Day: January 21, 2010

The name’s William Ernest Butler, but please call me Bill. I grew up in Ireland, but now live out here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m retired now, from technology businesses that took our family all over the world. I answer all emails, so please feel free to email me at bill@paxient.com

If you are working on the New York Times crossword in any other publication, you are working on the syndicated puzzle. Here is a link to my answers to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword. To find any solution other than today’s, enter the crossword number (e.g. 1225, 0107) in the “Search the Blog” box above.

This is my solution to the crossword published in the New York Times today …

Completion Time: Hours!
Theme: CUTS CORNERS … the four corners should have the word “nothing”, to make sense of the answers around the edge of the grid e.g. (nothing) PERSONAL, (nothing) FANCY etc.
Answers I missed:  2 … TRIS (TRES) CORDILLO (CORDELLO)


TODAY’S GOOGLIES (all links go to Amazon.com) …
Across
14 D.C. CAB: The movie also starred Mr. T, and Irene Cara.
16 AGAMEMNON: Agamemnon was played by Scottish actor Brian Cox in “Troy“.
30 ‘ERE: “We shun it ‘ere it comes” is the name, and first line of a poem by Emily Dickinson.
41 EMU: A brevipennate bird is one which is “short winged”, and as such cannot fly, like an emu.
44 ZED: A clever clue! “Zed” (British for “zee”) is a character in the word “Zorro”, so it has nothing to so with the TV show “Zorro“.
45 IS A: “Life is a Highway” is a hit by Tom Cochrane from his 1991 album “Mad Mad World“.
49 SLOVENS: A slovenly person doesn’t care much about his/her appearance.
51 STL: Lambert Airport in St. Louis is the largest international airport in Missouri.
52 TRIS: Tris Speaker was inducted in the Baseball Hall Of Fame in 1937.
54 LOO: Another clever clue … one might be charged the rate to “go” in a loo the UK.
55 KOOL: Kool brand cigarettes are made by R. J. Reynolds. And, KOOL-FM plays classic hits in Phoenix.
62 OLLAS: An olla is a ceramic jar, usually used for cooking stews.
63 ALEXANDER: Jason Alexander played George on “Seinfeld“.

Down
8 LENAPE: The Lenape are actually a group of Native American tribes, linked by a common language.
10 OCHS: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. is the publisher of the New York Times (as was his father, and grandfather).
12 TAMARIN: Tamarins are small monkeys found in Central and South America.
15 BUT NET: “Nothing but net” is a basketball term (and new to me … not a sports fan!).
20 SORENSEN: Ted Sorensen was John F. Kennedy’s speech-writer, and wrote his biography “Kennedy“.
26 NEREIDS: The Nereids are the fifty sea nymphs of Greek mythology.
32 OUR: Sinclair Lewis wrote “Our Mr. Wrenn” in 1914.
35 RRS: Railroads have railroad crossings.
36 CAUDILLO: Caudillo is general term (pun intended!) used to describe a military leader at the head of an authoritarian government.
45 ISOLDE: “Tristan und Isolde” is an opera by Richard Wagner.
50 VOILE: Aptly enough, voile is the French word for “veil”.
59 MER: The sea (la mer) is bleu (bleu) … French.
61 JAG: XK and XKE are models of Jaguar motor car.