Punny Podcasts
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For those not familiar with the term, a podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Podcasters may create audio podcasts on MP3 files or videos on services like YouTube. They can be played immediately, or downloaded to files for playing later.
Today veteran constructor Dan Margolis treats us to 4 theme clues with podcasts pitched to different audiences and filled with punny answers ...
20. Podcast category for electricians?: CURRENT EVENTS.
This one is pretty shocking 😀 ...
FYI -- "earth" is Britspeak for "ground wire"
28. Podcast category for demolition experts?: BREAKING NEWS. These guys are really razing Cain! 😀 ...49. Podcast category for sanitation workers?: TALKING TRASH. We had this same fill a few weeks back, about talking trash among sports figures, but I couldn't find any videos that would get past Margaret Farrar's sniff test. This sanitation worker not only talks trash, but he's also a Good Samaritan 😇...
58. Podcast category for beekeepers?: THE LATEST BUZZ. This girl's wish creates quite a buzz among the beekeeper community (be sure to get out your hankies) ... 😂
Across:
1. Glasgow topper: TAM.
4. Milky white gem: OPAL.
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| Milky Opal |
13. Slightly: A BIT.
15. Nutmeg spice: MACE. Myristica fragrans is an evergreen tree indigenous to the Maluku Islands of Indonesia that is the main source of the spices nutmeg and mace. The seed of the tree is the source of nutmeg and its aril is the source of mace.
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| Mace surrounding Nutmeg seed |
16. Singer's asset: RANGE. A clever pastiche of scenes showing Maria Callas' vocal assets ...
17. Firth kin: LOCH. FIRTH seems to connote a connection to a larger body of water, but also one that could be connected to a LOCH ...
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| Synonyms for FIRTH |
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| Synonyms for LOCH |
19. Sandwiches for dessert: OREOS.
20. [Theme clue].
23. Bart Simpson, e.g.: TOON. The TOONISH Till Eulenspiegel of the town of Springfield ...
25. Early Beatles bassist Sutcliffe: STU. Stuart Sutcliffe: The life, work and tragic death of the Fifth Beatle. Here he sings the Elvis classic Love Me Tender ...
33. Funny duo?: ENS. First meta clue.
36. Knitting need: YARN.
37. "__ Meenie": Kingston/Bieber song: EENIE.
38. One of the Three Bears: MAMA.
40. Boating hazards: REEFS. How to safely navigate a boat near coral reefs.
43. Prefix meaning "height": ACRO. This prefix most often precedes the word ACROPHOBIA or fear of heights. Those suffering from this phobia would probably want to pass on the Skywalk at Grand Canyon National Park.
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| Grand Canyon Skywalk |
44. Do-__: second chances: OVERS.
46. Desktop light: LAMP.
48. Keebler mascot: ELF.
53. Shape of a right angle: ELL.
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| Right Triangle |
55. Fill to the gills: SATE.
58. [Theme clue].
64. Had home cooking: ATE IN. The best!
66. Water source: WELL. A very deep subject -- I'll spare you the details. 😀
67. "Would __ to you?": I LIE. A bigger question is whether Epimenides lied?
68. "It __ sunk in yet": HASN'T.
69. Convenience: EASE.
70. Cannery row?: TINS. Rows of TINS being loaded into an oyster canner in the Baltimore Museum of Industry ...
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| Oyster canner |
72. "The Hidden Staircase" sleuth Nancy: DREW. The Hidden Staircase is the second volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, published in 1930 and revised in 1959.
_front_cover,_printing_1939B-29.jpg) |
| 1939 edition |
73. Most preferred: PET. E.g. a PET project..
Down:
1. Mineral softer than gypsum: TALC. How we know that is a CSO to Chairman Moe ...
2. Concerning: ABOUT.
3. Prefix with biology or brewery: MICRO. This week I'll go with the brewery ...
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| Since you asked ... |
4. Harbinger: OMEN. Last week we went with Albert King, this week we'll go with Cream ...
5. Concord: PACT.
6. Blue-Emu target: ACHE. Funny how crosswordese tends to morph. Blue-EMU is used for treating a variety of conditions, including muscle pain, arthritis, and itchy feet. When PETA finds out about the key ingredient in this stuff they might try to shut it down ...
