Day: November 1, 2026

Bill’s time: 18m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7A One of the Three Musketeers : ATHOS

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.

15A Sidewalk adjoiner : ROAD

Back in Ireland, the “pavement” is what we call the “sidewalk, footpath” (because the footpath is “paved”, often with “paving” stones!). It’s very confusing when you arrive in this country from Ireland, and a little dangerous when one has been taught from a young age to “walk on the pavement” …

19A Alternative to Parmesan : 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.

21A Piece of pet furniture : CAT CONDO

A cat tree (also “cat condo”) is a manufactured structure provided to indoor cats for play, relaxation and sleep. Apparently, an important feature is height, as cats feel more secure lying high up, with an expansive view of their surroundings.

23A Member of the largest contiguous empire in history : MONGOL

At its height, the Mongol Empire extended from the Sea of Japan in the east to parts of modern-day Europe in the west, and from the Indian subcontinent in the south to parts of the Arctic in the north. Holding sway in the 13th and 14th centuries, it was the largest contiguous land empire in the history of the world.

24A What might be pulled when pulling one’s leg, informally : HAMMY

The hamstrings are four tendons connected to three posterior thigh muscles, although the term “hamstring” is sometimes used for the thigh muscles themselves.

26A Roald Dahl title character who subsists on “snozzcumbers,” with “the” : BFG

“The BFG” is a 1982 children’s book by Welsh author Roald Dahl. The initialism in the title stands for “Big Friendly Giant”. Dahl dedicated “The BFG” to his daughter Olivia, who had passed away at the age of 7 in 1962. Steven Spielberg made a 2016 movie adaptation of the book under the same title.

36A Lead-in to coin : DOGE

The Doge meme features a Shiba Inu dog accompanied by text in broken English, often expressing excitement or wonder. Originating in 2010, the meme gained viral popularity that unexpectedly led to the creation of Dogecoin in 2013, a cryptocurrency initially intended as a joke. Dogecoin gained a loyal community and achieved substantial market value, fueled by social media trends and celebrity endorsements.

40A Streaming channel? : SLUICE

A sluice is a water channel with a gate at its head that is used to control the amount of water flowing.

48A Son of Seth : ENOS

Enos was the son of Seth, and therefore the grandson of Adam and Eve, and nephew of Cain and Abel. According to the ancient Jewish work called the Book of Jubilees, Enos married his own sister Noam.

54A Composer Zimmer : HANS

Hans Zimmer is a film composer from Frankfurt in Germany. The long list of films that Zimmer has scored includes “Rain Man” (1988), “The Lion King” (1994), “Gladiator” (2000), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “Inception” (2010) and “12 Years a Slave” (2013).

55A Herbal sugar substitute : STEVIA

Stevia is a natural sweetener and sugar substitute. It is extracted from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana, a plant in the sunflower family that is native to Brazil and Paraguay. The active compounds in Stevia are many times more sweet than sugar, but are not metabolized by the body. As such, stevia has zero calories.

58A Titular fictional heroine from the Alps : HEIDI

“Heidi” is a children’s book written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri and published in two parts. The first is “Heidi’s years of learning and travel”, and the second “Heidi makes use of what she has learned”. The books tell the story of a young girl in the care of her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The most famous film adaptation of the story is the 1937 movie of the same name starring Shirley Temple in the title role.

59A Payment inits. found in “debt-free” : EBT

Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) is a system that allows government benefit recipients to access their funds through a debit-like card. It is primarily used for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

60A Wielder of the hammer Mjölnir, in myth : THOR

The hammer associated with the Norse god Thor is known as Mjölnir. The name “Mjölnir” translates as “crusher”.

61A Modern moviemaking tech : CGI

Computer-generated imagery (CGI)

63A Burton who hosted PBS’s “Reading Rainbow” : LEVAR

Actor LeVar Burton is very much associated with two iconic roles on television, i.e. young Kunta Kinte in “Roots” and Geordi La Forge in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Burton also hosted the children’s PBS show “Reading Rainbow” for many years. His portrayal of Kunta Kinte in 1977 was Burton’s first acting job. Indeed, Burton’s audition for the part was the first in his professional career!

“Reading Rainbow” is an award-winning children’s television series that aired on Public Television from 1983 to 2006. The mission of the show was to encourage children to read. “Reading Rainbow” was hosted by the actor LeVar Burton (from “Roots” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). “Reading Rainbow” was revived in 2025, with librarian and media personality Mychal Threets taking over as host.

