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"___ a lot!" (Dracula's expression of gratitude?) / WED 10-5-22 / Ancestor of a termite, surprisingly / "Silent" prez
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Constructor: Jason Reich
Relative difficulty: Medium? I "check puzzle"-ed once (8:48)
THEME: We are adding an O to some phrases for absolutely no reason in the entire world!!!!!
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: HEDY (Actress / inventor Lamarr) —
Hey besties! It's Malaika, here to hang out on a rainy, fall Malaika MWednesday, and before we dive in I would like to briefly advertise the Boswords fall themeless league. Every Monday for eight weeks, a new themeless puzzle is released. One of them is written by me, but I'm not allowed to say which one :) We've already released the first puzzle, but there's still time to join and solve and compete with us!
- Memoirs of a dance contest champion?-- LIFE AND LIMBO
- Brushing, flossing, and avoiding sugar?-- FINE TOOTH COMBO
- Disney classic without any extra features?-- JUST PLAIN DUMBO
- What Mary might have had if she were into Italian sports cars?-- A LITTLE LAMBO
Word of the Day: HEDY (Actress / inventor Lamarr) —
At the beginning of World War II, she and avant-garde composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the U.S. Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth and GPS technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
• • •
Okay, onwards to our regularly scheduled programming. This puzzle took me under ten minutes to solve. I listened to this song (it starts at 1:38) three times during the solve. I got trapped at the top: I refused to believe the Times would allow such an egregious dupe in ARE NOT / ARE SO, and I had "said no" rather than TOLD NO, and "Doom" rather than THEM (I don't watch old movies or horror movies). So I hit the trusty "check puzzle" button and that helped me see where I went wrong.
I think some people consider that to be a DNF, or a "did not finish" but that kind of confuses me... I did finish the puzzle! And, to be clear, there are some puzzles that I simply do not finish. Natan's on Saturday is an example; it was too hard-- I got a few entries, and then stopped solving. I did not reveal the grid, or look anything up. I just put it down and never came back. To me, that's a DNF. But maybe I am just not clear on the jargon.
Anywayyyyyy... themes like this are doomed from the start on the "Impress Malaika" front because I simply do not think that a phrase can be made funny by adding a letter. I am a lost cause. I have solved many puzzles and these never make me laugh. The only hope is to find a good revealer, like ATTACHE, to make me say "Okay, cool, yeah." When there is no revealer, I shake my fist at the sky and say "What was the point of all of this???"
On top of that, there were no long answers that were non-theme (although FAIL UP was nice). And some weird stuff like RIEN and LIC and OLAS and TRA and ACT I and NHL FAN and SMALL B and NON US. I suppose I am, in a word, underwhelmed! What about y'all? Whelmed? Overwhelmed? Let me know in the comments.
Bullets:
- [Stars that are blowing up?] for NOVAE — I don't like how there are some plural words (like NOVAE / novas) where both answers are acceptable and the clue doesn't give us any hint to the final letter. It's the same vibe as [That, in Spanish] and you don't know if it's "eso" or "esa."
- [Inc. or Ms.] for MAG — This took me a sec because I expected titles to be stylized in some way (italics or quotes)
- San Luis OBISPO — I filled this in with no crossings and I have no idea why. Why do I know this?? Is this in crosswords? I don't even know what this is! A city, presumably? But where? Who put this info into my brain???
- [Champagne name] for MOET — Me and my sister were discussing whether we could tell champagne from Prosecco in a blind taste test. She thinks we both could, I think that she could but I couldn't. We both agree that we don't prefer one to the other.
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113 comments:
A LITTLE LAMBO was the first themer I uncovered, and I immediately went and added BO to all the others. I really got a kick out of FINE TOOTH COMBO. Hard to find other contenders. . . toss in some tapioca balls to your creole stew for a tasty bubble gumbo? Nah. I’ll take the set that Jason went with. (By the way, those balls in bubble tea freak me out.)
Malaika – I must be your soulmate opposite: I love themes with added letters. Changing LIMB to LIMBO, COMB to COMBO. . . the resulting phrases do make me smile. We can still be friends and stuff, though, no biggie. I liked your champagne taste test story. Have you and your sister ever seen these? I’m obsessed now and want to give them to someone for Christmas.
FAIL UP – well, yeah. I watched a senior walk at graduation knowing he spelled the word very as varry, and I’m not making that up.
I kept seeing NON US as “nouns.” Hah. NON US nouns: tyre, maths, pram, aluminium.
I’m sorry, but no Schnauzer I’ve ever met went simply, ARF. They’re more like ARF ARF AAARRRFFF ARF AARRFFFF ARF ARF ARF AAAAAARFF. Those guys never shut up. (Hi, Lexi, Coco, and Ruffin. Oh, and Bentley, the supreme ARF monster of the universe.)
BAILS ON. I love thinking about the semantic work that ON does. Add on me to a phrase to indicate that the action had a negative effect:
You cut your hair on me! (We had agreed to grow mullets together.)
Don’t fall asleep on me. (The ball hasn’t dropped yet in Times Square.)
Don’t go changing on me. (I like you just the way you are.)
Mom moved the furniture on me. (Now there’s no primo couch-lying TV-watching angle.)
Liked the DIETED/TREND cross. Paleo, Adkins, Keto, South Beach. . . When I was in 12th grade, I did three-day diet where the only thing you could eat all day, in any combination, was three hot dog wieners, three boiled eggs, and three bananas. Beyond stupid. The side effect was astonishing. I’ll spare you the details, but by around 2pm I was crop dusting those crowded Berkmar High School halls. Worse, on the third day our team had a chess meet in a deathly quiet library. I would make a move and then briefly excuse myself out to the hall.
Hey Malaika, happy MWednesday. We have nothing like your "rainy fall" weather here in BC, still very summery and no rain since mid July. I love those Tiny Desk Concerts; when I clicked the link it skipped right up to your start point (unpredictable technology). But solving listening to a song on repeat!?.. well, that's just kinda unique.
I am in total agreement with your statement "I think some people consider that to be a DNF, or a "did not finish" but that kind of confuses me... I did finish the puzzle". Exactly what I have been saying for years, only to be shouted down! DNF really implies: disqualified, violated the rules, went over the time limit, etc. It does NOT imply "finished with a mistake". In many competitive events, you are penalized but not disqualified for mistakes. Ever watched the ACPT, you people? I totally reject that finishing with one or more mistakes is a "DNF". Anyway,...