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| It is not without its risks ... |
7. Pope after John XI: LEO VII. Pope Leo VII (died 13 July 939) was the bishop of Rome and nominal ruler of the Papal States from 3 January 936 to his death. He wasn't a saint, so I'm not sure why he's wearing a halo in this image ...
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| Pope Leo VII |
8. Early metalworking period: IRON AGE. The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic (copper) and Bronze Ages. It is preceded by the Stone Age (subdivided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic) and the Bronze Age. Here is an informative 10 minute video that provides an illustrated overview of these periods ...
9. Links rental: CART.
10. Basically: IN ESSENCE.
11. I, to Claudius: EGO. Today's Latin lesson #1. I, Claudius is also a novel by Robert Graves, which has had several adaptations, most notably the 1975 BBC TV series starring Derek Jacobi, Siân Phillips, Brian Blessed, and John Hurt. I don't know what Margaret would have thought about it, but I'm rating this trailer PG ...
12. In medias __: RES. Today's Latin lesson #2, meaning "in the middle of things" and sometimes used as a literary technique for structuring narratives.
14. Beat: THROB.
21. Professor Higgins, to Eliza: 'ENRY.
Eliza
22. Directional ending: ERN.26. Show off a new dress, say: TWIRL.
27. Make __: employ: USE OF.
29. Singer's asset: EAR. A clecho to 16D -- Maria must have had a pretty good EAR to hit all of those notes with a perfect pitch. ♫♬🎝
30. "The Boys __ Back in Town": ARE. The Boys Are Back in Town is probably the most famous song by Thin Lizzy, an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Thin Lizzy initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist and principal songwriter Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell and organist Eric Wrixon ...
31. Genuflected: KNELT. A gesture of respect used before royalty and in some Christian churches. IIRC Ray - O commented that when he attended the Catholic funeral of long time commenter Spitzboov he could tell that most of those in attendance were Protestants, because most didn't know when to kneel and when to stand. 😀
32. Grant-giving gp.: NEA. Here's how you can apply for one at the National Endowment for the Arts.
33. Project feelings onstage: EMOTE. Don't project too far or you might end up "chewing the scenery".
34. Part of USNA: NAVAL. Another CSO to Spitzboov -- he was an engineer who had retired from the Navy. He also knew a lot about Germanic languages.
35. Assessment of credibility: SMELL TEST. I usually hear SNIFF TEST, but YMMV.
39. Deluge refuge: ARK.
42. Like a wee bairn: SMA. Today's Irish lesson: "a small child" with SMA being a diminutive describing one.
45. Nerve ending?: SILENT E. Second meta clue.
47. Start of a conversation in class, maybe: PSST.
50. Nada: NIL.
51. Chewed like a beaver: GNAWED. Here are a couple of them in action ...
52. Regular tendency: HABIT.
56. Blooming bulb: TULIP. Here are some of the tulips in Sherwood Gardens in Baltimore. Approximately 50,000 bulbs are planted each year.
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| Tulips in bloom |
59. Help for the stumped: HINT. Sometimes Cornerites are forced to resort to them.
60. Rend: TEAR.
61. Ultimatum word: ELSE.
62. Boatload: SLEW.
63. Gusto: ZEST.
64. Org. whose champion wins the Calder Cup: AHL. The Calder Cup is the trophy awarded annually to the playoff champions of the American Hockey League. It was first presented in 1937 to the Syracuse Stars.
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| The Calder Cup |
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| Meditating on Yin and Yang |
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
42 comments:
Some of the puzzles this week seemed harder than usual on their regular days; this one seemed considerably easier, especially for a Thursday. Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Dan is a pro constructor, and it showed in today's puzzle. There wasn't a slew of TLWs, and the proper names were familiar -- most of 'em, anyway. (D-o remembers Lenya Lotte as the razor-toed Colonel Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love.) And the theme was cute, requiring no reveal. I learned during the Olympics that TALKING TRASH across the net isn't permitted in Olympic volleyball. Who gnu? Thanx to waseeley and Teri for the well-illustrated review.
FIR without erasure.
"Coronas" wouldn't fit for "boating hazards," but "beers" would. OK, REEFS works too.
I use "sniff test" as a quick assessment of edibility. To me SMELL TEST is correct as clued. For instance, an explanation of why you have large amounts of cash sewn into your clothes is unlikely to pass the SMELL TEST. SMELLs like a bunch of bovine excrement to me.
