and the ratings I think Donald Sutherland and co. might want to forget it too.
 |
| Can the critics still see us? |
Down:
1. Drifter : VAGRANT
2. First lady after Lou : ELEANOR
3. Attendants : RETINUE. Nice word, and corrected my misspelling of TREO.
4. One putting a tyre into a boot : BRIT. First word in the grid for me. Blindingly obvious! (Tongue firmly in cheek). Now I put my tire in the trunk like all y'all.
5. Sellout sign, briefly : SRO. "Sold Right Out"? No, "Standing Room Only".
6. It's quite a stretch : EON
7. Pantry raider : ANT. I misread "panty" at first and wondered what answer could possibly be family-audience appropriate.
8. Lake near the Kirkwood Mountain Resort : TAHOE. Big, blue and clear.
9. They're often blocked : POP-UP ADS. Whoever invented the pop-up blocker deserves a knighthood for services to humanity.
10. She, in Lisbon : ELA. Portuguese making an appearance today.
11. Sitcom family name : RICARDO
12. Thick soups : POTAGES. I never really associated the word with describing the thickness attribute of my soup, but on reflection it's true. Nice learning moment and food!
 |
| Potage aux Patates Douce |
17. Some Windows systems : NTS. My final letter fill was the "T". The Windows NT operating system. "NT" stood for "New Technology". It was developed as a more corporate-strength OS than the existing consumer-focused Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. There, got that off my IT nerd chest.
18. Sea eagles : ERNS
22. Indicator of possession in the bathroom : HERS. Hands off.
25. Failed '80s gridiron org. : USFL. The short-lived United States Football League introduced two innovations used today in the NFL - the two-point conversion and video replay to allow challenges of officials' on-the-field rulings.
26. Indicator of possession : DEED
27. Janitor's tool : DAMP MOP
28. Like much spam : UNREAD
30. Calming words : NOW, NOW
37. Agreeing words : IT'S A DEAL. Music to my ears. Now if I can get more of my "seven year pitch" prospects to sign a contract, I'll be a happy camper
38. First name in country : REBA. I ALWAYS spell Ms. McEntire's last name wrong. Except for just now, but only because I went to look it up.
39. It may be left in a copier: Abbr. : ORIG. I just checked my copier. No originals in there.
40. Mr. Clean rival : AJAX.
41. Concerned question about a sick friend : HOW IS HE?
42. Most gross : ICKIEST. Love this word!
45. Developed : BUILT UP. A little bit like Mexico City. It's very unlikely that they'll be holding the next World Cat-Swinging Championships there.
46. Word from a grumpy gambler : UNLUCKY. Most gamblers claim ill-luck when they lose, but it's never good luck when they win - it's all scientific method and study.
47. Sprouts incisors : TEETHES. I equated "sprouts" with "children" for no good reason, and was wondering why "milk teeth" wouldn't fit.
49. Home to Sean O'Casey : ERIN. Hand up for EIRE first.
53. One full of hot air : DRYER. I was missing the R and could NOT see this for the longest time.
54. Clairvoyance : ESP
59. Is more than a bystander : AIDS
61. __ Dolorosa : VIA
62. French quencher : EAU. You can't tell if it's masculine or feminine because of the "l'eau" apostrophe convention.
63. Pack animal : ASS
64. Deli choice : RYE.
That's all from me. As they say in India "It's a sari". Substitute Lemonade signing off.
Steve
Note from C.C.:
Happy 93rd birthday to Jazzbumpa's beautiful mother! Click here to read Ron's musing last year. Any special plans today, Ron?
Delightful theme by Jack McInturff and explanation by Steve. For those who are still in the mood for more puzzling, today's New York Times has a quad stack by Martin Ashwood-Smith, and we've decided to make it a "Daily Double" with Open Wide. After solving, be sure to read Martin's "midrash." I hope you like it!
ReplyDeleteMéditerranée Mer is how you say Mediterranean Sea in French. So no nit. Americans do not say Mediterranean Ocean
ReplyDeleteMorning, all!