71A Rome’s ___ Fountain : TREVI

The Trevi Fountain (“Fontana di Trevi”) is a huge fountain in Rome, one that is the largest constructed in the Baroque style. The name “Trevi” is a perfect fit, as it derives from the Italian words “tre vie”, which translate literally to “three streets”. The fountain was built at the junction of three roads, marking the terminal point of the Acqua Vergine, one of the ancient Roman aqueducts that supplied water to the city.

72A Kidney-related : RENAL

Something described as renal is related to the kidneys. “Ren” is the Latin word for “kidney”.

73A Greek goddess whose chariot is pulled by Firebright and Daybright : EOS

In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn who lives at the edge of the ocean. Eos wakes each morning to welcome her brother Helios the Sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora. Rather delightfully, Homer referred to Eos as “rosy-fingered dawn” in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey”.

74A County north of San Francisco : NAPA

Commercial wine production officially began in Napa County in 1858 when John Patchett opened the county’s first commercial vineyard. Today, despite its global reputation and housing over 400 physical wineries, Napa accounts for only about four percent of California’s total annual wine harvest.

82A It’s not a big dill : GHERKIN

Often, a dill pickle is actually a pickled gherkin, as the gherkin and cucumber are different cultivars within the same species. Here in the US, dill is commonly added to pickling vinegar or brine, but this wasn’t the case when I used to eat them back in Ireland (I can’t stand dill!). You might see jars labeled as “cornichons”, but they’re gherkins. “Cornichon” is the French word for “gherkin”.

87A Venomous snake : MAMBA

Mambas, most famously black mambas, are highly venomous snakes that used to be responsible for a great number of fatalities before anti-venoms became available. Mamba venom is a deadly mix of neurotoxins that attack the nervous system and cardiotoxins that attack the heart. A bite, if left untreated, causes the lungs and the heart to shut down.

92A Feline with distinctive blue eyes : SIAMESE

The exact origins of the Siamese cat aren’t very clear, but it is believed to be from Southeast Asia. The Siamese takes its name from the sacred temple cats of Thailand (a nation once called “Siam”).

103A Versace’s parent company : PRADA

Prada started out in 1913 as a leather-goods shop in Milan, one established by the two Prada brothers. One of the brothers, Mario Prada, prevented the female members of his family from participating in the running of the company as he didn’t believe women should be involved in business (!). When the sexist brother died, his son had no interest in the business so it was his daughter who took over and ran the company for about twenty years, handing it over to her own daughter. I’d say the devil loved that …

Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer. Versace’s death was perhaps as famous as his life. He was murdered in 1997 outside his mansion in Miami Beach by one Andrew Cunanan. It is not certain that Cunanan knew who his victim was, as this was the last in a spree of five murders committed by him over a three-month period. A few days after killing Versace, Cunanan used the same gun to commit suicide.

105A Soccer star Messi : LIONEL

Lionel “Leo” Messi is a soccer player from Argentina. Before becoming a global superstar, a 13-year-old Messi was so impressive during a tryout that FC Barcelona’s sporting director immediately drew up his first contract on a paper napkin because no other paper was available. That napkin was later auctioned off for nearly $1 million.

109A Sheer bunk : UTTER ROT

The word “bunk” is short for “bunkum”, the phonetic spelling of “Buncombe”, which is a county in North Carolina. Supposedly, a state representative made a dull and irrelevant speech that was directed to his home county of Buncombe, bringing the term “bunkum” into the language with the meaning of “nonsense”. The derivative word “debunk” first appeared in a novel by William Woodward in 1923, when he used it to describe “taking the bunk out of things”.

113A Beethoven work originally titled “Bonaparte” : EROICA

Beethoven originally dedicated his “Symphony No. 3” to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution and as such respected Bonaparte who was “born” out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution so he changed the name of his new symphony from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica”, meaning “heroic, valiant”.

120A Number of legs on a butterfly : SIX

Butterflies and moths belong to the order lepidoptera. The term “lepidoptera” comes from the Greek “lepido-” meaning “scale” and “pteron” meaning wing. Butterflies and moths are insects with scaly bodies and large, triangular wings.

122A Its famous holes are formed by propionibacteria : SWISS CHEESE

“Swiss cheese” is a relatively generic term for a type of cheese produced in various countries and not necessarily in Switzerland. What they all have in common though, is a resemblance to the original Swiss Emmental cheese.

