Climbing the Food Chain: Today we have a word ladder as our puzzle. One letter is changed from each of the stared answers as we climb down the ladder from BREAD as the first Across spot to TOAST in the final Across spot. I love word ladders, but I don't know if I have seen one in a crossword puzzle before. I have highlighted each letter change.
1-Across. * Dough (and start of a word ladder): BREAD.
15-Across. * Bit of luck: BREAK.
16-Across. * Dismal: BLEAK.
22-Across. * Sheepish remark?: BLEAT.
57-Across. * Made holy: BLEST.
64-Across. * Fabulous time: BLAST.
66-Across. * Dispense with modesty: BOAST.
71-Across. * Doomed, slangily (and end of the ladder): TOAST.
And the unifier:
37-Across. Apt description of the sequence suggested by the answers to starred clues?: FOOD CHAIN.
Across:
6. "__ it ain't so!": SAY.
9. Pop's bros: UNCs. Short for Uncles. Not sure I have ever used this term.
13. Insurance giant: AETNA. Various logos throughout the years.
14. Paul Bunyan tool: AXE. Despite what people in Minnesota say, Paul Bunyan was actually born in Bangor, Maine.
17. Itinerary word: VIA.
18. Poetic feet: IAMBI.
19. __ Lingus: AER. The airline of Ireland.
20. Horse-and-buggy sect: AMISH.
23. Interoffice PC connection: LAN. As in Local Area Network.
24. Carnival city: RIO. Short for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Mardi Gras carnival in Rio (and elsewhere across the world that celebrates) is on Tuesday, February 12, 2012. You can celebrate both Abraham Lincoln's birthday and Mardi Gras at the same time next year!
25. "You bet!": YES!
27. "Seats all taken" sign: SRO. As in Standing Room Only. The Fire Marshal might have something to say about that.
28. Abbr. on a B-52: USAF. As in the United States Air Force. This plane, manufactured by Boeing, continues to operate in the country's armed services.
30. Not nice at all: CRUEL. When it's spelled as Crewel, it is fancy needlework.
32. Hillside home asset: VIEW.
33. Author Wiesel: ELIE. Elie Wiesel (né Eliezer Wiesel; Sept. 30, 1928 ~ July, 2, 2016) has become an old friend in the crossword puzzles. He was born in Romania and survived both Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentrations. He went on to write about his experiences in the Holocaust and became a political activist. He was the recipient of hte 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
35. Blood work and such: LAB TESTS.
40. Partygoer, say: ATTENDEE.
43. Target's target, say: LOGO. This one almost stumped me. I laughed when the answer came to me.
46. Some August babies: LEOs.
47. Third of eight: EARTH. Cute clue. In school, I learned there were 9 planets. That was before poor Pluto was demoted.
50. Intertwine: MESH.
52. Under the weather: ILL. I wanted Ail.
53. Also say: ADD.
54. What a suspect tries to beat, with "the": RAP.
56. "That's more than I need to know": TMI. Text speak for Too Much Information. Also, the abbreviation for the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor that had a partial meltdown in March 1979.
59. Musical set in Argentina: EVITA. Don't cry for me.
61. Family guy: SON.
62. "Me too!": AS DO I!
63. Bigwig: VIP. As in a Very Important Person.
67. Uncommon sense: ESP. As in ExtraSensory Perception.
68. Justice Sotomayor: SONIA. Sonia Maria Sotomayor (b. June 25, 1954) makes frequent appearances in the crossword puzzles. She was nominated to the High Court in May 2009 and joined the Court in August of that year.
69. A.D. part: ANNO. As in Anno Domini. The phrase is medieval Latin and means "In the Year of the Lord".
70. Vote against: NAY.
Down:
1. Ricky's signature song on "I Love Lucy": BABALU.
2. Word after news or press: RELEASE. As in a New Release or a Press Release.
3. Everlasting: ETERNAL.
4. Santa __ winds: ANA.
5. Senegal's capital: DAKAR. Dakar is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean, mid-way between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator.
6. Rescuer: SAVIOR.
7. x or y, on graphs: AXIS.
8. "Sure, sure": YEAH! YEAH!