ReplyDeleteMan, this one was rough all over for me. I did manage to finish unassisted, but only after many, many passes through the grid to pick up one word here and another one there. I finally got enough perps to guess at GET IN ON THE PACT and SUDDEN PURGE, which let me grok the theme. After that, I was finally able to get AWKWARD PAGE and SEVEN YEAR PITCH. Oddly enough, I had WILD PROSE early on based solely on the clue, but it was a short answer and I didn't even realize it was a theme answer at the time.
No complaints about anything in the grid. Just lots of difficult clues and answers. Perfect for a Friday, in other words.
Very enjoyable. The NE was the last to drop. I wasn't, at first, thinking far back enough for RICARDO. And I was looking for a single word for 9D; some sort of "pad". Even when filled it took me a second to realize there was no such thing as a "popupad".
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think that JOCOSE looks like something Émile Zola might say.
Other than that, WBS (as usual).
[20:36]
Well I also couldn't get started on the first pass, with about 10 fills. I got the theme with SUDDEN PURGE and every thing eventually came around until I had JOVIAL instead of JOCUSE which I am sure more of us will never hear or see again except maybe in another puzzle. My last fill was AWKWARD PAGE because I had REP for 57A and DRYER just wouldn't pop into my head. I wanted DUST MOP instead of DAMP MOP. This was a nicely clued puzzle that took an few extra minutes this Friday.
ReplyDeleteDNR for me today. Even though it's end of the week, I tried doing it without red letters, but had problems with several unknown words in the NW, and a blank at 49d ✜ 57a. Finally hit the check button and found I had misspelt 3d:RITENUI, 33a:TRIO, and 48a:JOCOST. Besides dumb errors, red letters early would have saved me from a lot of false starts. ELENORE>ELEANOR, THERES>NOW NOW, DUSTMOP>DAMP MOP, THE SAME PAGE>AWKWARD PAGE, COMEDY>JOCOSE, BOW>OBI, TROWEL>SANDER, SLAGS>DROSS, THE>ARTicle>FEM, OSU>ORU, TEETHES>well, that one turned out to be right the first time before I erased it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't catch on to the gimmick until the last one at the bottom, but once I did it helped me go back and solve all the rest.
I really liked the clecho at 1a/29a! The pair at 22d/26d was okay. Surprised 31a:SEA and 43a:MER weren't also clued as clechoes. Ditto crossing words 15a:OLIO and 12d:POTAGES.
Good morning everyone,
ReplyDeleteAfter my first pass through, my grid looked exactly like Steve's. For 5A Center of authority I entered thor which is the words center! But perps fixed that quickly.
I filled in a little here, a little there and SUDDEN PURGE appeared. That gave me a foothold for the North and soon GET IN ON THE PACT had a life. For once I figured out the theme and that helped immensely.
The SW was a nasty devil for me. I was sure HOW IS HE was right, except I thought HSIA should be Asia.
I finally left it alone and what do you know, it was correct!
But still, I had a DNF. Left the square blank for the crossing T for 19A & 17D. The reason it was blank was I had no idea. If I'd remembered it, I would have wagged something, but I doubt it would have been a T
Off to NH with Lucy this weekend. Combination of business and pleasure. She deserves it, having to put up with me all the time.
By the way, 32A SANDER was a shout out to Lucy. It was her maiden name.
Tough sledding today. Took forever to get going, and ended at the same pace. Last fill was a wag on the I in via, with every expectation it would be wrong. A pleasant surprise.
ReplyDeleteSteve, do Brits really call it the Mediterranean Ocean? And thanks for explaining NT. I'd only heard of "Nice try" :-)
Hi gang -
ReplyDeleteWow, C. C. - you remember every detail. Thanks for posting those pix. Not sure if I'll have time for the puzzle today. Off to Toledo to take mom and her twin sister to lunch, with my sis and some cousins.
counting his blessings
old man gets another chance
to take mom to lunch
Symphony concert tonight.
Cool regards!
JzB
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteThings looked really bleak in the NW. The only thing I was "sure" of was that 3 down was plural and should end in S. And that proved to be wrong. DH was obviously short for Dear Husband. Bzzzzzt! Things were a little better in the other quadrants.
