Day: March 15, 2025

Bill’s time: 15m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 British celebrity chef Nigella : LAWSON

Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson’s rather inventive given name comes from her father, Nigel Lawson. Dad was Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to Treasury Secretary in the US) in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in the eighties.

7 Cozier alternatives to motels : B AND BS

In the US, an intimate inn is a bed & breakfast (B&B). Traditionally, a bed & breakfast back in Ireland was more basic accommodation, and used to be much cheaper than a comparable hotel room.

14 Congolese neighbor to the south : ZAMBIAN

The landlocked nation of Zambia in Southern Africa was ruled by the British for many years as a colony known as Northern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia finally gained independence in 1964, adopting the name Zambia. The new name comes from the Zambezi river, which forms much of the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The famous Victoria Fall lies on the Zambezi, on that border.

15 They’re sometimes seen in cameos : ONYXES

Onyx is a form of quartz that comes in many different shades, but most often it’s the black version that’s used for jewelry. The name “onyx” comes from the Greek word for “fingernail”, as onyx in the flesh color is said to resemble a fingernail.

Cameo is a method of carving, often the carving of a gemstone or a piece of jewelry. The resulting image is in relief (sits proud of the background), whereas an engraved image would be produced by the similar carving method known as intaglio. Nowadays, the term “cameo” is used for any piece of oval-shaped jewelry that contains the image of a head, usually in profile (maybe even a photograph).

16 Big name in electric toothbrushes : SONICARE

Sonicare is a brand of electric toothbrush made by Dutch electronics giant Philips. I’ve been using my Sonicare for years now, which earns me a pat on the back from my dentist every time I visit her …

17 Terrarium critters : NEWTS

A terrarium (plural “terraria”) is a contained environment used to house land animals. The term “terrarium“ comes from the equivalent “aquarium”, a tank for holding mainly fish. In general, a contained environment for keeping live animals or plants is known as a “vivarium”

19 Something you might shield your eyes from, in brief : PDA

Public display of affection (PDA)

24 Drink akin to a Moscow mule : DARK ‘N’ STORMY

A dark ‘n’ stormy is a classic cocktail made from dark rum and ginger beer, served over ice. The name comes from the ingredients, with the “dark” being the rum, and the “stormy” being the ginger beer.

26 Irish actor who was nominated for a Golden Globe for 2023’s “Saltburn” : BARRY KEOGHAN

“Saltburn” is a 2023 comedy thriller movie about an Oxford student who befriends a fellow student and joins him at his family’s country house for the summer. The house goes by the name “Saltburn”, hence the film’s title.

29 Best Picture winner that beat out “Boyhood” and “Selma” : BIRDMAN

“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” is a 2014 film that was an incredible critical success. The title character was played by Michael Keaton. I know I am in the minority, but I really did not enjoy “Birdman” …

“Boyhood” sounds like an interesting 2014 film. It’s about the coming-of-age of a young boy and his older sister. The film was actually shot over an 11-year period, so that the actors were seen to be growing up at the same time as the characters that they were playing. The critics loved this movie.

“Selma” is a 2014 film about the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson.

35 Long, curved bike features : BANANA SEATS

A banana seat is a long saddle on a bicycle, often seen on what are called wheelie bikes.

38 Texter’s “Wow … just wow” : SMH

Shaking my head (SMH)

43 Pottery piece : SHARD

A shard is a small piece, especially a fragment, of broken ceramic or glass.

48 Where snowboard cross debuted as an Olympic event (2006) : TORINO

The 2006 Winter Olympics were held in Turin, in the Italian Alps. The Turin games were one of the most expensive Winter Games ever staged, and sadly much of that cost was a huge overrun, with the event costing almost twice what had been budgeted.

Down

1 Member of the only N.F.C. team never to have made the Super Bowl : LION

The Detroit Lions are the NFL team that play home games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The team was founded way back in 1929 as the Portsmouth Spartans from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans joined the NFL during the Great Depression as other franchises collapsed. However, the Spartans couldn’t command a large enough gate in Portsmouth so the team was sold and relocated to Detroit in 1934.