9. Eurasian border river: URAL. The river flows through Russia and Kazakhstan and empties into the Caspian Sea.
10. Usually successful opponent: NEMESIS.
11. Musical set at the Kit Kat Klub: CABARET.
12. Winter lifts: SKI TOWS.
Using a Rope Tow.
15. Tots' spill catchers: BIBS.
21. Karaoke singer's tool: MIC.
26. Isle of Napoleon's exile: ELBA. The Smithsonian Magazine had a article about Napoleon's life on Elba. The island looks beautiful. There would be worse places to be exiled.
29. Piccolo relatives: FIFES.
31. Gastric woe: ULCER.
32. Cobra's weapon: VENOM.
34. Long, long time: EON. A crossword staple.
36. "Open __ 9 p.m.": store sign: 'TIL. Don't you just hate these signs?
38. Pigged out (on), briefly: OD'ED.
39. All square: DEAD EVEN.
40. Storied cave opener: ALI BABA. A reference to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It is one of the stories from Persian tales found in One Thousand and One Nights.
41. Exposes: TELLS ON.
42. Holy city resident?: TOLEDAN. A resident of Toledo. Hi, JazzBumpa! Oops. Wrong Toledo. A Toledan is a resident of Toledo, Spain. Toledo was a major center of Catholics, Muslims and Jews in the middle ages. Holy Toledo! Who knew?
44. Nails the test: GETS AN A.
45. Absorption process: OSMOSIS.
48. Psychedelic: TRIPPY.
49. Fez or fedora: HAT. Hi, Abejo! Sending you prayers for a speedy recovery.
51. Suggest: HINT AT.
53. Go __: fight: AT IT.
55. Brewery that co-distributes Not Your Father's Root Beer: PABST. Who knew?
58. Just passable: SO-SO.
60. Mastercard rival: VISA.
65. WC: LOO. Possible theories on the origin of the word LOO.
Here's the Grid:
Notes from C.C.:
Thanks for the feedback yesterday, everyone.
Looks like all cellphone users are affected. TTP has figured out a way
for our team to manually remove the video embed glitch. Hopefully the Blogger team
will solve this problem soon.
51 comments:
CRUEL Kracken eats ships, large and small!
Swallows them down, anchor and all!
He clears his phlegm
With the anchor "stem" --
It's his favorite FOOD CHAIN, all in all!
Ships are the Kracken's BREAD, they say,
That he eats at the BREAK of day.
The outlook's BLEAK for the sailor,
No matter how he'll BLEAT a prayer.
A few may be BLEST to survive
The monster's BLAST and dive.
They may be allowed to BOAST,
And to departed shipmates, TOAST.CRUEL Kracken eats ships, large and small!
Swallows them down, anchor and all!
He clears his phlegm
With the anchor "stem" --
It's his favorite FOOD CHAIN, all in all!
Ships are the Kracken's BREAD, they say,
That he eats at the BREAK of day.
The outlook's BLEAK for the sailor,
No matter how he'll BLEAT a prayer.
A few may be BLEST to survive
The monster's BLAST and dive.
They may be allowed to BOAST,
And to departed shipmates, TOAST.
Good morning Cornerites.
Thank you Bruce Haight for your enjoyable Tuesday CW.
Carol FIR in 24:18 min. She didn't need any help from me.
Thank you Hahtoolah for your excellent review.
Ðave
Well, it’s true that you had an abundance of fodder for your word mill, but that was still outstanding, Owen. A++.
This seemed easy for a Wednesday but the theme was amazing. I’m with you, Hahtoolah... I love word ladders, and this is the first time I remember seeing one embedded in a crossword. Amazing construction, Bruce.
And speaking of Hahtoolah (and I just was), you outdid yourself today. Loved the illustrations.
Bet it’s been at least twenty years since I last heard BABALU.
FIFES again? Seems like Barney is muscling in on our puzzle again. (It’s OK with me; he was one of my favorite funny men of B&W TV. [What’s that? I bet a substantial chunk of the population of the US doesn’t even know that TV hasn’t always been in color.])
Ditto on the SO to Abejo. I sure hope you’re hanging in there, fellow DuPagian!
Some of this fill I think I must have gotten through OSMOSIS.