I was torn between XPs and NTs, but figured the NTs were too far back in time. Bzzzzzt! And I also fell into the DUST/DAMP trap.
It's not my cleanest grid, but I finally got 'er done.
Steve, when did the Mediterranean get that promotion? Just before the Caribbean Ocean, I'm guessing. And who is that shady guy at the treaty signing?
Thank you for the puzzle, Jack. Thank you for the excellent review, Steve.
ReplyDeleteNow THIS was a good challenge! It took me a full hour, but with no help. Yay! The NW was the last area to fill for me. A clever theme.
Pretty much WSS (What Steve Said) and WBS.
I had SIT IN ON THE PACT before GET IN ON THE ACT. That messed me up for a long time. I had COD before ANN, REP before DIR, and ACTS before AIDS.
I didn’t know Bonnie RAITT made Silver Lining. I didn’t know JOCOSE. I’ve never heard anyone use it, and probably won’t remember it if it appears again. I also didn’t know HSIA. The perps saved me.
I didn’t “get” 57A W, for one: DIR when I solved the puzzle. Steve’s review didn’t expound on it, so it didn’t help. But for some reason, it triggered the light bulb to come on: W = West, DIR = DIRection! D’oh!
Good morning everybody, and Happy Friday!
ReplyDeleteWell, I blew this one. To many write overs for any of ti to make much sense. I enjoyed working on it, but alas, it was a DNF.
Have a great weekend! (Hopefully it will warm up in Chicago!!!)
TGIF. Friday’s commute taking my son to work is always a breeze, as was this puzzle. On late week puzzles I work with across and down together until I come to a spot where I find 4 contiguous answers and start from there, ignoring the rest for a time. SEAT, RONA, SRO, EON, ANT, TAHOE, ON THE appeared immediately, so I went down the central vertical third quickly. Then I went down the right hand third. Getting PACT and PURGE, I guessed this was an “add a P” puzzle. Long ago Lemony said that Friday themes often were add a letter or subtract a letter. Thanks, Lemony.
ReplyDeleteI rather quickly filled in the rest of the right hand column using this info. Then I looked for the phrases to which P had been added and had good perps for the left hand column.
Then on to the bottom left hand third. I guessed that “word after give and take” started with the word A, so AJAX along with what I already had helped fill in the SW.
Finally in the NW I saw NOUN and VERB, a real trick, which helped in the NW corner. I knew RAITT, so NTS was the only unknown, all perps.
I, too, thought of panty raider when I saw pantry raider. The frat boys had a panty raid on our freshman dorm. In those innocent days they couldn’t get inside the building, so the girls threw panties out the windows. Less innocent were the panty raids in the back seats of cars.
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteJust one white-out today - had 'Cod' before Cape ANN.
I love Jack McIinturff's puzzles. I think of them as the weekday Silkies. He stretches out what we mostly already know.
As usual, had initial trouble developing footholds. TEETHES, EAU, HERS, and DROSS got me going. Got the theme from SEVEN YEAR PITCH, and the P-picker directly helped with each of the other theme fills - looking for a 'P' 4 or 5 letters from the end. ICKIEST got me AWKWARD PAGE.
As Steve pointed out, we had a soupçon of foreign words: ÎLE, EAU, ELA, MER and understanding la - FEM. MER is an obvious backdrop for Nice so I had no problem with that clue.
NTS fell after ruminating about the early days of our work version of Windows before I retired.
Just noticed that DAMP MOP crosses WILD PROSE with the P at the exact center of the puzzle. Nice touch. BZ to Jack.
Good morning everyone!
ReplyDeleteWhat D-O said!
Favorite clues were the clechos of “Trick or treat.”
Happy birthday to your lovely mother, Jazzb!
TGIF.
First of all I admit to a sound beating on this --definite DNF. I came here for the theme answers and then went off to see what I could add to my meager offerings. I never do wake up to those added letter tricks.
ReplyDeleteI ended up OK everywhere except the far NW. DH means dear husband to me. I don't speak baseball at all. I also can't get used to referring to pommies as brits. So I missed that too. I knew that had to be an English reference, but couldn't think of a 4 letter word for a car driver.