Decent Wed theme. LIMBO, COMBO, DUMBO, LAMBO. Some typeovers: For "No longer on deck" had BELOW (think on deck, on a ship) before AT BAT. And THC before CBD.
A hated college abbrev from yesterday repeated today: LSU. But clued by a newspaper name, so I'll let it pass.
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0; my last word was this 5er (which I somehow got by typing random syllables because it rings no bells with me, but I'm still counting it as a win). QB streak 5 days.]
Exact same confusion at having no idea how I know San Luis OBISPO and yet filling it in without an issue. Brains are wild
At first I thought we were adding an S so I had LIMBS and COMBS to begin with. Also had SAID NO before seeing AT BAT - nice clue there. Agree that ARE NOT/ARE SO was like fingernails a blackboard and wanted AM NOT to be the one half of the argument. I resisted NON US but JUST because it seemed odd sounding. No other stumbles to speak of and in general it felt like a good well-rounded Wednesday. Congratulations Jason on the debut! Checking this LITTLE item off your bucket list puts you in pretty ELITE company.
Thanks for sharing your insights with us today Malaika and congratulations to you as well on your upcoming publication.
@Shawn
Same here. No idea why I filled that out without thinking. Driving me crazy. Can find no reason on the Google.
I didn't mind ARE NOT /ARE SO as much as some others, but I did experience a kealoa while solving: ARE NOT? Or ARE tOo? We used both in our playground arguments. Not cleared up by IRONS at 23A, but cleared up because 21D was only five letters and had to be ARE SO. Well, it could have been Am not or Am toO but I already had the R from IRONS before I read the clue.
Overwrites in the NW: anAL at 1D before ORAL and below (thinking sailing) at 5A before ATBAT.
The theme is self-apparent and needs no revealer or explanation. The WF (Wacky Factor) was strong enough to carry it and made me chuckle, especially ALITTLELAMBO. I will deduct one or two points for changing the vowel sound in "COMBO" but no biggie. The fill was gritty at times and gave me a bit of a tussle. Re: DNF. On this blog it usually means failure to complete the grid without help or a filled grid with errors. FWE (finished with error) has been used. There are many views on this and many of us have our own personal evaluation criteria. The LAT xword blog uses FIR (Finished It Right). There certainly is no consensus in crossworld, nor need there be. We all do this for fun, right?
HAHAHAHA. I *also* filled Obispo, instantly. But I live like 60 miles from there. My immediate thought? "Wow, that's not a very fair clue! No one is going to know that!"
My two cents:
- "No longer on deck" -- confidently and smugly filled this with "Below", causing a shipwreck in the North for me.
- Non-US // LSU was easily avoidable. Someone, anyone, come up with a good clue for the entry "Nones". Here's a much more fun, pin-able clue for the London School of Economics... "City Uni. attended by David Attenborough and Mick Jagger."
- Thought lots of the clues were fun. E.g., "... 'word with rock or soap.' What on earth could that be? Something I can't think of that is very tangible. Nope, it's opera! Hey, that's a fun clue!"
- All I want from a theme: a little smile, a little bit of help on other themers. The way the puzzle went for me, that's EXACTLY what I got.
Great puzzle, in my humble opinion; Good one to send to a Monday only friend and say, "Wednesdays are a little wacky, but I bet you could do this one, and I bet you'd enjoy the process!"
Thanks Jason.
Always a good time when ELO shows up.
I adored solving this, because it gave me some bite to satisfy my brain’s working ethic, and because after getting two theme answers, I knew what to look for in the final two, and guessing them was fun. Also, a quartet of answers delighted me, keeping things sparkling: FAILUP, CHURL, EMPATHS, and FICTIVE, the latter being lovely to see and say.
So, much to like, IMO. But a post-solve look-over gave me much to be impressed with as well. This theme is very tight, that is, finding additional theme answers is hard if not impossible. All the puns come on four-letter words ending with B that are last words in common phrases, AND that make other words when you tack an O onto the end. Oh, there’s CARB(O) and GARB(O), but are there common phrases that they complete? Very, very tight theme, never done before, and if done again, it will be an imitation.
Then there are the long-O-ending theme echoes. Starting the puzzle with OSLO, then sprinkling throughout LEGO, FLOJO, and OBISPO. Finally, there are a sweet mix of foothold-easy clues and thorny ones, to facilitate the solve while keeping it interesting.
Much skill evident here, then, and on a debut, yet. You gave me such an enjoyable journey today, Jason, for which I’m so grateful – congratulations, and thank you!
Bothered me that 'combo' changes sound, while the others do not. Patrick Berry says either make all your themers consistent or split them two-two, but never three-one.
Danish in the clues and DANE in the answers would once have been a no-no. I’m OK with it, but I wonder when that changed.
Other four-letter wielder of Mjölnir in Norse mythology: Mooi
Other four-letter wielders of Mjölnir in Marvel comics: Odin, Bill, Buri, Eric, Loki, Jane
Sesame Street fans, this puzzle was brought to you by the letter O. Lotsa funno, Fangs a lot.
Why is Novae question marked? A Nova can be an exploding star. Look kids, a Nova is "salmon that has been cured in a mixture of salt and sugar and smoked at a low temperature." Wait, wrong Nova.
"... an explosion from the surface of a white-dwarf star in a binary star system. A nova occurs when the white dwarf, which is the dense core of a once-normal star, “steals” gas from its nearby companion star. When enough gas builds up on the surface of the white dwarf it triggers an explosion."
Or an exploding salmon.
The theme announced itself at 20A. Only hang-up was No Nus (which is usually good news), Non US?, but I'm not getting it.
Bailson & Fictive LLP, representing jilters and liars.
Really thought I was staring at another DNF today but I managed to pull it off. Absolutely no clue what a SMALLB or a Dre logo is - perhaps something from music or fashion. Never heard of the word FICTIVE before and was hoping for something a little more creative than ARF on the cross. I also hesitated with the ARE SO, ARE NOT duplicate - not a fan of the way the NYT gets loose with conventions - but that is a misdemeanor at least.