Hand up for needing to think about “Target’s target” for a bit before the light came on in what I am pleased to call my mind.
ULCERs are no fun!
AXIS filled itself in as I was going across and not down in that section; when I saw it, I couldn’t for the life of me recall seeing any clues referring to WWII. Oh. That axis!
I’m sure there must have been more things I especially noticed, but it’s getting very sleepy in here and I believe bedtime approacheth. ‘Night, all (or maybe you call it morning? There ARE early birds out there. We can’t explain it, but they’re real.)
Mask up. Stay safe.
Hi Y'all! Fun theme, Bruce, thanks! However, after seeing the FOOD CHAIN reveal, I thought all the words should have been food. Nope! I used to watch Chain Reaction on Game Show Network, so this was welcome.
Great expo, Hahtoolah!
Who knew Toledo was a Holy city despite the old Holy Toledo expletive which didn't come to mind. Toledan took ESP (Every Single Perp).
Didn't watch "I Love Lucy" (no TV in my home) so DNK BABALU nor LAN. Last fill.
Forgot there was a "T" at the end of CABARET for a while. Duh!
Tried "sesame" before ALI BABA as being the word used to open the cave.
I’ve been in DAKAR and TOLEDO and drunk PABST, so this was right up my alley.
Good morning!
Knew we were looking for a word ladder, but didn't notice it during the solve. It's sad that folks with those hillside VIEWs are seeing mostly smoke and ash out west. URAL was easy, but I swear I've never heard of Bashkortostan before. This was a nice romp, Bruce. You seem to have mastered the new blog format, Hahtoolah (ironically, the mask pictured on your mask covers neither the nose nor the mouth.)
UNCS: I once had five uncles, all on my mom's side. They've been gone for at least 20 years now.
EARTH: I can remember the eight planets, but can't seem to keep straight whether Uranus or Neptune is the furthest.
TOLEDAN: Learning moment. It never dawned on me that the expression was about a Spanish Toledo.
I noticed the CSO to Abejo. If you're reading, hope you're getting better, Bradley.
Forgot to send good luck wishes to Hahtoolah, Swamp Cat, and B-E. Looks like Sally's going to pass to your east, sparing Nola from the worst.
Slowed down to 7:14 today.
Double W [quad u?], it seemed that way because it's Tuesday.
Good Morning:
I love Bruce’s puzzles but this was not one of my favorites. While the word ladder was skillfully done, I thought the puzzle itself lacked Bruce’s trademark wacky word play and tricky themers. Nice CSO to Jayce. (USAF)
Thanks, Bruce, for the “food for thought” offering and thanks, Hatoolah, for another outstanding review and numerous links and visuals. I get a kick out of the unusual but apt cartoons that you treat us with!
Best wishes and positive thoughts to Abejo and to those in Sally’s sights, stay safe!
FLN
Garlic Gal, glad you’re safe and sound. Don’t be a stranger. 😉
Have a great day.
Musings
-I had just finished my PB&J on a TOASTED English muffin when the gimmick hit me
-“SAY it ain’t so, Shoeless Joe!”
-Most every hill rising out of the Platte River valley here has a home with a VIEW
-This morning I will be an ATTENDEE at our last league golf session
-Does anyone in DAKAR wonder if the KC Chiefs repeat as Super Bowl champions?
-My daughter’s ex-MIL calls me her NEMESIS. I still don’t know why.
-When one kid TELLS ON another one, the teacher must decide on a course of action
-Pabst : Root Beer = Samsung : Surprise!
-Nice job, Susan.
Fun theme with a double puzzle - I enjoy word ladders - I try to do the Sporcle trivia site word ladder every day:
https://www.sporcle.com/games/Tom_the_Terrible/word-ladder-landlocked-asian-capital-and-country
I had to laugh at myself - in my head I read the clue "dispense with modesty" and thought of "dispense" as to "hand out" instead of "get rid of" - BOAST is the exact opposite of the first meaning!
Thanks Susan and Bruce!
Prayers for Abejo and those facing the storms and fires!
Good morning, cyber friends!
I finished puzzle easily AND got the theme which is rare for me.