Anon @5:30 am,
It's Mer Méditerranée--adjectives normally follow nouns! I lived near there in Montpellier for a year in 1970-71.
A learning experience today. Good to know 'Endless' is only 7 years. And how could I forget Lou?
ReplyDeleteI'll be over there with Thumper.
I forgot to send a Happy Birthday wish to Jazzbumper's mom. What a wonderful gift, still to have your mother! I lost both my parents when I was in my twenties, and have regretted it ever since--they missed out on so much.
ReplyDeleteMake the most of it, those of you others too, who still have parents living! Every day should be treated as their birthday!
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteReading the very first clue, I thought smugly "you're not catching me on this one!" and popped in Noun. Bzzzt. That was before I'd gone far enough to see the clecho.
Hand up for Eire before Erin. I never heard of Coach K, but the name of Duke is fresh in my mind because of CNN's recent coverage of the young woman who turned to pornography supposedly to help offset her Duke tuition. I guess she isn't on a sports scholarship.
Morning, Steve, thanks for pinch hitting.
She might be said to be on a sporting scholarship. (wink)
ReplyDeleteHeh heh! :-)
ReplyDeleteKazie, why is the person putting the tyre in the boot a pommie (derogatory, I looked it up) instead of an ordinary Brit?
ReplyDeleteLucina, I thought of your trip when i found VIA Dolorosa. Were you impressed? On my first trip to Israel we walked slowly through there stopping at each way point for a discussion. We could picture the Good Friday events even though the place was mobbed. On my trip last fall. our guide was not interested in that spot and rushed through it. My only impression of it was the many shops and the throngs of people. Bummer. I was glad for my first experience of it.
Steve thanks for the pinch it; awesome job.
ReplyDeleteJzB, and many more for your mom and aunt. It is truly a blessing to still be able to share with a parent.
One disadvantage of growing up in England is that you missed the wonderful voice of JOHN RAITT. Other than being Bonnie's mother he was a major talent in Broadway musicals.
LISTEN.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteWell, this was a crunchier-than-usual Friday, but patience and perseverance earned a TADA, without help. Had Eire/Erin, Cod/Ann, and lei/obi, but all were quickly corrected.
Thanks for thinking of me, Steve, and thanks for your always witty review. Thanks, also, to Jack Mac for a clever and challenging offering. Fav clue was one full of hot air=dryer.
Best wishes to your mother, JazzB, on her 93rd birthday. Hope she has a delightful day.
Argyle from yesterday: I watched several episodes of Under The Dome and then gave up. It just got more and more weird and unbelievable. I don't plan on watching it this time around.
Have a great day.
YR,
ReplyDeleteWhere I'm from, they're all pommies. Brit is strictly an American expression. Pommie has numerous explanations as to its origin, so I won't enumerate any here, as you probably found them when you checked. I don't think of pommie as any more derogatory than brit.
However, Australians have always had a somewhat love/hate relationship with our former colonizers, dating back to the days of penal colonies where treatment of convicts was as cruel as that of slaves here. Following that, there was the era of mistreatment of the Irish settlers: e.g. Ned Kelly and his family. Most Aussies today side with the highwaymen of the 1800's.
The love/hate was continued with the wave of English immigration to Oz in the 1950's under the assisted passage scheme of only about £10 cost per immigrant. While many settled in and became good "new Australians", others complained constantly that nothing was as good as at home, and they couldn't wait to save up enough to return there.
On the other hand, many Aussies love the royal family, British accents, British comedy, and somehow feel a personal affinity with everything English.
I grew up in the middle of all this with an English grandmother everybody loved, and an aunt who always said the first thing an English person looks for as he walks into a room full of Australians is the chain marks on their ankles.
YR @ 0947 - I don't agree that pommie as used by Australians is derogatory. I link frequently to an Australian submarine veterans site because it is interesting. The blogmaster uses pommie from time to time seemingly in a kidding way, but always respectful. (There is a strong association between the RAN and the RN) Many shared 'war stories'.
ReplyDeleteWiki confirms this usage.