I had to dig deep for FLO JO since that seemed like an eternity ago (not being a fan of the clue for LIC or the presence of the nonsensical OLAS didn’t help either).
Very enjoyable puzzle. I got the theme at LIFE AND LIMBO, although I thought that it was "add an o" until I read LMS comment and saw that it was "add a bo". Got ATBAT without any thought. Had a lot of trouble with NONUS.
Fully whelmed, Malaika. Like many others, I dropped OBISPO right in there even though I wouldn’t be able to find it on a map. But it is a memorable name. Made me think of other memorable place names: Humptulips, WA. French Lick, IN. Bug Tussle, AL. Intercourse, PA.
Time for a road trip.
Malaika - We are doing crosswords for fun, so everyone is free to choose their own standards for what makes a successful solve for them. My standard: using anything not available to you in a tournament setting (Googling, check puzzle, reveal square, 'running the alphabet' in an an app), is a DNF. And anything that would result in time penalties at a tournament (blank squares, incorrect squares) is also a DNF.
Note that at tournaments, turning in a puzzle with a blank square is identical to turning in a puzzle with an error. And I think that is as it should be. As an extreme example, if I turn in a blank grid with nothing filled in, everyone would I think agree that is a DNF. If instead I fill in the grid with 'Q' in every square, does that mean I finished?
Super debut puzzle. Fun, chuckle-inducing, and I learned a new word (FICTIVE).
I think 28d could have been more aptly clued as “having this puzzle published in the NYT”. The theme is fine - simple but fine. The issue here is the brutal fill - all four corners were tedious - add FICTIVE, EMPATHS, NON US etc and surprised this made it past an editor.
ELO scored big with STRANGE Magic and the Waterboys sailed in a STRANGE Boat. I’m sure we can fit STYX into this discussion also.
I didn’t recognize the constructor - maybe a debut? Theme is cute but a big ARF ARF to the overall solve.
Rest in power Loretta
I worked at a call center for about six weeks in the early 90s. The organization we were answering calls for had hundreds of offices all over the country. I took maybe a few calls from San Luis OBISPO during that time. To my knowledge Ive never heard of that city before or since. But like you I filled it in in my first pass with no crosses. It’s like an automatic reaction. I guess there aren’t any other cities that start “San Luis”?
Happy MMalaika MWednesday. I also wrote in OBISPO without a single cross. Dunno why.
Phew. That was a tough one. When you can't figure out how the theme is trying to make you roll with laughter, you start to panic you might need help. I stuck with it and won, and I love the whole puzzle. Unlike Malaika, I think the theme answers are cute.
Never heard of FICTIVE. Hope I never see it again.
ARE SO, ARE NOT, ISN'T, TOLD NO, BAILS ON ... not too much of a stretch to see how our lonely NYTXW editors pulled this from the slush pile.
NOVAE is just plain dumbo. Spell it like you're not the ivory towered elite or somebody new to Earth. That's my philippic.
🦖 blog is his "personal space on the internet, maybe," but it kinda feels like @Nancy's space too. And all y'alls.
My thoughts on DNF. Everyone draws their own personal line in the sand. I never leave a puzzle without filling in every square. I guess I want to get my money's worth even if it's the free one on an airplane. But if I know I don't know an actress or a writer or an athlete and I can't move forward, then heck yes I go get help from Go-ogle. Some chalk it up as a DNF, but I chalk it up to learning new things. When something fills in by crosses, you don't really know it, and in next week's puzzle when it shows up again, so will the tears. I am looking at you Disney princess haters.
Uniclues:
1 What you remind your clubs when you're inside 200 yards.
2 The dramatic aria sung by any lonely male sparrow in the spring.
3 Title to a memoir of a crossworder who likes to talk about her hobby at parties.
4 Who tried to lose weight?
5 Fictive futurists ferreting foul future fables of you.
1 IT'S ON IRONS (~)
2 OPERA CHIRP
3 ON BEING STRANGE
4 THEM (HER) DIETED
5 MOLOTOV EMPATHS
Nobody seems to notice that the themers all ended in 'MBO' not just 'BO' which makes the team extra tight. And each 'MBO' was preceded by a different vowel. Nice work.
I thought I didn’t like this very much, but Malaika (which my spell check changed to malaria, sorry) was so negative that I reconsidered and now I think it was kinda fun. Yeah, add-a-letter puzzles can fall flat, but this had the minimum wackiness required to earn it a pass. And I thought the fill was pretty good, too. Nice debut!
Well if you grew up when many of us grew up, there was no “check puzzle” button. So to us, that’s sort of a cheat/fail. It’s just our old person mentality, I guess if you grew up later and it was always available to you, it just seems normal. We had to wait until the next day to see any answers. Or ask a friend. No google, no nothin’!
I know OBISPO all too well. It’s where Northern California gets much of its nuclear power and is topical because they are extending its usable years. I worked for “that company” when the power plant first got licensed, scares the H out of me.
This is what I call a “West Coast Bias.” Many puzzle answers are “East Coast Biases” as they are no-brainers if you live in the region.
@GAC. Your first take is correct. It is just the "O" that is added to make the funny phrase. All the themers end with (vowel)MBO. A rare miss for LMS.
@Joaquin 7:46 AM - Yes, I was very excited (and not a little impressed) to see FICTIVE in the puzzle.
Malaika, I'm impressed that you could do a crossword at all while listening to a song so full of words! I can only do instrumental music while solving.
Same for me on San Luis OBISPO. Saw the clue--BOOM! Filled in. Never been there, don't know anything about the place, but it's stuck in my mind too. The folks who work in the ad biz would love to know its secret, I'm sure!
This one was unusually tough for me for a Wednesday. I kept trying to see some relationship between the source phrases and the cluing, which, of course, only held me up. NONUS was horrible, and 61D was a complete mystery to me before and after filling it in. Do we have to go that far afield on a Wednesday for one of your basic fill clues?
Hmmmm.... liked it for the majority of it. BUT never really heard of REIN or FICTIVE and I had NOVAs for far too long. in ink. I did notice early on that there seemed to be an inordinate about of “B”s. I wanted THC for CBD. And I initially had saiDNO instead of TOLDNO, which is kind of clunky, imho. And I guess FAILUP is a thing though I do not remember the term - I have seen it plenty times in the corporate world. Nice Wednesday puzzle, took me a half a cup of coffee's worth of time while listening to John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things on a rainy morning. And heck, coffee, Coltrane and crosswords ARE a few of my favorite things :)
I took the theme to be phrases with the last word ending in MB, with the B silent, to which you add an O and get a wacky expression as defined by the clue.