For those who don't follow hockey, the AHL is the equivalent to baseball's AAA league. Our local pro team - the Norfolk Admirals - is in the ECHL (East Coast Hockey League,) similar to AA baseball.
Some folks just cannot take a HINT.
My favorite version of Mack the Knife is a duet by Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Buffett.
Thanks to Dan for the fun Monday-on-Thursday puzzle, and to Bill 'n' Teri for another fine review.
Forgot to mention that although we're loosely held to Margaret Farrar's breakfast test, just the other day we were exposed to an advertiser selling obscene tee shirts that use the ol' F-word as a basis for the shirt's clever message. Guess "rex non potest peccare" applies.
Took 3:54 today for me to tune in.
Like the sage SubG said, this one did seem considerably easy for a Thursday.
I don't recall ever breaking the 4-minute mark on a Thursday.
I didn't know today's actress (lotte), Enry, or what a firth was.
I failed both aspects of today's Latin lessons, and frankly, I still don't understand how I is ego to Claudius (whoever that is).
Clever theme.
FIR. This must be opposite week. The start of the week puzzles were quite hard, and today, Thursday, we have an easy one.
I had very little trouble with today's presentation. The theme was clever and the cluing straightforward.
Overall very enjoyable.
SS @7:28 AM "EGO" is Latin for I.
Thanks, waseeley @7:39 AM. I appreciate your review and follow-up.
Good Morning! What a welcome treat for today’s puzzle!
I noted the repeat fills from yesterday MAMA (bear) and E-ZINE (T-Ken, I hope my reply to your question yesterday helped!)
WO: Y-> E in LOTTE (spelling, a vowel, natch [for me]) and because of the disliked ? 45D.
Nancy DREW, I think I read all of her stories as a kid.
Thanks to Bill & Teri for today’s blog. Delighted to read & view all the info you gathered.
Oops, The Bears must have been from the USA Today puzzle, not LAT. I knew I saw it somewhere...
P.S. I really like this REPLY feature. It keeps the context of the conversation together.
Musings
-Larry Bird was known as one of the worst (best?) TRASH TALKERS in the NBA
-Dorothy Parker once said of Catherin Hepburn’s RANGE, “She runs the gamut of human emotion from A to B.
-For most kids and teachers, the start of the new school year HASN’T sunk in yet
-LOTTE went quietly
-A teacher pleaser can sometimes become teacher’s PET
-People in the IRON AGE soon learned how to make iron weapons. The same can be said of the nuclear age.
-THE BOYS ARE BACK
-THE SMELL TEST: The devil is in the details
-FORE! We are playing 100 miles west of here followed by a great dinner at one of Nebraska’s iconic restaurants.
Easiest puzzle all week. My first impulse was almost always the right answer. Tuesday level. The ENS in funny? no problem. I knew LOTTE. I awaited the V perp for LEO's number. Only LIN was new to me.
Waseeley, I enjoy your songs. Wendy I enjoyed your theme.
We were walking down a street in the old section of Quebec city and there was a shop selling nothing but those T-shirts, complete with window display. Maybe it doesn't translate into 'Frawnch'.
Not too bad for a Thurs. Unfamiliar with "meta" clues. A few names but easily figured out.
Pretty easy puzzle today with only a guess at the intersection of two unknowns- AHL and Lena LOTTE. EGO was also a perped unknown.
Not ever having 'shown off a dress', it took perps to get TWIRL and then the V8 moment. The only thing I could think of was 'leave the price tag on it'. The video looks like the redhead is trying to show off what's under the dress.
After CURRENT EVENTS was filled the theme was obvious. It just took a few down fills to guess the long fills. Unlike a few days ago, I didn't get fooled by the SILENT E.
TOON- I only thought it referred to a car-toon, not the individual characters.
SMELL TEST- "I had a great investment opportunity. You want to make10% a month?" Fools are born every minute.
BE @9:45AM Actually I passed over several twirlers who succeeded in showing off what was under their dresses. 😀
Good Morning:
This was an easy and enjoyable solve. I really like this type of theme and my favorite themer was Current Events. Not only is it a cute play on words for the Electrician's Podcast, it's also a fitting, descriptive title for a legitimate news-centric Podcast. There were several linked entries, i.e., Ache/Throb, Slew/A Bit, Range/Ear, the Scottish trio of Tam/Sma/Loch, and the crossing of the Palindromic Lin/Nil. No unknowns and only one w/o, Club/Cart, led to a smooth and rapid solve.