I have been thinking of all our discussions over the years and want to comment that relative humidity in Parts of Montana will drop to 5% today.
That's an extreme fire danger condition.
Stay safe everyone,
Montana
Good morning everyone.
Thanks, Hahtoolah. Great intro. Got it all except the 'D' in TOLEDAN. Sigh. Got all the word ladder words OK. Didn't know Toledo was a holy city; a new learning.
UNC' short for uncle. Probably from the French 'oncle'. German Onkel (a French borrowing?). Dutch oom.(Guess they didn't borrow.)
WC : LOO - - I've heard my German relatives use WC saying: 'Vay say', the German phonetics for those letters. Occasionally, my Dad would say, in referring to the LOO, : "wo (selbst) der Kaiser zu Fuß hingeht.). meaning "where (even) the emperor goes on foot". Some things you just have to do for yourself.
Good Morning.
Never got to Sunday's puzzle: Sorry C.C. Maybe later this week. Didn't even do yesterday's. I'm mostly on CoViD home confinement except for a weekly trip to the grocery, only work on Monday afternoon with athletes who have missed the student-athlete designation (boy do they hate Zoom-the phone is working better), studying my Italian, cleaning a bit, BUT I can't find enough hours in the day. It's a very good thing I am retired.
Thanks for the puzzle, Bruce. I had a pretty speedy run. I haven't thought about word ladders in just about forever. I laughed at LAB TESTS. For over fifty years, every time I leave for one/some, my DH always, and I mean always, says: I hope you studied enough! A real comedian ;>)
Nicely done, Hahtoolah. Thank you so much.
Abeyo: Keep drinking your Earl Grey elixir! <3
Stay safe everyone.
Madame D. good to hear from you. I hope your home confinement does not mean you are ill.
Best wishes.
Kathy
I think the double dating will be on February 12, 2021, not 2012!
Yes, WikWak, it is Tuesday.
Stay safe, all.
Thanks, Bruce, for an easy and pleasant Tuesday offering. Loved the word ladder. I didn’t understand TOLDAN or GETSANA. Thanks, Susan for explaining. And thanks for all your many visuals! I loved the rats watching the humans on their phones. Stay dry!
Thanks, D-O, for the good wishes on Sally. Right now it seems to be going a bit east but you never know. If it goes east it will hit my daughters family on the Gulf Coast, so I don’t know what to hope for....not that hurricanes care what we hope for
Owen, what can I say? This was the best.
YR: No, all is well here. We are just being extra cautious. Thanks. I am fully recovered from April surgery, and I hope you are doing well also. <3
Owen: Um, I do believe you outdid yourself today!
FLN, Spitz, I post on Android. I don't think I can use anything but straight Arial. I can do ialica and bold in my Docs app but they don't transfer to the blog. I agree the cedilla etc are helpful. Ps, you'll enjoy Thurs.
Ah, Bangor, ME. North of Orono. Another long leg gets you to Presque Isle where I went to purchase a Siberian husky. I took the whole litter. Winter. Cold, but only December.
Target seems to be hanging in there. Seems to be enough dreck to keep them and Walmart going in the tidal wave that is Amazon.
Well, it wasn't ELBA but that was a great article on St Helena.
I strangely inked ALADDIN/ALI BABA. I recall Popeye saying "Open sez me!"
Re. Toledo, Klinger's hometown.
I see a CSO on that last clue for LOO.
WC
(Now to read comments)
Terrific Tuesday. Thanks for the fun, Bruce and Hahtoolah.
Word ladder theme was great IMHO (and Owen, you did a marvelous job with those words!).
I FIRed in good time. Like PK, I was looking for food words (that would have been extremely difficult!); I smiled when I saw that the BREAD had morphed into TOAST.
I noted YEAH, YEAH and YES - and also NAY.
ESP and VIP atop it. SON and UNCS in the family today.
Hand up for smiling when the light dawned on LOGO and TOLEDAN. Another hand up (who says AS DO I?) for not knowing the significance of Holy Toledo.
I also thought of Ail before ILL. (At least it wasn't Iller)
Yes WC, I thought of Aladdin before ALI BABA too.
I did not remember BABILU. Little Ricky is great.
