Wednesday, February 4, 2015 Gareth Bain

Theme: Pounding Heads. Four hardware fasteners and one booze-fest contribute to today's theme.

I say this to myself most days

18A. "Being John Malkovich" director : SPIKE JONZE. Why did I think he was spelt "JONES" at first?

22A. "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" co-star : BRAD PITT. One of my favorite actors. His performance in Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" is one of the all-time great ones, in my humble opinion.

49A. Saddle storage area : TACK ROOM. Redolent with the smells of old leather, horses and hay. I'd use it as my car air freshener if someone could bottle it.

54A. Nervous habit : NAIL BITING. I used to bite my nails - my mom painted them with a foul-flavored concoction called "Stop 'N Gro" and guess what? I liked the taste. She was not pleased, to say the least.

35A. Slangily, overimbibe; literally, what the starts of 18-, 22-, 49- and 54-Across can do : GET HAMMERED. It's only really "over-imbibing" if you didn't mean to get schnockered. If you did mean it, then you end up with precisely the right quantity of bibe. Right?

Woo Hoo!

Hi all. Welcome to the first Wednesday of February (what happened to January?) and Gareth's latest. I thought this one had a bit of a disjointed feel about it - the fill seemed a little 'bitty' and has the occasional "yeah, I get it, but no-one really uses it" (I'm looking at you, DEFAT). Some good stuff like AKIMBO and ARMADA though.

Across:

1. Beginning on : AS OF

5. No ordinary party : BASH

9. Keister : PRAT. A fool in British slang.

13. Big Island coffee region : KONA. Meaning "the lee side" of an island in the Hawaiian language. Quick - how many letters are there in the Hawaiian alphabet?

14. Sap-sucking insect : APHID

16. Put on board : LADE. I first came across this word when I worked for a marine insurance underwriter - the Bill of Lading was required to as proof of what cargo the ship was carrying when filing a claim for loss or damage.

17. Learning ctr. : INST. Some pretty wild architecture can be found at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

20. Bit of dust : MOTE

21. Readies for another voyage : REFITS

26. Portions out : ALLOTS

29. One making waves : OAR. I just finished reading 'The Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown, a wonderful book telling the story of the 1936 US rowing eight who went to the Berlin Olympics. I think the coaches would be alarmed if those oars were making waves, the ideal technique leaves nary a ripple.

30. Sean Lennon's mom : ONO. A quibble here would be that Sean Lennon's mom is "Yoko Ono".

31. Occasionally : AT TIMES

32. Three-time Hopkins role : LECTER. Hannibal from "The Silence of the Lambs" and sequels.

34. At hand : NEAR

38. Fictional archaeologist Croft : LARA. The Tomb Raider.

40. Bakery array : LOAVES. There are 13 in a baker's dozen for absolutely no good reason I can find.

41. Promises : PLEDGES

44. "Hawaii Five-0" actor Daniel __ Kim : DAE. Thank you, crosses.

45. Cellular messenger : RNA. Dashed clever stuff, that ribonucleic acid. It contains four-stranded guanine tetraplexes amongst other doodads for those of you keeping track of your tetraplexes at home.

48. Ambien maker : SEARLE. I wasn't familiar with this company - I discover it's part of Pfizer.

51. Longhorn rival : SOONER. Texas and Oklahoma college sports rivalry. Oklahoma's "Boomer Sooner" fight song is notable in that the melody was "borrowed" from Yale and the last verse "borrowed" from UNC.

53. Mandlikova of tennis : HANA. She retired 25 years ago; she won four Grand Slam titles so we'll cut her some slack on the crossword longevity stakes.

58. Prophet's concern : OMEN

59. Promgoer's concern : ACNE

60. Really enjoy : EAT UP

61. One of 28 Monopoly cards : DEED. For all its ubiquity, Monopoly is consistently rated as one of the worst board games of all times. Hasbro announced yesterday that they're releasing a special edition of the game in France, some of which contain real Euro notes.

62. Places for hats : PEGS

63. Jazz singer Horne : LENA

64. Icelandic literary work : EDDA

Down:

1. With hands on hips : AKIMBO. Great word. Here's Rembrandt's  "Portrait of a man half-length with his arms akimbo". Quite an unwieldy title, if he'd have added "wearing clothes and a hat and staring at the artist" we needn't have bothered looking at the painting at all.

2. Northern Mexican state : SONORA. Neighbor of Arizona and New Mexico.

3. GM navigation system : ONSTAR. It can also connect you to roadside assistance in case of emergency. I heard an audio clip of a race-tuned Camaro automatically calling for assistance when it blew a head gasket at the racetrack and the driver telling the operator he didn't need anyone to come and help.

4. Meant to be : FATED

5. __-relief : BAS

6. iPhone purchase : APP

7. See 12-Down : SHIRT. Hey Barry - here's your awkwardly cross-referenced clue of the day!

8. Enjoy the Pacific Crest Trail : HIKE

9. Literary arcs : PLOT LINES. Why arcs? Because a plot line is "an over-arching story", or arc for short.

10. Redeemed from captivity : RANSOMED

11. Carpenter's tool : ADZ. Someone chopped off the "E" with an axe?

12. With 7-Down, punny message site : TEE

15. Make leaner : DEFAT. I know it's in the dictionary, but I've been around food and cooking for donkey's years and I've never seen this term used. I trim meat and skim stock.

19. Leave at the altar : JILT

23. Expert on feet? : POET. Best clue of the day for me.

24. Foot part : INCH

25. Wrecks completely : TOTALS

27. Tetley offering : TEA

28. Estonia, until 1991: Abbr. : SSR. One of those pesky Soviet Socialist Republics.

31. Doomed 1588 fighting force : ARMADA. The Spanish fleet sent to invade England. A combination of bad planning, indecisiveness, English fire ships and storms conspired to give "armada" a bad name ever since.

32. Gigs for 22-Across, often : LEAD ROLES.

33. Expressive rock genre : EMO

35. Bribing : GREASING

36. Rescue op : EVAC

37. Smell bad : REEK

38. Old DJ's platters : LPS. Long-Playing records. Seems so quaint nowadays - you were lucky to get 30 minutes out of one side - I've got 11.5 days' worth on my phone.

39. India Pale __ : ALE. Brewed with extra hops to help preserve the beer on the journey from England to troops stationed in India, hence the name.

42. Shapeless mass : GLOB

43. Start of a selection process : EENIE. Meenie, Miny, Moe. Many alternate spellings too - great for crossword constructors.

45. Didn't stay put : ROAMED

46. "Thanks, but I'm set!" : NO NEED

47. Actress Plummer : AMANDA. Christopher Plummer's daughter.

49. Hackneyed : TRITE

50. __ Island : RHODE. The state motto is "Ictu Carebitis Eam" ("Blink, you will miss it"). OK, it's not, I made that up.

52. Bibliog. catchall : ET AL Et Alia - "and others"

54. Brief refresher : NAP

55. Solitaire foundation card : ACE

56. Wimple wearer : NUN

57. Credit-weighted no. : GPA. Grade Point Average. Credit hours weigh into the calculation.

finally the grid (you can see I disliked DEFAT so much I had to leave it until last to fill it in!):

Toodle-Pip!

Steve