On DNF, my own personal definition is that I had to do a lookup to finish, but I did actually finish (DAF, not to be confused with DGAF), so it's not an accurate description. It's partly due to the rules of the online game, though. I wish that I could submit a puzzle and get back a score that accounts for any errors I've made, and I could choose to fix them or not. I suppose that's the way it works now, except that I can't resist just filling the puzzle after I hit 'reveal'.
@Alice Pollard: Coffee, Coltrane, and crosswords do it for me too. Add "rain" and "morning" and that is my kind of mood!
The WSJ has a lot of these add-a-letter puzzles, and after getting the LIMBO answer the jig was up. I liked that they not only all ended in O or BO but MBO.
Nothing really unknow in this one, which went fast, except ROACH>ant transformation and the SMALLB answer. The rest was all familiar, even FICTIVE and OBISPO (Spanish for "bishop), he said smugly.
Every time I see FINETOOTHCOMB I think of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton singing "Islands in the Stream", which starts out
Baby when I met you there was peace unknown
I Set out to get you with a FINE TOOTH COMB
This always makes me wonder why you would be chasing your potential soul mate with a FINE TOOTH COMB, unless you have a philanthropic desire to rid them of head lice. Very odd lyric.
Fun enough Wednesdecito, JR, if on the easy side. Just Right for Tuesday maybe. Congratulations on the debut, not too much mumbo jumbo, and thanks for all the fun.
Pretty sure the 2016 election was a FAILUP and then just a fail.
For those wondering why they knew San Luis OBISPO . . . back in 2002 there was a particularly gruesome murder of a young woman named Laci Peterson which somehow was connected with that community. That’s the only association I have historically made with the place. Just saying, in case that HELPS, but I’m pretty sure we’ve had it in crosswords before too.
"FANGS a lot"???!!!!
"ALA peanut butter sandwiches"???!!!
NONUS???!!!
What an ugly puzzle. It's come up with its own very apt title: JUST PLAIN DUMBO. I have nothing more to add.
“San Luis Obispo” rolls so gracefully off the tongue that you just remember after reading it once. Or not. Anyway, the folks from California call it SLO, as in “I’m going to Slo this weekend” and that does not roll off the tongue.
I’m from San Luis OBISPO (known locally as SLO). We’re known for Cal Poly, the Madonna Inn, our temperate weather (never too cold or too warm), long boards, and it’s where the frisbee and Jamba Juice were created. It’s also where the 1 joins the 101 for a short jaunt into SoCal, so anyone who’s made that road trip passed through.
Hey All !
Started with A LITTLE roMeO, thinking it might be a Shakespeare theme. Was able to change it once I got the others.
Neat puz. I have no hate for a theme like this. Neat seeing two __YX crossers in SE. Liked the F-ful puz. Closed off NE/SW corners, surprised no one has mentioned that yet. Seems they could've been livelier. Stick a Q in there, or somesuch.
Unsure why 43D has "Doctor" in quotes thusly. Steven STRANGE was a Doctor, until the car accident. At least according to the movie.
You're stupid!
ARE NOT!
ARE SO!
Ms. Smith!!
/scene
🙂
🎶FANGS for the memories... 🎶
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I find @kitshef's 7:43 explanation of a DNF to be the most accurate and indeed the most eloquent explanation on the blog today. Or perhaps any day. All "Q"s indeed! Wonderful, @kitshef!
One does not have to hide under a rock...or disguise oneself in a Groucho mask...or grovel or apologize in any way for having had a DNF. It happens to just about everyone at least some of the time and it is not a blemish on one's character, intellect or general fitness. But I do think it's important to be honest with yourself. If you look something up, if you check a letter or two, you did not "finish" the puzzle in any meaningful sense of the word.
@Nancy (9:41) said, "If you look something up, if you check a letter or two, you did not "finish" the puzzle in any meaningful sense of the word." I beg to differ.
As long as we're not talking about tournament play, meaningful to me is apparently different from meaningful to you.
If I need to look up a word or two to finish, and it results in my learning something new - then that is meaningful to me. In fact, I find those puzzles that teach me something new more meaningful than those where I simply fill in the blanks.
@Anonymous 8:23 - there is such a place: http://puzzlecrowd.com:8080/CrowdSource/
You have to download the puzzle in .puz file format (easiest to email me if you don't know how to do that as the explanation is a bit long for the comments section). Then upload it at the site above (created by our own r.alphbunker). You solve the puzzle, and when you have done all you can, you hit submit. You will get your score. If your solution is not perfect, then you can choose to go and figure out the errors, but your score is based on what you submit.
My major beef with this puzzle was FICTIVE. The clue was “invented,” which is a verb (past tense). But the answer, “fictive,” is an adjective. Shouldn’t the clue have been “inventive”?
As you quoted me, @Joaquin, what I said was:
"If you look something up, if you check a letter or two, you did not "finish" the puzzle in any meaningful sense of the word.
The operative word here is "word".
I'm not claiming for a moment that looking stuff up can't be meaningful as far as "learning" is concerned. Or as far as "enjoyment" is concerned. Or any number of other things that may be important to the individual solver. What I'm saying is that the word "finished" has a specific meaning. And if you go to outside sources for help, it's because you weren't able to "finish" the puzzle on your own.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't go to outside sources. It just means I think people should tell it like it is. At least to themselves.
Oh c'mon Anonymous 10.08 AM, surely you have noticed that verbs in the past tense are frequently used as adjectives?
Thx, Jason. 'O' boy! what a FINE BODY of 'work'; lots of SOUL in this one! :)
Med+
Very chewy puz; lots to get ones TeeTH into.
Had AREtOo, so that caused a holdUP at ARE SO.
New: CBD & FAIL UP.
Noticed the ROACH / CBD COMBO today. 🪳
Use my Beats Flex earphones every day for listening to podcasts and audiobooks.
Enjoyed 'Bombshell: The HEDY Lamarr Story'. Have it cued UP on MUBI (Apple TV) for a re-watch.