NEMESIS clue required some thought. Dictionary.com "the inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall" Greek mythology: "Nemesis was the goddess of divine retribution and revenge, who would show her wrath to any human being that would commit hubris, i.e. arrogance before the gods. She was considered a remorseless goddess." Do not BOAST.
Speaking of BOAST, inanehiker, I thought of "dispense with modesty" as "get rid of modesty" but in the sense that you forget about modesty when you enter the hospital and put on one of those backless gowns. I had a lesson in that with my first-ever (2+1/2 week flat-on-my -back) hospital experience before the premature birth of my first child.
SONIA and AETNA have been learned by this Canadian from previous CWs (plus YR spoke of AETNA recently too).
SAVIOR without the U is just CRUEL for this Canadian. LOL.
Continued thoughts and prayers for Abejo. FEZ CSO today.
FLN, good to hear from you Garlic Gal. (And Montana today)
Wishing you all a good day. Stay safe from "flood, fire and pestilence".
It's been a long time since I saw a Word Ladder. I got all of the words, but mostly because of the clues and perps. Good puzzle Bruce.
Hatoolah, thanks for the enlightening expo.
DO: Back in the day when there were nine planets, we could remember their sequence with the phrase My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. Poor Pluto being kicked out of the club.
During the Space Shuttle era, NASA used DAKAR as a potential emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle. Good weather in DAKAR was one of the mission rules for a launch Go. Luckily it never had to be used.
There are a number of AMISH farms in this area of Central Pennsylvania and the population has been growing because they have been running out of land in the Lancaster area for the next generations of AMISH families. Horses and buggies are prevalent on the more rural roads around here and there are frequent accidents where buggies don't fare so well.
I hope all who are being assaulted by the weather and forest fires are safe.
Have a great day and please wear your masks.
It is nice, as mentioned earlier, to see a Word Ladder in the puzzle. Unlike some others here I have seen that employed previously in several puzzles. very nice puzzle and great graphics in the write up, Susan. I especially enjoyed the rope tow and the giant mice (or tiny people). It reminded me that Night of the Lepus was aired on TV last weekend. A classic movie about giant killer bunnies.
Bruce, I loved your puzzle! Going from BREAD to TOAST by changing one letter at a time was brilliant. I'm not familiar with word ladders, but I'm sure it was a challenge to build a crossword around one. Hahtoolah, thanks for the tour. The BABALU clip was amazing.
Generally I enjoy Bruce's puzzles, but can't say that about this one. Many of the clues and answers were a stretch I thought. Uncs? Really? Word ladders aren't my favorite, so I paid no attention at all to the theme. Babalu brought back memories of the 50's. I had asami before asdoi at 62A which yielded to Toledan. Had to look at that a long time before figuring the clue referenced Holy Toledo. Best clue Bruce. It was a FIR in good time but won't be high on my list of fun CWs.
My son, age 5-12, loved "I Love Lucy". Hmm. Wonder why?
Gary, re. TELLS ON. Sometimes certain kids are encouraged to spy and when they report the AD(it's usually him/her) has to take action even if nothing really happened. Hence my son's suspension for handling a nail clipper. Talk about tangled webs.
Re. "dispense" The other word is "Disburse(ment)" which is my old MOS. You should see my signature, adapted for one who signs hundreds of times
NEMESIS: I always seem to encounter one. To say it's jealousy sounds like BOASTing but it's hard to explain. A boss chose that route, I transferred. Best thing that ever happened.
Btw, the fun's over. We have 3 newby constructors conf, seemingly from the Will Shorz school. Good news, Wilbur solved so anyone can. More good news: lots of new and fun clues and themes.
WC
And as per usual excellent write-up by Hahtoolah and superb l'icks from Owen.
WC @ 1029 - - Understood. It's just that the well-known phrase seemed somewhat naked without the accents and cedilla and I felt like practicing my keyboard skills. (The delete key and undo command get lots of use.)
Neat Tuesday puzzle--many thanks, Bruce. It was fun seeing all those B words change as it went along, but in the end I had to look up "word ladder" to understand how exactly they changed. Also had trouble getting the FOOD CHAIN reveal until I realized it had to do with the DOUGH turning into TOAST. Clever, clever strategies. And many thanks for your always delightful commentary, Susan. I just loved seeing that talented Little Ricky in the video.
