Day: July 11, 2025

Bill’s time: 10m 36s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A Accouterment for a queen : SASH

“Accouterments” are personal clothing items or accessories. We use the term “accoutrements’ back in Ireland, which sounds more French, but I don’t think is actually a French word. I could be wrong …

14A Acquirer of GeoCities and Broadcast.com during the dot-com bubble : YAHOO!

Jerry Yang and David Filo called their company “Yahoo!” for two reasons. Firstly, a Yahoo is a rude unsophisticated brute from Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”. Secondly, Yahoo stands for “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”.

15A Butter in South Asian cooking : GHEE

Ghee is clarified butter used in South Asian cuisines. “Ghee” comes from Sanskrit, and translates as “sprinkled”.

20A Outpace the syllabus, say : READ AHEAD

“Syllabus” (plural “syllabi”) is the Latin word for “list”.

26A Supermodel Alek : WEK

Alek Wek is a supermodel originally from Southern Sudan. In her native language, Wek’s name translates as “Black Spotted Cow”, which is a symbol of good luck for the Dinka, her native people.

27A Katy Perry song with the lyric “Louder, louder than a lion ’cause I am the champion” : ROAR

“Roar” is a 2013 song co-written and performed by Katy Perry. It has a great chorus:

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire
‘Cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
‘Cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar

29A “Don’t Worry Kyoko” singer : ONO

John Lennon and Yoko Ono married at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. The couple decided to use the inevitable publicity surrounding their wedding and honeymoon to promote peace in the world. They honeymooned in the Presidential Suite of the Amsterdam Hilton, inviting the world’s press to join them and to witness their “bed-in”. They spent the week talking about peace, and an end to war. The marriage and bed-in is chronicled by the Beatles in their song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. A few weeks after the marriage, Lennon adopted the middle name “Ono” by deed poll.

36A “Poppycock!” : PISH!

It is thought that the relatively gentle term “poppycock”, meaning “nonsense”, comes from a Dutch word for “dung” combined with a Latin word for “excrete”. Not so gentle after all …

40A Phanerozoic, for one : EON

In the geological time scale, we are living in the Phanerozoic Eon that started about 540 million years ago. The current eon started with the appearance of an abundance of animals in the fossil record. The term “Phanerozoic” was coined in 1930, coming from the Ancient Greek “phaneros” meaning “visible” and “zoe” meaning “life”.

41A Isaac Asimov novel “Murder at the ___” : ABA

Isaac Asimov was a wonderful science fiction writer, and a professor of biochemistry. He was a favorite author as I was growing up and I must admit that some hero worship on my part led me to study and work as a biochemist for a short while early in my career. My favorite of his works is the collection of short stories called “I, Robot”, although Asimov’s most famous work is probably his “Foundation” trilogy of novels. Asimov wrote three autobiographies, the last of which was called “I, Asimov”, which was published in 1994, two years after his death.

48A Org. with the pioneering Artemis program : NASA

NASA’s Artemis program is an initiative aimed at returning humans to the Moon, with the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable lunar presence and paving the way for future human exploration of Mars.

52A Actress Rapp of “Mean Girls” : RENEE

Singer and actress Reneé Rapp’s big break came with a starring role in the musical “Mean Girls” on Broadway. She played “mean girl” Regina George on stage from 2019 to 2020, and also in the big-screen adaptation released with the same title in 2024.

The 2024 musical film “Mean Girls” is based on the 2017 stage musical, and in turn on the 2004 movie, all of the same name. Tina Fey wrote both of the screenplays, as well as the book accompanying the musical.

Down

1D Sea serpent of myth : HYDRA

The Hydra of Lerna was a mythical sea snake that had multiple heads. Heracles had to slay the Lernaean Hydra as the second of his Twelve Labors. We now use the term “hydra” figuratively to describe a complex problem that presents new obstacles once one facet is resolved.

3D Most Iranians : SHIAS

Shiism, the second-largest branch of Islam, distinguishes itself from Sunni Islam primarily through its belief in the rightful succession of leadership after the Prophet Muhammad. Shia Muslims believe that leadership should have passed to Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and his descendants, known as Imams, whom they consider divinely appointed and infallible. In contrast, Sunni Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad did not explicitly designate a successor, and that leadership should be determined through consensus among the Muslim community.

5D Event requiring special specs : SOLAR ECLIPSE

A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes into the shadow cast by the Earth from the light of the Sun, in other words when the Earth is positioned directly between the Sun and the Moon. The more spectacular solar eclipse takes place when the Moon passes in front of the Sun, so that the Earth falls into the shadow cast by the Moon.

6D Nash who wrote “The cow is of the bovine ilk; / One end is moo, the other, milk” : OGDEN

Ogden Nash was a poet from Rye, New York who is remembered for his light and quirky verse. He had over 500 such works published between 1931 and 1972.