"The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr." (IMDB)
Great adventure; loved it! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Well....let's see. this had the good, the bad, and the ugly vibe. I'l start with the good:
I liked the BO. Took me a while to smile, but I did at A LITTLE LAMBO. Hey I just noticed BO crossing BODY.
Move along...because I can't find another good.
The bad: ARE SO and ARE NOT should be banned from every playground. Their teacher, Mrs. LICOCTARCLSU will show the way out. Also bad is STRANGE...Doesn't he need some love? AT BAT is no longer on deck? I don't get that one. AND.....SMALL B? I CHURL to think what that even means.
The ugly: FICTIVE, NOVAE, EMPATHS and NONUS will never be asked to come into my bar. I will ask HEDY the BODY guard with BO to make sure of it.
I can't put my finger on a lot of this. I really do want more than one smile when I do a puzzle and this was too close to @Nancy's wall.
@Malaika.....please go put your head phones on and listen to Edith Piaf sing "Non, RIEN de RIEN." It's quite beautiful and says much about her. She was grand.
Thumbs up to Jason Reich for a fun debut. Liked all four themers and the elegance of ending each pun with an -MBO preceded by a different vowel. Especially liked the image of Mary driving her LITTLE LAMBO through the pasture.
Most perplexing moment: trying to remember whether it was San Luis Obisco, Obisbo, or Obispo.
Lesson of the day: I knew that you could be empathetic, but I didn’t know that could make you an EMPATH. Does that mean that if you feel sorry for someone, you could be a SYMPATH?
I’m with LMS on this one, thought it worked, provided a needed chuckle or two, and in the current political and economic environment, a chuckle is worth. . . whatever.
I know San Luis Obispo well because I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in a small town some 30-ish miles south of Fresno where OFL hails from. On our trips to the Coast (as we called the beaches) we passed thru SLO. It was a backwater back then, only “claim to fame” was Cal Poly, the town’s biggest employer. Today, from what I read, it has become a destination on CA wine tours. Anyway, triggered some pleasant memories for me.
Didn’t we have a bimbo or himbo the other day, or was that in the New Yorker? Interesting patterns in crossworld.
Funny theme. Liked it a little more than Malaika darlin [and probably @RP].
Too bad @Z ain't still around. He'da luved a themer such as INAGOODPLACE(BO).
There was a Richard Silvestri NYTPuz back in 2002 that tacked O's onto stuff, includin COMB-O. That there 2002 puztheme didn't attempt to cover all the xxMBO words, tho. Had themers like CLASSIFIEDADO, etc.
staff weeject pick: CBD. Always drawn to these mysterious abbreve meats that ain't in the M&A Help Desk Dictionary. I'm sure it probably weren't fictive, tho.
BAILS ON BEING. ITS ON YX. har
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Reich dude. And congratz on yer debut-o.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
Or if you waste time posting here yo're a psychopath?
Enjoyed puzzle and Ms. M’s analysis and now have commentariat issues to ponder. Well, actually I’m pretty satisfied with just doing the puzzles and leaving any self criticism for another day. Thanks also to yesterday’s poetry fans for posting those bonus CIARDI poems; as was noted, he really was “underrated.”
Thank you @Nancy and @Joaquin for the ARENOT/ARESO mini-play ACTI.
Somehow, I agree with both of you.
@LMS - your "on me" examples are pure poetry; whole characters and scenes jump to mind in a few sentence fragments.
I guess from some CA based Cop Show from way back, San Luis OBIS[b|P]O lurks in my lower brain stem memory. But, given the 'theme' (shouldn't they all be BOs?), and not sure how it's pronounced, waited for cross on the last consonant.
Easy. Cute with (according to Jeff) a tight theme, but the fill was a little rough. Liked it. Nice debut.
CAL is more versatile than I thought, yesterday Berkeley today Coolidge.
@GILL
In baseball, when the 1st batter is up, the next batter is said to be "on deck."
I'm officially changing my postal address to:
Joe Dipinto
brooklyn (small b please),
Non-New Jersey 11238
The birds have invaded through the cornice atop my building. I can hear them skittering around up above. They come to visit every once in awhile. Who remembers this song?
@Anonymous (9:15) Thanks for reminding me of the Madonna Inn. We stayed there a few times, maybe in the sixties. Each of the rooms is decorated in a different theme. It started with twelve rooms in 1958 and now has over a hundred.
What I hope the Donald will be asking of Don Jr. soon: Can you help me make BAILSON?
True fact (not FICTIVE): our dog was born in San Luis OBISPO.
Did anyone mention the champagne kealoa at 57D? With only the “M” filled in, my first thought was Mumm rather than MOËT. It could be argued that there should be some indicator that the answer is truncated, since the actual name is MOËT & Chandon.
I’m kinda like Malaika on this type of theme. A big nothing burger for me. But it was well executed, so I say congrats on your debut, Jason Reich.
Challenging for me. I was saved by the LAMBO that gave me MBO and thus the other theme answers - which I thought were great and worth the struggle. That began at the top, with "Ashore" confirmed by "said NO" and continued with a guess at LIFE "of" somebody. Thank goodness the bottom half was easier. Favorite cross: the cheery CHIRP x the churlish CHURL.
Weighing in on....OBISPO: add me to those who knew it instantly without any inkling why. And on what counts as a DNF: I'm in the "it's me against the puzzle" camp, no assistance allowed.
@Loren - Yes! to your ode to "on." I also love that usage. But it can be hard to explain. As in...I once taught a course in German translation to grad students who were not native speakers of English. For one assignment the correct translation of a line of dialog from a story would have been "Don't go and die on me!" (where "on me" was the dative pronoun mir). I really floundered in trying to convey the sense, recorded in memory as a teaching FAIL.
@Anonymous 10:08AM
It's a participle: a verbal form used as an adjective. "The grinning man" would be an example. Some info here.
"Inventive" has a different connotation, akin to "creative", and "fictive" would not really be an accurate substitution for it. "Fictive" implies not being part of objective reality, whereas "inventive" could refer to something wholly real (e.g., an "inventive application" in industry). "Fictional" or "fictitious" would be close synonyms of fictive. But I think I personally would use the word "fictive" only to apply to text (either oral or written). I would not say for example "fictive notion" although I think "fictional notion" would be alright.