Terrific poem, Owen--many thanks for that.
Nice to see AMISH, with Susan's helpful picture. Yes I too come from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and so am very familiar with AMISH.
Hope a good recovery continues, Abejo.
Have a good day, everybody.
Thanks Hahtoolah! I feel like I should apologize for UNCS- when I looked it up I saw Rich had used it four times before, but I think I should have reworked that area. Glad people like the word ladder idea!
I'm off this week and DW's "honey dew" list keeps growing so I kinda rushed through the puzzle unfortunately not waiting for corrective perpwalks...so...I FIR albeit with lots of inkovers..meld/MESH, aladdin/ALIBABA (started to write "sesame" but too short.), so/ASDOI (common error). sad/ail/ILL. Believe or not spelled BABALO. (I assume the OED would accept BABALOO as an alternative spelling.) Just north of ALIBABA.
Not sure I totally understand the theme but par
for the course for my shrinking cerebrum. I.must add it bugs me a bit that ODED shows up at least weekly, a serious condition is trivialized as "overeating"
The ELBA palindrome is the only way I remember ere means "before" not "ever". How is a NEMESIS a usually succesful opponent ? Canada Eh immediately thought of you, just returned with my daughter from the doctors office, office sign said ORTHOPAEDIC! Surgeon.
So as they say. Haste makes Waste (and so do used plastic products.)
"Sit!", "Speak!", "Heel!"......LABTESTS.
"Are you gay or straight?" " _____" ...IAMBI
Sublet.....RELEASE.
That flute is Barney _____ FIFES. ( a fun repeat)
Is that _____ youre driving now?......DAKAR
Down in the upper 30s last night. Hope anyone close.to the fires in California are safe and sound.
Watched a must see NETFLIX documentary last night "The Social Dilemma... tech expert interviews on how we are manipulated by our devices (I can't belive I kept pausing the program to check my phone messages and chat with a buddy!!)
Thanks, Bruce, for a great puzzle. I love word ladders and used them a lot as a teaching tool with my literacy students.
In my family, we used UNC a lot with our much loved uncles. Term of endearment.
Hatoolah, your tours always amaze me. I especially loved the Ricky clip and the mouse cartoon.
Enjoyable theme and impressive construction.
From Sunday:
Bill G glad you also got to experience the SHUTTLE Endeavour flying overhead in its retirement FLIGHT.
CanadianEh thank you for the kind words about my WATER SLIDE photos.
I have to say I am feeling a bit de-motivated after something that happened on Sunday. Someone posted some remarks that not only were highly political, but actually used an obscenity. And they are still there.
I have no problem with that. I am a big boy. But I do have a problem with the uneven enforcement of the rules.
Thank you Bruce for that relatively easy puzzle with the word ladder innovation. Thank you Hahtoolah for your enjoyable and pictured review.
I had trouble with the Oxford Dictionary lady spokesperson's british accent on explaining the etymolgy of the word "Loo". Why cant they speak the Queen's English ... it sounded like Erse or Welsh ! And they should have Close Captions for non British listeners.
I didn't know that Paul Bunyan was a real person. I thought He was a mere legend.
Is 'Amish' also one of those much dreaded 'A' words ? LoL, ;-)
in Re: Holy City ... I tried, but Jerusalem would not fit. I dont know too many other holy cities. I should have realized the question mark in the clue, was significant..
In Clue 45 D - Absorbtion process, Osmosis. Osmosis is a process of absorbtion pf a solute into or through a semipermeable membrane, and then desorbed into the solvent ( and solution ) with a lower osmotic pressure. To chemists and chemical engineers, this is properly a process of ADsorbtion rather than mere ABsortion.
“Don’t they know the Queen’s English?”
“Yes. So is the King.”
Wow! Beautiful choice of illustrations, Hahtoolah!
Thank you.
WikWak ~ And so are 55 million other folk (not adding in those of Anglo descent...)
Or approximately 5/6 of the peeps in the U.K.
My own British ancestors are some WASPs, but mostly Cornish & Cymru.