9D Kind of coin that features a Buddhist temple on one side : YEN

The Japanese yen (JPY) is the third-most traded currency in the world, after the US dollar and the euro.

11D Pedro ___, Oscar-winning screenwriter for “Talk to Her” : ALMODOVAR

Pedro Almodóvar is a very successful Spanish film director, born in a small town in the region of La Mancha (made famous by Don Quixote). I’m afraid I don’t recognize any of Almodovar’s films.

13D Japanese accord? : HAI

The word “yes” translates into “oui” in French, “ja” in German, and into “hai” in Japanese.

21D Film star whose name consists of two presidents : HARRISON FORD

Harrison Ford played at least three celebrated, recurring roles in movies: Han Solo in the “Star Wars” series, the title character in the “Indiana Jones” series, and Jack Ryan in the movie versions of Tom Clancy novels. In the early days, Ford became a self-taught carpenter in order to put bread on the table while he looked for acting roles. As a carpenter he worked as a stagehand for the rock band “The Doors”, and he built a sun deck for actress Sally Kellerman (from the movie “M*A*S*H”). George Lucas hired him to build cabinets in his home, and then gave him a part in “American Graffiti”, after which I think Ford hung up his tool belt …

Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States. President Harrison is the only US president to be the grandson of a former president. Benjamin was the grandson of the 9th president, William Henry Harrison. One of the things that President Benjamin Harrison’s administration is remembered for is bringing the level of federal spending to one billion dollars for the first time.

Gerald Ford was the only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the US, without having been elected to those positions. Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew after he resigned in 1973. Vice President Ford assumed the presidency the following year after President Nixon resigned.

25D 1952 Olympics locale: Abbr. : NOR

The 1952 Winter Olympic Games took place in Oslo, Norway. One of the firsts at the 1952 games was the first use of a purpose-built athletes’ village. The 1952 Games also marked the return of Japan and Germany to the Olympic family after being excluded from the 1948 games following WWII.

26D “Breaking Bad” antihero : WALT

Walter White is the protagonist of the hit TV drama “Breaking Bad”. Played by Bryan Cranston, White is a high school chemistry teacher who resorts to manufacturing high-grade crystal meth in order to ensure his family’s security after his death.

27D Alternative to French : RANCH

Ranch dressing has been the best-selling salad dressing in the country since 1992. The recipe was developed by Steve Henson who introduced it in the fifties to guests on his dude ranch, the Hidden Valley Ranch in Northern California. His Hidden Valley ranch dressing became so popular that he opened a factory to produce packets of ranch seasoning that could be mixed with mayonnaise and buttermilk. Henson sold the brand for $8 million in 1972.

French dressing is an American condiment that today is ketchup-based. The original French dressing was based on oil and vinegar.

30D Sties, say : RAT’S NESTS

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, is credited with popularizing the elaborate hairstyle known as the pouf. The hair was styled using a pomade made from wholesome ingredients such as beef marrow and bear grease. Because of the complexity of the hairstyle, ladies wore it for a week or two, during which time the animal fat would become rancid. It was reported that vermin would be attracted to the hair while sleeping, which apparently led to the phrase “her hair is a rat’s nest”.

32D “How ___ Your Mother” : I MET

“How I Met Your Mother” is a sitcom that CBS has been airing since 2005. The main character is Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor. Mosby is also the narrator for the show looking back from the year 2030 (the live action is set in the present). As narrator, the older Mosby character is voiced by Bob Saget.

33D Restaurant chain where chefs make onion volcanoes : BENIHANA

The Benihana chain of restaurants was founded in 1964 in New York City by Rocky Aoki. Aoki was a Japanese-born American wrestler who qualified for the 1960 Summer Olympics, but did not compete. “Benihana” is the Japanese word for “safflower”.

34D Animated internet pic : GIF

The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) is an image format developed in the 1980s by CompuServe (remember CompuServe?). GIF images are compressed, reducing the file size, but without losing information. So, the original image can be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed GIF version. But, and it’s a big but, GIF images use only 256 individual colors. This means that GIF is a relatively poor choice of compression for color photographs, while it is usually fine for logos with large blocks of single colors.

45D 2017 animated film set in the Land of the Dead : COCO

“Coco” is a 2017 Pixar movie about a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who ends up in the land of the dead by accident. There, he seeks out the help of the great-great-grandfather to get back to his family in the land of the living.

47D Indie folk’s Bon ___ : IVER

Bon Iver is a folk band that started up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 2007. The band’s name comes from the French “bon hiver” meaning “good winter”. The phrase “bon hiver” was popularized by the fun nineties TV show “Northern Exposure”.

49D Car pool transport : VAN

The vehicle we call a “van” takes its name from “caravan”, and so “van” is a shortened version of the older term. Back in the 1600s, a caravan was a covered cart. We still use the word “caravan” in Ireland to describe what we call a “mobile home” or “recreational vehicle” here in the US.