50a - decorative knot. I wanted 'sword' knot before OBI. Wouldn't fit.
"No Sword can be properly regarded as complete without its appropriate knot"
- Sword historian B. Robson from his definitive work: Swords of the British Army
Here is a link for Naval Officers on how to use a Sword Knot.
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the crunchy puzzle, Jack, and swell review, Steve!
Got the theme right away. In general, however, very slow going. No cheats, however.
Also started out with NOUN. DIR had me really puzzled!
Happy amazing birthday to you mom, Jazz!
Am enjoying John Raitt all over again!
Cheers!
Kazie@ 10:20 and Spitz @ 10:38, POMMIE is a new word for me. Thanks for the very interesting explanations. Kazie, I have read many historical novels about the settling of Australia and the immigrants, a very fascinating era. Somehow I missed POMMIE.
ReplyDeleteIn other matters, has Bonnie Raitt been informed that her mother was John?
ReplyDeleteStill don't get "W, for one : DIR. "
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteShe has now .... will miracles never cease.
Thanks for bringing to our attention that we bypassed, in our kindness. ;-o) lol.
P.P.S. - Nice work Steve, you look cuter than the 2 guys signing away. Unfortunately no foodie comments today. Loved your jokes and the blog. Great job.
Thanks, Jack, for a great puzzle. Thought provoking and smile producer for the theme.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, Steve, on the write-up.
The entire west side was the last to fall. Lots of clever cluing!
Steve: Nice "Pinch-Hitting" ... one of my favorite past-times.
ReplyDelete1derfool: W is the DIR(ection) West.
Fave today, of course, was the Toast, SALUT!
Cheers!!!
Hello, superior solvers! Thanks for pinch-hitting, Steve, and adding your uniquely JOCOSE style.
ReplyDeleteWEES. Jack Mac gave me a run for my money but when GETINONTHEPACT emerged, I was on to his ploy.
Since I normally solve across/down most of this grid appeared fairly quickly, emphasis on fairly. The center stymied me for a while especially since USFL was unknown, had to research it, and DEED as indicator of possession in the bathroom didn't make much sense.
Also SUDDEN PURGE did not seem too political as it can apply to a number of events not always political but it worked.
Thank you, Jack M. for a good Friday finish.
JazzB:
Happy birthday to your Mother! How fortunate you are to have her.
Have a fabulous Friday, everyone!
Yellowrocks:
ReplyDeleteOn the day our tour went to the VIA Dolorosa I was feeling ill and stayed in much to my regret as I missed not only that site but a number of other holy ones as well.
I desperately wanted to go, but was feeling really bad from a difficult walk the day before.
et alia
ReplyDeleteYR,
ReplyDeleteI doubt that pommie was being used that far back. But these days it's only when they're called pommie bastards that it's derogatory. It's always a matter of context!
Finding the add a P theme would have been easy,
ReplyDeleteif I didn't have to add all those other letters...
My search for a Happy Birthday Jazz Momma cake:
Wait a sec... Jzb plays Trombone, this will never do...
Hmm, No... (The way we were???)
Oh well, Jzb, something tells me your mother would prefer this cake!
Please note that the
ReplyDeleteadd a "P" concept
is not universally accepted...
Happy B'day to Jazzbumpa's Mum!
ReplyDeleteYay! 100% solved on Friday, with only a few after-the-fact checkups.
My hand is up too for trying EIRE before ERIN. Also MIGRANT before VAGRANT.
I enjoyed learning JOCOSE. I had JOCULE first & needed the perp to straighten me out.
Lotsa "Aha!" moments: POP-UP ADS, RICARDOS, SEVEN YEAR PITCH
Again - a pzl where the theme actually helped me. My first today was GET IN ON THE PITCH. I s'pose they would have been helping me all along if I'd caught on to them earlier in the game. Better (learn it) late than never, Ol' Man...
teach me to try and post while I am in a closing; either way John Raitt was great
ReplyDeleteW(est) Is a DIRection.
