0216-10 New York Times Crossword Answers 16 Feb 10

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: 7m 21s
Theme: PROCESSED MEAT … all the theme answers start with anagrams of “meat” i.e META, TEAM, MATE.
Answers I missed: 0

TODAY’S WIKI-EST, AMAZONIAN GOOGLIES
Across
1 GRAN: Gran Canaria, or Grand Canary Island, may be grand, but it isn’t quite as big, or populous as Tenerife,  the largest island of the group, and the most populated.

18 LAOS: The Mekong is a huge river, the 12th largest in the world. It rises in Tibet, and runs through China, Burma, Thailand, LAOS, Cambodia and Vietnam. Sadly, we are most familiar the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, where the US Navy swift boats saw so much action during the Vietnam War.

23 MAYTAG: The Maytag repairman in the famous advertising campaign was known as “Ol’ Lonely”.

Hot Dog...The Movie30 HOT DOG: Although hot dogging is a term now used across all sports, it was primarily associated with skiing, describing the performance of showy and risky stunts on the slopes.

32 EOS: In Greek mythology, EOS is the goddess of the dawn, who lived at the edge of the ocean. She would wake each morning, to welcome her brother, Helios, the sun.

40 .EXE: In the Windows Operating System, a file with the extension .exe is an “executable” file.
41 COEN: “Fargo” is one of my favorite films of all time, and stars perhaps my favorite actress, Frances McDormand. Fargo was directed by the Coen brothers, Joel an Ethan, and Frances is Joel’s wife.

Bartok: The Piano Concertos52 BELA: Bela Bartok was a composer and a pianist, and perhaps after Liszt is considered to be Hungary’s greatest composer.

71 NYET: Refuseniks were those individuals, usually Jews, refused permission to leave the Soviet Union and/or other countries behind the Iron Curtain. Nowadays, we use the term “refusenik” for someone who protests or refuses to do something, a very different use of the word.

Down
2 RIDE A: “Ride a Crooked Trail” is a 1958 western, starring Audi Murphy, and Walter Matthau of all people!

5 BOLOGNA: The deli meat “boloney” is an American invention. It was givent he name “boloney” because it resemble Italian mortadella sausage, which originated in the city of Bologna in northern Italy.

6 A CAR: The campaign slogan used by Herbert Hoover in the 1928 Presidential race was, “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”.

Sasha Cohen: Fire on Ice (Revised Edition): Autobiography of a Champion Figure Skater8 SASHA: Sasha Cohen is an American figure skater. Her mother is a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine, a former ballet dancer. Sasha (the nickname for Alexandra, her birth name) herself can understand Russian.

11 PRESIDIOS: The Spanish built presidios all over the world, but mainly in North America.

22 OCHO: If you ever take a cruise ship to Jamaica, you will likely disembark in Ocho Rios, a major port of call for the cruise lines. Ocho Rios is Spanish for “eight rivers”.

43 CABOOSE: The word “caboose” originally came from Middle Dutch, the word for a ship’s galley. When the last car in a train in North America was given a stove, for the comfort of the crew, it took on the name “caboose”.

50 SAMPAN: Sampan means “three planks” in Cantonese, alluding to the original simple design of this flat-bottomed boat. There was one wide plank on the bottom, and two at either side forming the sides of the boat.

Ascot Tuxedo Tuxedo Tie - Solid Fusion "Very Chic"! Color Champagne54 ASCOT: An Ascot tie is that horrible looking (I think!) wide tie that narrows at the neck, only really worn at weddings these days. It takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race, a day when punters still turn up in formal wear as Ascot race course in England.

61 SANA: Sana is the capital city of Yemen. Within the bounds of today’s metropolis is the old fortified city of Sana, where people have lived for over 2,500 years. The Old City is now a World Heritage Site.

62 FLO: Flo was a waitress in the sitcom “Alice” that ran in the seventies and eighties. The character got her own show called “Flo” but it only ran a couple of years.