Thanks, Dan, and thanks, Bill and Teri, for the always entertaining and educational review. Today's was packed with interesting facts and pleasing sounds and a touch of nostalgia, particularly Mack The Knife. (High school sweetheart was a Mackey!) Also, the irrepressible Nancy Drew and her Roadster was the envy of every young girl back in the day. This acrophobic wouldn't venture out onto the Grand Canyon Skywalk for all the money in the word!
Have a great day.
WEES about ease of CW this morning. It was also fun to do. My only slow down occurred in the East because I was so sure model was correct for TWIRL. That finally got solved when I figured there can’t be a guy named SmU.
SMA sneaked in. Didn’t notice it.
This time I didn’t get caught by the SILENT E trap and EZINE was fresh in my memory from yesterday. So I won’t TALK TRASH about this puzzle.
Thank you waseeley for a nice review.
I don’t know why but when I leave this site and return, it appears in gigantic view and I have to manually reduce it. Does anyone else experience this?
The easiest of the week so far. We seem to be going backward on the Moh’s hardness scale. Not exactly TALC but close. TAM is a common and recent answer. So was OPAL. The puzzle even DREW SLEW again. We’ve had “Blue-Emu” b 4 but 4 got what 4. Some Latin. Two trick “letter” answers: ENS and SILENTA (sounds like a drug you’d see advertised on TV to keep your kids quiet)
It’s an ICE raid Keebler!!… An ELF is an undocumented worker! A one-way ticket on the “Polar Express” back to the ICIER North Pole and confiscation of all evidentiary chocolate chip cookies 🍪 🍪 🍪…..🤣
PBS gets grants from the NEA and the CHUBB Foundation (secretly known as Overeaters Anonymous)
Inkovers: club/CART (why would you rent just one club?)
I zealously almost filled ZEAL in place of a ZEST for life
The era before winkle free garments….IRON AGE
Jury verdicts …INESSENCE
A trio in a melee or “Three Men in a ____” …. THRUB
Said “no” slangily …. GNAWED.
Middle of hello…. ELSE
Enjoy the rest o’ the day 😄
Sniff Test reminded me of an examination we do with fluoroscopy.
If a plain chest x-ray shows an abnormally elevated right or left hemidiaphragm in a patient with unexplained shortness of breath a fluoroscopic radiology procedure called a sniff test can be performed to determine if the elevated hemidiaphragm is paralyzed.
The patient takes a number of quick sniffs during fluoroscopy. If both right and left hemidiaphragms move down with each sniff it’s considered normal. If the normal side moves downward but the elevated side moves passively upward it’s considered paralyzed and requires further investigation.
Perfect puzzle! What a treat. 🙂
What a nice surprise! An actual crossWORD puzzle! With a nice gimmick, and a fun write-up from Waseeley. A most enjoyable way to start a Thursday. I'm with Irish Miss on that Grand Canyon platform. No fear of heights, but EDGES terrify me!
WEES: Monday come on a Thursday this week. Fun, ENJOYABLE CW w/o a load of obscure names. I got the theme with the first theme clue which helped me FIR in 10, no Goggle searches needed. 52D fill HABIT reminds me that it is said to be okay to fondle a nun, as long as you don't get into the HABIT. (Ha-Ha). Thanx DM for the first CW I thoroughly enjoyed this week. Thanx for NOT loading it with ridiculously obscure names. (Tuesday's CW was the WORST! NWODIM?? Really??) Thanx too to bill for the terrific write up. All the links were fun. I stayed after watching one and watched the follow-up video from Randy Rainbow: fun and hilarious, as always. My houseguests left this morning for their trip to Rio, Fortaleza, London, Portugal, France, back to Brazil, and finally back to Club Fred in November. Nice to have company once in a while, but gotta admit I'm glad to have the house back to myself.
Today's puzzle was a refreshing change from the awkward and unfair efforts of the past couple days.
I did have a problem with a couple areas. First, 7D, asking for the Pope after John XI. I'd be hard-pressed to name even recent Popes, much less those from 1000 years ago!