CED, your (C)ool (P)ool was marvelous
Hi Y'all! Whew! What a slog! I finally caught on to the "P" in it on the next to last theme phrase and went back up and straightened out some of the rest. My experience was much like Steve's with BRIT the first fill and not much else. VERB & NOUN were the last. Not on my wave length at all. Managed to fill it with red letters and persistence.
ReplyDelete"They're often blocked" wasn't sinuses, bowels, streets, rivers, or quilts or.... POP UP ADS? How the heck do you do that? Not with the expensive app I had installed, I'll tell you that.
Not "Gravys" but POTAGE. Wouldn't recognize that if they poured it on me.
JOCOSE? Well, the puzzle theme WAS, so that's always the redeeming factor for me. Thanks, Jack. And I got a chuckle at Steve looming large at that treaty signing. Thanks!
I had to take a side trip until I found my favorite Bonnie Raitt song, "I Can't Make You Love Me." I had never heard of John Raitt. He certainly looks svelte for a mother. I knew the song in the clip and the musical. Didn't know he played Billy.
Hey, I knew Coach K's team! My proud moment for the day.
22D: Does anyone still use monogrammed towels? My mom had a shower-gift set of towels marked His & HERS or I wouldn't have got this.
JOCOSE puts me in mind of a certain M*A*S*H Chaplin.
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought when I saw that word too, Argyle. But Fr. MulCahey said: "Jocularity".
ReplyDeleteFavorite Bonnie Raitt tune, Hmmm. Toss up between Guilty and My Opening Farewell
Apologies for not actually explaining "DIR" when I had a hard time with it myself!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks to those that pointed out my "et elia" type. I've corrected it now.
Poms can be "whingeing" as well as "b**tards" (or even both at the same time) depending on how irate the speaker is. Usually beating the Aussies at cricket is enough to get the epithet-hurling started.
An English attorney friend of mine was once detained for quite some time entering Australia. The immigration officer asked him if he had a criminal record, and his humorous response "No, but I didn't think it was compulsory any more" didn't go over very well. They sat him in a room for a couple of hours to mull things over.
Darn - "typo" not "type". How ironic!
ReplyDeleteMy UK friends often call themselves BRITS. As in "we saw a few other BRITS among the tourists."
ReplyDeleteCED:
I don't know how you find those, both the cakes and the JOCOSE videos. Kudos to you!
Steve @ 3:57, funny story about your friend who was detained!! I have been reading the comments about "poms," "pommies" and "pommie" with great interest.
ReplyDeleteIt is a term I had never heard until now. Snopes.com still has it listed as a generally derogatory term, but after reading comments from those "in the know," I realize that it is all in the context. Thanks!
40a. Words after give or take: I seriously considered A $H!T
ReplyDelete20a. Tulsa sch.: ORU (Oral Roberts University - where that student did her prereq before heading to Duke)
30d. Calming words: NOW, NOW I think if someone said those words to calm me, the situation just might escalate instead.
53d. One full of hot air: With xxYER filled in, I couldn't help but think of LAWYER
Steve @ 3:57,
ReplyDeleteFunny story! Typical of the clever British humor for your friend to say something like that, and of course typical of the Aussie bureaucrat to react that way too. I'm sure cricket matches like the Ashes can evoke quite a bit of interesting language at times.
Lucina,
Maybe your friends translate to Brits for their American friends. But perhaps they don't like the term Pommie either.
I see from the Snopes reference that I may have been misspelling it with -ie instead of -y at the end too. The pomegranate thing is a variant of the same theme I've heard that attributes it to the French for apple (pomme)--also red, in which case the French get the blame for the term.
Thank you for the summary. Very funny. I enjoyed it immensely. The photoshop was especially hilarious. A breath of fresh air.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tuneagement Joe.
As to PERP...
Good evening, folks. thank you, Jack, for a fine puzzle, even though I could not finish it. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.
ReplyDeleteComing in late from selling onions all day , partially in a snow storm. It was unreal!
The puzzle defeated me. I could not get the NW corner. All the rest I got.
Theme was fine. Very clever.
Liked HOW IS HE.
Got the MOP part easily. the DAMP came much later.
RYE is my favorite bread.
Anyhow, have to get to bed. Lots to do tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
(28656388 22)