My usual take on OFL: ARE SO (or who knew?). My usual take on Malaika: ARE NOT. Whatever she says I disagree with. Certainly in the ARE SO/ARE NOT context, but also in my feeling about the puzzle, which I found delightful and amusing. And yeah, I agree NOVAE/NOVAs is a despicable Kealoa, and I doubt modern astronomy folks use the Latin plural.
I did finish with no lookups and no writeovers, though it took me a fair amount of time. LAMBO, I thought would be spelled out in full. Do any of you know someone who owns a LAMBO? I certainly do not.
OBISPO went right in. The reason San Luis OBISPO (de Tolosa) is so named is that there was another mission called San Luis Rey (de Francia). SLO is a lovely place, with a college town atmosphere, and a lively downtown, and tons of motels, being the kickoff point for that trip up Highway One through Big Sur. Also a great railroad town. The Starlight, and before that the Daylight, has the most marvelous route going north, as it winds and winds up to Atascadero and Paso Robles, and goes on to the Salinas Valley.
I loved the LSU clue. Did you know that General Sherman was the founding head of the Louisiana Military school, which became part of LSU, long before there were state land-grant colleges? When Louisiana seceded, he quit and headed to Washington to do his duty to support the Union. His memoir is one of the best books ever written, and he had fond memories of his time in California, where he hoped to become a rich banker. Grant was in California, too, but disgraced himself by hitting the bottle too hard.
The highlight of my morning so far: Reading our Muse's memoirs. I laughed and laughed.
Don’t remember that one and I was listening to AM radio all the time in 71… anyway, I like your posts
EVE clue requires a question mark, or some sort of modifier such as "...of myth." Otherwise, this puz is a FAILUP. (PULIAF would be more appropriate.)
@johnk. This type of clue for EVE is very common. It'll soon be a gimme for you.
@Joaquin 9:55 AM
Word up. Hopefully on a daily basis we're here to learn a few things and mock modern usage and trivia until it becomes normalized. Like, literally, ya know? 😉 Besides, if I've looked up stuff during the week, I'm far more prepared for a competition on the weekend. Obviously our daily grind isn't a competition setting. Back when I played more golf, I had memorized the rules and played every round as if it was Sunday afternoon on television. Point of fact, it wasn't and I never would be in that situation, so now I don't lose any sleep over moving my ball from underneath a tree. The tree and I agree it's best for everyone. At school, we listen to lots and lots of competitive guitar. You would never listen to that racket in real life. Gimme a DNF and some truly classic classical guitar -- clear up until the moment it's time to humiliate (or be humiliated by) a fellow competitor with mad skills.
Lots of very strained fill in this one.
My wife and I are friends with our dentist Kevin and his wife Mary. They were over for dinner once, and I said to Mary -- "Let's say you go out for the evening and come back at 2 am, drunk and exhausted. You can barely crawl up the stairs to the bedroom. Be honest now -- are you telling me you still brush and floss that night?" She said, "No, but I'll do it first thing in the morning." Then she pointed at Kevin and said -- "He will though."
There was a comic years ago who was noting how funny-sounding some of the names of places in California are. One of them was San Luis Obispo. He crafted a TV news story in which the poor reporter had to report on terrible scenes of death and destruction but couldn't stop laughing as he listed the towns.
Maybe I am dense, but the 20A clue seemed ... off to me.
Like, is the answer supposed to be the imagined title of a memoir? Why is memoirs plural?
I know it's just a wacky clue for a made-up add-a-letter phrase, but the other themers had a kind of internal logic to them that I understood.
I had to smile when I came to San Luis OBISPO. I haven't spent much time in California but I did get to stop at the Silver Bar lounge, attached to the Madonna Inn mentioned above by Anon 9:15 and Math Gent 11:28. We were driving south to Solvang to ride bicycles and visit wineries; my friends had apparently been that way before because they insisted we had to have a cocktail at the weirdly pink-decorated Silver Bar. It was a hoot, indeed.
Shout to @Diana LIW's cat LAMBO!
Gotta like a puzzle with a CHIRP CHURL. Thanks, Jason Reich, and congratulations on the NYT debut.
@kitshef: Thanks for the pointer!
Unrelated, about LAMBO: Among people who talk about cars online there's a now-famous phrase, "Pretty sure that's a Lambo, dude," said by one of two guys watching a $1.25 million Bugatti Veyron driving on a frontage road and... well. (Warning: NSFW language)
It's not uncommon now for people to humorously misidentify other cars or objects with that phrase.
@okanaganer, @george, @conrad -- my first thought for not on deck was actually 'aloft,' which would have been confirmed by two crosses -- but lucky for me, I decided it was too much of a stretch for a Wednesday.
I did know San Luis OBISPO, but it's geography so I wasn't surprised -- and I guess there are wines from there. Strangely, until this morning, I didn't realize that it means "St. Louis the Bishop," even though I knew the word. Thanks for the details, @old timer.
It took me forever to parse NONUS. At first I thought it was going to be a jingoistic assertion that such addresses were NO-NoS, then when I finally saw LSU, that it was a variant of what Mork used to say, "nanu nanu."
What's a DNF? It's up to you! My goal is to solve every puzzle completely, and for the NYT I aim to do that without looking anything up. On AVC, the New Yorker, or Inkubator, I will allow myself to look up obscure (to me) pop culture names. But since there are no prizes, it's all about meeting the goals you set for yourself -- isn't that Kant's definition of freedom? Or something like that.
Amazing content. Regards CharleneIzere
@kitshef said "If instead I fill in the grid with 'Q' in every square, does that mean I finished?"
Well, I don't know how it actually works in tournaments, but if I were making the rules, having more than, say, 5 wrong squares would be a disqualification. In any case if you have all Qs your score is going to be so terrible everyone will throw tomatoes at you if you claim "I finished!" I am not going to say I didn't finish if I had 1 wrong square; often it is a Natick in which case I actually tell myself I finished correctly.
Don't forget LAMBO Field!
@Anon 12:03 – I don't blame you for not remembering it, it only reached #11 for one week on WABC in NY, and it barely got airplay otherwise. The artist was a brother-and-sister duo from Trinidad.