2 One dealing with- a certain absence : AMNESIAC

“Amnesia”, meaning “loss of memory”, is a Greek word that we imported into English in the 17th century. The Greek term comes from combining the prefixes “a-” meaning “not” and “mnesi-” meaning “remembering”.

4 Awkward messages to receive in a public setting : SEXTS

Sexting (a portmanteau of “sex” and “texting”) is the sending of explicit dialog and images between cell phones. The term “sexting” was coined by the UK’s “Sunday Telegraph Magazine” in a 2005 article.

6 Final Fantasy’s original platform, for short : NES

“Final Fantasy” is a series of fantasy role-playing video games that is much-respected in the gaming community. The first game was released back in 1987.

8 Athos, Porthos et Aramis, par exemple : AMIS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

10 Bum wrap? : DIAPER

“Diaper” is another word that I had to learn when I moved to America. What are called “diapers” over here, we call “nappies” back in Ireland. The term “diaper” is actually the original term that was used in England for the garment, where “diaper” referred to the cloth that was used. The term “diaper” was brought to the New World where it stuck. Back in Britain, “diaper” was displaced by the word “nappy”, a diminutive of “napkin”.

11 Javier who played Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos” : BARDEM

Spanish actor Javier Bardem is probably best known for playing the crazed assassin in 2007’s “No Country for Old Men”, and Bond villain Raoul Silva in 2012’ “Skyfall”. Bardem won the Best Supporting Actor for his performance in “No Country for Old Men”, making him the first Spaniard to win an Academy Award. Bardem wasn’t actually born on the Spanish mainland, but rather in Las Palmas in the Canary Island off the Moroccan coast. He married fellow-actor Penélope Cruz in 2010.

“Being the Ricardos” is a 2021 biopic about the lives of married couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Lucy and Desi are played by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. The title comes from the show “I Love Lucy”, in which Ball and Arnaz played Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. I haven’t seen this one, but it’s on my list as the film was written and directed by the great Aaron Sorkin …

16 2007 Michael Moore documentary with the tagline “This might hurt a little” : SICKO

Like all of Michael Moore’s films, his 2007 documentary “Sicko” tends to polarize his audience. The film deals with the health care system in the United States, comparing it with the systems in place in other countries. Having lived in two of the countries covered in the movie, France and the UK, I can attest that the basic facts presented about those foreign health care systems are accurate. Now Moore’s style of presentation of those facts … that might give rise to some debate …

23 Prez in the ’60s : ABE

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only 2 out of 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through the Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

24 2016 Literature Nobelist who famously skipped the Stockholm ceremony : DYLAN

President Obama used the words “There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music” when awarding musician Bob Dylan the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Dylan was in good company. On the same day, the president awarded the medal to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Justice John Paul Stevens, former Israeli President Shimon Peres and astronaut John Glenn. In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

25 Shipping container weights : TARES

Tare is the weight of a container that is deducted from the gross weight to determine the net weight, the weight of the container’s contents.

27 Miniature electronic vehicle, for short : RC CAR

Radio-controlled (RC)

30 Slam-dancing locales : MOSH PITS

Moshing (also “slam dancing”) is the pushing and shoving that takes place in the audience at a concert (usually a punk or heavy metal concert). The area directly in front of the stage is known as the mosh pit. When a performer does a “stage dive”, it is into (or I suppose “onto”) the mosh pit. It doesn’t sound like fun to me. Injuries are commonplace in the mosh pit, and deaths are not unknown.

36 Parmesan alternative : ASIAGO

Asiago is a cheese that is named for the region in northeastern Italy from where it originates. It comes in varying textures depending on its age. Fresh Asiago is very smooth, while aged Asiago can be very crumbly.

43 Steelmaking byproduct : SLAG

The better lead ores are processed in a blast furnace, to extract the metal. The waste from this process is called “slag”. Slag does contain some lead and it can be processed further in a slag furnace to extract the residual metal. Slag furnaces also accept poorer lead ores as a raw material.

45 Poet who wrote “To err is human; to forgive, divine” : POPE

Alexander Pope’s 1709 poem “An Essay on Criticism” is the source of at least three well-known quotations:

• A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
• To err is human, to forgive divine.
• For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

48 Psychoactive component of marijuana, for short : THC

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive in cannabis.