Also, 33A and 45D. These are evidently called meta clues for some reason. I can usually solve them, but I don't like 'em. They're just too annoyingly cute.
But overall Dan provided us today with a straightforward and satisfying puzzle. Thank you!
"wee bairn" is Scottish not Irish
Thank you, RosE for explaining the E-zine yesterday! (So is it pronounced like ‘zeen’?)
Good puzzle with a very helpful theme, and names that weren’t too obscure—LOTTE being the only real unknown for me.
For “Show off a new dress” I thought of MODEL before TWIRL, and for “Boatload” I had CREW before SLEW. But once the theme became apparent it went pretty fast. FIR
Anonymous @1:008 PM I think it's more of a Gaelic term. I've been to Ireland and heard the natives referring to their babies thus.
Fun puzzle along with entertaining and informative review!
I liked this puzzle, waseeley's commentary, and all your comments.
Dang.
I don’t know why I appear as Anonymous on my iPhone.
Monkey, it is because Blogger doesn't show you as Signed In to your Google Account on your iPhone. Chairman Moe had the same thing last night from his. He couldn't sign in. I don't know iPhone.
Ditto for me. I can use my Samsung Android phone and sign into Blogger and post under my avatar name using the Firefox browser. But if I try to use the Samsung browser on the phone, Blogger won't allow me to to use my avatar even though I am signed into my Google account.
Weird. I think I'll go on vacay and come back when Blogger has these issues resolved :-)
Monkey, and Chairman Moe, et al, you can still scroll to the very bottom of the comments, and then select View Web Version. You should be able to comment using the Web Version, and your avatar will display if you are signed into your Google account
Using iphone on blog website but the print is so small I can’t read anything.
I hate to bore you all with this, but now I switched to Chrome instead of Safari and the blog site works much better. It’s great. The problem is I don’t want to use Chrome as my default browser. Interesting.
Thanks to Mssr. Margolis for this nice cake-walk of a puzzle (it’s refreshing to not have to strain my brain for a change!). Cool hook, the podcast deal, that made for some entertaining fills; my fave is TALKINGTRASH, and, though not a themer, SMELLTEST is pretty snazzy, too.
For once, the two metas didn’t require V8-can hits to figure out (maybe ‘cause metas have been so bloody frequent as of late?) and most everything else just fell into place for a nice casual FIR.
While Ms. Callas had quite the vocal range, Bill, I think the world record is still held by a Peruvian singer named Yma Sumac; she had a nearly-five-octave range! My Mum had one of her records way back when, and I used to be fascinated by the sounds she could put out. Amazing vocalist.
And thanks for the Cream video — takes me waaay back…although I’m surprised I remember anything from that era. The popular yarn is “If you remember the ‘70s, you didn’t really live them!” 😎
====> Darren / L.A.
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Hi All!
WEES - A nice change of pace back to a crossWORD puzzle. Thanks Dan.
And what a great theme too.
Thanks waseeley for another illustrated expo.
WOs: I had plenty when I started last night but left my puzzle at home and printed a new one when I got to the office. HaNd -> HINT
ESP: LOTTE, SMA, ENRY
Fav: I LOL'd when the penny finally dropped at 'ENRY. ARK's clue is cute.
Um, Jinx - Google places ads based on its perception of YOUR interests :-)
Youngest spent the summer doing research at U.Chicago and finally comes home tonight! That's the good news. The sad is that we move her to Austin Saturday for her Sr. year at UT. At least she got to take the train down to SPI a few times and spend the weekend with Pop.
Cheers, -T
Bayou Tony, that can't be. All the models were clothed!
BTW, while you were away on your boondoggle, er... conference, the Temu mail order company was brought up. Are you aware of anything dangerous about ordering from them
I submitted my feedback.
Thanks to Dan! I listen to podcasts just about every day so this was a fun theme for me.
Another one-box FIW at AH? X _OTTE. Honestly, that could have been anything.
I learned EZINE yesterday.
FAVs: the 2 meta clues
Learning moment that nutmeg and MACE come from the same tree.
Thanks to waseeley for his informative review! I needed your help with 'ENRY, EGO, and RES. I enjoyed the videos with the themers -- especially the bees. The beavers video was fun, too.
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