Nice job, Owen! Your poem really completes the pzl's "word ladder"--a neat pay-off!
Misty ~ I hadn't registered before that you're from Lancaster. I have been through there many a time. With my beard I was mistaken for AMISH myself.
~ OMK
___________
DR: Just one offside diagonal today.
The anagram tells us where Wile E. Coyote gets his veggies. Obviously he has them delivered from...
"ACME SALADS [Inc.]"!
Hahtoolah, I feel I did not thank you enough for your slides and videos that you so carefully and liberally sprinkled in your commentary. Thank you. And thanks to Mr. Haight, for his very innovative and clever use of answers in the CW.
And, as also noted by Wilbur Charles, as above, .... the article you linked to was not about Elba, and the island answer in the clue, .... but of St. Helena, the second and final exile of Napoleon. Elba was swimming distance from the shores of Italy, but Helena is 2000 miles away from anywhere. The artcle, never the less, is very well written. I enjoyed it very much.
I am surprised that they did not mention the Murder of Napoleon.
The Murder of Napoleon, a non-fiction book written by Ben Weider and David Hapgood about 1965 or 1966, is a mystery solver with a drama of a cast of characters. I read this about over 40 years ago.
This mystery and deduction, was solved,in 1961,... 140 years after his death (in 1821) , by a dentist, residing in Stockholm, Sweden, , using a precious lock of Napoleon's hair,(where Arsenic, the suspected poison would reside ...) using the then latest technology of gas- liquid chromatography,GLC, at Cambridge University in 1961, by a scottish physicist.
Spoiler: He was murdered by arsenic poisoning gradually administered in the emperor's wine, over six months, by one of his most faithful Major General(s) Charles de Montholon.
BTW, Charles' wife Albine de'Montholon, was Napoleon's mistress. The Emperor's wife had refused to follow him to exile. The arsenic, beung a perfect preserver of body tissue, kept his body in a near perfect natural condition, when he was disinterred, in 1858, for reburial in Paris.
I deeply apologize for the lenght of this post.
Musings
-A great final golf round today on a spectacular late summer day!
-Vidwan – I did not know that about Napoleon and really enjoyed learning that story
-Thanks for stopping by, Bruce! Uncs beat DERAT from yesterday! :-)
-Wilbur – Educators today have to follow a prescribed course of action without even finding out what really happened.
-Wilbur 2 – Every sitcom plot today seems to be a reworking of an old Lucy plot
Nice and pretty easy puzzle, but FIW! I breezed through everything but the SW corner. Stared it to death for a long time, before I finally decided on ASMOI and TOLEMAN. Didn’t even think of “Holy Toledo” and figured that TOLEMAN was just something I didn’t know, and that ASMOI was some cute French and looked OK to me too. Duh!
PABST Non-Alcoholic Beer was the key to my NOT spending the rest of my life supporting the Coors refinery. Now, however, I’m hooked on Diet Pepsi, which is probably worse for me.
Didn’t know BABALU, and I’m old enough.
I didn’t mind UNCS. My only living uncle (out of 11 or 12 --- my mother came from a large family) is only four years older than I am. He is my dad’s stepbrother, born 23 years after my dad (whose mother had passed away when he was just entering high school). He keeps referring to himself as YOUR OLD UNC! I refuse to refer to myself as YOUR OLD NEPHEW!
Posting late today after FIR early this morning. Had to do the puzzle (excellent work Bruce, and thanks for stopping by) on my phone instead of in ink on paper which took more time until I caught on. My last entry was LOGO for Target. Saw the theme but like C Eh and PK first looked for a list of food items before noticing the one letter change in each word. "Hey!" to Hahtoolah and thanks for enriching the write up so much. Liked the picture of the Amish family. Sehr schoen.
We hope to be celebrating our 55th wedding anniversary as well as Mardi Gras and Lincoln's birthday on February 12, 2021.
Best wishes to all of you.
WikWak wrote
Don't they know the Queen's English ?
Yes. So is the King.