The comments about 5A--No longer on deck/ATBAT are interesting. It's a good example of how we all come here with different mindsets and different bodies of knowledge. Some saw "deck" and thought Boats. Others thought Baseball.
“When I began” doing puzzles, I used dictionaries and atlases and encyclopedias and thought that was part of the fun. I like looking things up. And to anonymous person from San Luis Obispo, you really should mention Morro Bay and Montana de Oro. San Luis Obispo is the place you go for sunshine when you’re camping on the coast. You can see the saint and have wonderful ice cream. And it does get too hot there.
I do not undersstand 27D I scanned the comments but did not find an explanation. Anyone?
Got a smile out of chirp as I had been thinking email the alernties before crosses clued me in.
Obispo went right in for me and I did honk it might be obscure to some. I grew up in Southern Cal. tho where near San Luis Obispo. I think there are reasoned not mentioned here for it to be well known, going off to Google it now.
Filled the puzzle and the music was silent so went on error search. Hadn’t parsed the NONUS yet, but no, all the crosses worked. @Loren (1:01 am) – me too, kept seeing “nouns.”
FLOJO? Nope, that's not it either. When I got the FLO_ _ I’d remembered Florence Joyner’s nickname.
But the nIEN up there in the NW? That’s it! And I remembered Edith Piaf’s famous song. This later rendition, recorded a few years before she died, is so affecting. @Gill 10:47 am – completely agree about this song and Piaf.
Fun to see the sci-fi movie THEM, with an early affirmation of women scientists with PhDs in the character of a myrmecologist (just looked that up) joining her famous dad in the investigation of those giant ants. Which led me to other 1950s favorites: The Thing from Another World, with James Arness as the carroty Thing, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Patricia Neal and the famous robot Gort.
Great to acknowledge Hedy Lamarr, whose invention during World War 2 eventually resulted in GPS and Bluetooth systems (nice choice for Word of the Day, Malaika!). I thought it was windshield wipers, but that turned out to be another woman, Mary Anderson, who was visiting NYC on a snowy day in 1902. The streetcar she was riding continually stopped so the driver could get out to clear the windows. Anderson spent the delays imagining a mechanical wiper that could avoid all the stop-and-go and was issued a patent in 1903. According to NPR, she never profited from it and didn’t get credit for her idea until 2011.
Guessed right at FAIL UP and learned that roaches and termites are related. Good enough for Wednesday!
Really lame, lazy comments. The theme is witty. Adding letters, like the letter "o", may not be a brand new shiny concept, but the realization of the concept here is witty. Seems maybe you got lost in limbo.
There is nothing wrong with a puzzle that has definition and answers you may not know. San Luis Obispo is a town in California with an historic mission of the same name. And boo hoo, Malaika had said no rather than told no.
Are not/are so as an "egregious dupe"? Or, an entertaining reciprocity? I don't find RIEN or LIC or OLAS or TRA or ACT I or NHL FAN oe AMLL B OE NON US weird. I think they were used in an interesting fashion. Short word fill, yes, but interesting definitions and answers.
@SHaronak:
Early in the comments (I think) - non-US
@JC 11:21...Thanks. Anything baseball flies over my head...
@OfftheGrid 2:13. I didn't see boats nor a deck. I wanted DAFFY.
Interesting conversation on the DNF and Cheat definition.
I'll start with "cheat." I don't like that word..it brings to mind a swindler a fraudster a hypocrite and maybe a con artist or two. Two incredulous cheaters were those two men who stuffed lead balls down a poor walleye's gullet (as if the fish didn't already have enough problems) in order to win a free lobster. THAT is a prime example of a cheat.
Looking up a word you've never heard of like "bumfuzzle" so that you can finish is called being curious.
A DNF in my world usually means just tossing something boring (like most Sundays) away. An empty square is obvious but if the puzzle is really good, then IDC.
Happy you asked?
@SHaronak
Read it as "NON-U.S."
@Joaquin (9:55) I adhere to your philosophy 100%. I do my best to get the answer without “cheating” but if it’s a proper name or trivia I totally don’t know and will never otherwise get, then I look it up so that I can finish. And hopefully I’ll remember it the next time I run across it in a grid. A DNF to me is if I give up and quit without at least attempting to fill every square but that rarely happens.
I'm guessing that the strict interpretation of DNF derives from tournament rules, where a mistake, even a trivial one such as a slip of the fingers, must be counted as "did not finish". But home rules can afford to be relaxed. My own feeling is: who cares how you count it at home? I'm okay with the notion that getting the happy music means that you did in fact finish; the software certainly seems to think so because you maintain your streak as long as you get the happy music. Now, whether you are happy with your effort if you try 15 letters of the alphabet before you hit the right one: well, that's gonna have to be on you. Or you and your priest or rabbi.
Again the NYTXW goes for a Freudian clue, today for 1D ORAL as a Freudian stage of development. Talk about antiquated, he dreamed up his theory in the 1880s. Using him in clues would be like cluing some illnesses as being sanguine and best treated by blood letting. Think dark ages.
I'm also surprised by Freud's regular NYTXW appearances (a few days ago for SUPEREGO, e.g.) because he was a notorious misogynist. He thought only boys developed a conscience and identified with their fathers' moral codes as a defense mechanism to prevent their fathers from castrating them after finding out that they wanted to kill them and marry their mothers.
Freud thought girls did not develop a conscience because they saw themselves as having already been castrated and there was no need for identification as a defense mechanism. Instead, Freud said, girls develop penis envy.
I'm not making this up. And it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Freuds misogyny. For anyone interested I highly recommend American psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey's Freudian Fraud: The Malignant Effect of Freud's Theory on American Thought and Culture.
@Aelurus 2:52. Thank you for posting Edith Piaf's rendition. My French step-mom introduced her to me. We would both sing along with Edith. A little bird she was.
But the b is not pronounced in the original word, Limb, comb dumb & lamb and is pronounced in the wacky phrase.
I think invented is intended as an adjective. Anyway, inventive has a different connotation and wouldn't work.
“Ree-in”= Rien=“nothing” in French
Came for the Twitter beef, stayed for the honest review. I feel whelmed by this debut. Will be back next Wednesday if I can remember.
I agree. Wonderful song.
Learned something new though. Thought the song was titled Je regrette rien.