Very Clever, and funny... ;-)
But, not necessarily so ... the King ( er, Prince Philip ), if you watched 'The Crown', on Netflix, you would be made aware, that
By Royal descent, he was born into Danish and Greek Royal families,
By genealogy he was German, House of Glucksburg,
By upbringing and early education, he was taught and spoke French,
He learnt the english language at age 16.
He joined the Royal Navy at age 18, in 1939, in Britain, became a naturalized British citizen, and married an Englishwoman...
Busy doing things today,
so I did not get to do the puzzle.
But I did enjoy the write up & comments!
(OwenKL = A+++)
Hmm,
Word+ladder
could have been a good source
of silly links...
I liked this puzzle, Hahtoolah's write-up, and all your comments.
Hurricane Sally is going East apparently, but she’s just hanging around out there in the Gulf. Could easily come back here (it’s been done before) or strengthen and destroy Alabama. Nerve wracking! And who knows how long it will go on before she makes up her mind?
We missed the direct hit, but storm surge and flooding are a problem. At high tide this morning two tug boats on the River were shown on TV battling the tide and wind, not very successfully. These are tugs that move ocean liners! But the weather was too much for them, You can’t fool Mother Nature!
Personally, I have no problems. It seldom rains on the third floor. I’m high and dry. But I worry about all those In low lying areas, and workers on the River and bayous.
When is it October?
Canadian Eh- thanks for adding to the ways to use "dispense"
Hi everybody.
Picard, I agreed with you and Sandyanon.
I was never a fan of Ricky Ricardo and his theme song, Babalu. Heavy on rhythm and flair; lacking in musicality I thought.
Huey, Dewey and Louie called him Unca Donald if I remember correctly.
ATLGranny, good wishes for your upcoming 55th. Getting an early start? It's 56 coming up for us next June.
Speaking of Amish, I had scrapple and eggs for breakfast this morning. Scrapple came to mind after seeing an episode of Dirty Jobs about a Pennsylvania family's business of scrapple-making.
~ Keep calm and carry on...
I’m with you, Madame. We are pretty much staying home, too, except for weekly grocery runs. I haven’t gotten my hair cut since December. I probably look rather shabby. I am amazed by the number of people my age and older who venture out so often. Unfortunately, several have contracted the virus.
Thank you, Vidwan. You are too kind. I realized after I posted the article that it was the wrong island, but I thought the article was interesting, nonetheless. Thank you for your contribution to Napoleon.
Hahtoolah and others: I used to make the weekly grocery runs also but I've started having the groceries delivered. I shop at Ralphs (Krogers). I go to them online, select a bunch of stuff and it shows up here a few hours later for a modest delivery fee. They don't always choose the exact items I intended but overall, it works pretty well.
Hi All!
Whoot! A word-ladder! Thanks Bruce. The only draw-back to a word-ladder is you know the in-between fill a bit quicker (helped with sparkly-long fill though).
//UNCS apology accepted :-)
I still have stuff to click but I'm not taking that long of a BREAK, Hahtoolah. Thanks for fully explaining TOLEDAN.
WOs: YEp->YES, AlsoI(?) -> AS DO I, NEMiSIS next too CABoRET [thank goodness for that word-latter now!]
ESPs: AER | BABALU, TOLEDAN
Fav: Surprised it is TRIPPY.
Last word-latter had was June 19, 2019..
{A+}
Cute DR, OMK.
Nice to read you Montana. You too MdF.
WikWak @ 1:34 - LOL!
Not much more to SAY.
Cheers, -T
Thanks to everyone for the "shout outs". I am alive and well. And yes, we still say that Gilroy is the Garlic Capital of World, thanks to the Christopher Ranch family and their zillion $$$ business.
This puzzle provided a learning moment for me. I have never come across a ladder puzzle before and didn't get it until Hahtoolah's most excellent write up.
Vidwan827 - loved your observation. Aback. Asea. Apace. And now Amish...LOL
Bill G., where in the heck did you find scrapple and eggs in SoCal?
Read ya'll later.
Garlic Gal, I found scrapple (and eggs) at Ralphs and cooked 'em up myself.
It was only late reading the comments that I got the "Holy" Toledo reference. I was buying the "Center of Muslim, Jewish and Christian" crosswords idea.
You made it Anon-T. Did you skip Sunday or was that me?
WC
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