The theme is add an O. However all the words you’re adding an O to end with a B, so jumping ahead to fill in the BO is just getting one more step ahead of the game.
I somehow did not receive any notifications about Loretta Lynn passing, and had no idea. Thank you for saying something. Cheers to her, and for Brandi Carlile helping to give her the boost she deserved in her final years.
Obviously we all have our own DNF standards. Mine prohibits outside help but sometimes on a Saturday I’ll get stuck in the morning, go about my life and pick up the puzzle after lunch. Amazingly, often the light bulb goes on and I finish in short order. I don’t consider that a DNF though I guess it would be if I were in a competition. Presumably there is a time limit, never having entered one.
I enjoyed the puzzle and much of the commentary today. The wacky theme answers were amusing. The puzzle had a little more bite than earlier in the week. I feel more satisfaction when I can pull off a tricky solve without any error checks or research, but sometimes the puzzle isn't going to deliver, so it's not a big deal when it's necessary. This puzzle stopped me at NONUS crossing LSU. I had an O. I didn't like it and I was right. I should have pondered a bit longer. But I solve for fun.
I was relieved to see folks sticking up for San Luis Obispo. It's a pretty big place on that stretch of the road.
Also, why do I have to know all the sports teams’ college towns and schools? That stuff is in there all the time. Enough already.
Speaking of Eastern vs Western bias - while you can justify it by pointing out this is a New York publication, you can't justify the male bias. Thanks @Anoa Bob 4:30 pm for the enlightening info re Freud. The puzzle seldom includes much in the way of clues related to cooking, or needlework, for instance, except for the most general terms, but employs all kinds of sports lingo. Yes, more women are involved in sports than ever before, but the bias still exists when traditional areas of female expertise are omitted. It's a dismissal, just like anyplace west of the Mississippi that doesn't have a competitive sports team.
Reasonably fun and amusing theme, better than I tend to manage; whole lotta unforgivably awful fill; thoroughly whelming guest-post; better luck to us all tomorrow; the end.
If you complete a multiple choice or true/false test in school and hand it in, and find out you got three answers wrong, do you say that you "didn't finish the test"?
As far as I 'm concerned "did not finish" means only that either a) you didn't have enough time to get to every clue/answer, or b) you put the puzzle down midway and never went back to it. If you filled in every square you have a finished puzzle, albeit containing possible errors, blank squares, or cheats.
Dr Dre deserves a MacArthur Genius award for his marketing savvy. Giving free Beats by Dre to athletes at the 2008 Olympics was all he ever really had to spend advertising his product. It probably cost him less that $5,000, and made him billions (ok, just high $100millions).
@Anoa Bob - Women as incomplete human beings has been around forever. Aquinas argued that a woman was but a failed male, "deficient and unintentionally caused", just following Aristotle. I won't discuss today, there simply isn't enough time.
That's HEDLEY!
THANK YOU! Not sure why more people aren’t distressed by the Novae question mark
Another great Malaika comment. I understand 100% your feeling that the theme was “blah” and I do not disagree. I just happen to think that this was published on the wrong day. And with some egregious crossword “no-nos!” ARE NOT/ARE SO?! Absolutely improper. Perhaps if the two crossed each other or were an integral part of a theme’s reveal, maybe. You who do construct, or who amaze me regularly with additional creative and often hilarious additions to theme answers (Hi, @LMS!) might think of some playground themed puzzle, but frankly, that fill doesn’t seem worth the effort to me.
Anyway, like others, I enjoy the goofy add an ending themes. To me they are one of the “types” often found in NYT puzzles, and since they aren’t that difficult to suss out, I think they probably help attract new solvers who hopefully for the NYT become subscribers. Yes, I know I went on an entire treatise on this very issue a while back. Won’t repeat other than to say, to each his own. Including the NYT. I for one, would very much like to continue my daily solve until my time on this mortal cool is done. For that to occur, we need solvers. One can only assume the powers that be (at the higher echelons of publishing, i.e. the $$$ people) give some credence to the value of continuing many of the regular practices that have proven successful in the past as regards the puzzle, and continue with these practices, including publishing and thereby encouraging construction of certain theme types. So be it.
Ot, the kvetching already! It wasn’t the theme that made this one a bit clunky in spots, but the failure of the editors to edit out the clunkers: the repetition of words is just wrong. And I felt the clues could have been a bit cleaner. But hell, its already Thursday. I think I will just move on to today’s offering.
Only in Blazing Saddles - one of the funniest films ever made. Hedy was the actress’s actual name.
Funny, I live in San Luis Obispo, the “ happiest place in the USA” according to Oprah. Thought everyone knew about it.
"O"-kay, turn familiar phrases into wack-"O"s. FINE--as far as it goes.
Ah, but then the fill. Should I say it's FICTIVE? One playground retort is too many; today we have the whole scene. Somebody yell "Cut!"
Cut is one of those nasty verbs that don't change from present to past tense. A momentary confusion till I simply added an -ED to the word.
There are other fill WOEs, awkward partials, letter add-ons and all manner of detritus. The theme is cute (terminally so with the last one) but the price paid in the fill is exorbitant. Double-bogey.
Wordle bogey.
It’s a debut puzzle so the constructor deserves both praise and encouragement. But the NYT editing team should do a better job helping the new constructors polish their work before publishing. The theme has no cohesion. No rhyme or reason. JUSTPLAINDUMBO may be a harsh a way to describe it but it definitely needs something to elevate it and to link it all together. Plus you have to switch the vowel sound on one of the themers to make any sense out of it - FINETOOTHCOMBO which makes it an inelegant outlier. ARENOT and ARESO are duplicates and are generally not accepted in the same grid. FICTIVE (why not use fictional?), FAILUP (slang) and OBISPO are all new to me. Not sure that an unknown town of 47,000 people is worthy of a crossword entry. Anyhow, enough CHIRPing from me and congrats to Jason Reich for his first ATBAT with the NYT.
ONBEING VAIN
INCASE you have NOT heard,
HEDY is JUSTPLAIN naughty,
ELITE, BEING the word,
ALITTLE proud of HER BODY.
--- CAIN MOLOTOV
LAMBO!!! My little kitty finally made it into the X-word after all these years of sitting on my lap and helping me solve. What more can I say!?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords who has seen it all now
Programme and gaol come to mind.
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