Down

3D Play using all seven tiles in Scrabble : BINGO

In the North American version of Scrabble, laying all seven tiles in one turn earns a 50-point bonus, and is called a “bingo”.

7D Improvised : AD HOC

The Latin phrase “ad hoc” means “for this purpose”. An ad hoc committee, for example, is formed for a specific purpose and disbanded after making its final report.

8D Casts a wide net? : TRAWLS

The method of fishing known as trawling involves the pulling of a net through the water behind a boat (or boats). The trawling net is known as a trawl.

11D “The Brain — is wider than the ___”: Dickinson : SKY

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with fewer than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades.

12D Condition that may be treated with C.B.T. : OCD

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that has been found to be helpful in treating a wide range of mental health issues, including anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse.

15D “Unit in the game Clue” : ROOM (DIVIDER)

Clue is a board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

22D Wine label word : CRU

“Cru” is a term used in the French wine industry that means “growth place”. So, “cru” is the name of the location where the grapes are grown, as opposed to the name of a specific vineyard. The terms “premier cru” and “grand cru” are also used, but the usage depends on the specific wine region. Generally it is a classification awarded to specific vineyards denoting their potential for producing great wines. “Grand cru” is reserved for the very best vineyards, with “premier cru” the level just below.

33D Source of wealth for John D. Rockefeller : OIL

John D. Rockefeller was an American industrialist whose biggest success came with the Standard Oil Company that he founded and ran for over 25 years. Rockefeller became the richest man in the world, and America’s first billionaire.

34D Alma mater of Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe, in brief : UCLA

The great Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era (1947). When Robinson made his first MLB appearance, for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he did so in front of over 26,000 spectators. Well over half the crowd that day were African Americans, there to witness the event. Major League Baseball universally retired Robinson’s number 42 in 1997. However, on the annual Jackie Robinson Day, all MLB players on all teams wear #42 in his honor.

The great American tennis player Arthur Ashe spent the last years of his life writing his memoir called “Days of Grace”. He finished the manuscript just a few days before he passed away, dying from AIDS caused by a tainted blood transfusion.

38D Locales of tiny drums : EARS

The eardrum lies at the intersection of the outer ear and middle ear. Also called the tympanic membrane, the eardrum picks up vibrations in air caused by sound waves, and transmits these vibrations to three tiny bones called “ossicles”. These ossicles (hammer, anvil and stirrup) are in the middle ear, and transmit the vibration to an oval window. The oval window is the membrane-covered opening lying at the intersection of the middle ear and the inner ear. The vibrations are transmitted into fluid in the inner ear, and converted into nerve impulses in the cochlea that are transmitted to the brain.

51D Kelly Ripa or Jimmy Kimmel : TV HOST

When Kelly Ripa secured the co-host spot on morning television with Regis Philbin, she was still acting in “All My Children” in a role she had been playing for over ten years. After a year of holding down two jobs, she eventually gave up the acting gig. Ripa has acted as spokeswoman for several brands over the years, including Electrolux and Rykä.

Jimmy Kimmel is the host of the late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Kimmel also co-hosted “The Man Show” and my personal favorite, “Win Ben Stein’s Money”. Kimmel appeared on the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” in 2020, when he discovered that he was a cousin of Martha Stewart!

53D Pride of Punxsutawney : PHIL

Punxsutawney is a borough in Pennsylvania that is located about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Punxsutawney Phil is the famous groundhog that lives in the area. Phil comes out of his hole on February 2 each year and if he sees his shadow he goes back into his hole predicting six more weeks of winter weather. February 2 is known as “Groundhog Day”.

61D Pitch raisers for guitarists : CAPOS

A capo is a clamp-like device that is placed around the neck of a guitar or other stringed instrument to shorten the strings, and hence raise the pitch. The full name, rarely used these days, is “capo tasto”, which is Italian for “head of the fingerboard”.

64D Staves off : AVERTS

The word “stave” was originally the plural of “staff”, a word describing a wooden rod. To “stave off” originated with the concept of holding off with a staff. In the world of barrel-making, a stave is a narrow strip of wood that forms part of a barrel’s side.

77D “___ the season …” : ‘TIS

The music for the Christmas song “Deck the Halls” is a traditional Welsh tune that dates back to the 16th century. The same tune was used by Mozart for a violin and piano duet. The lyrics with which we are familiar (other than the “fa-la-la”) are American in origin, and were recorded in the 19th century.

“’Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la la!”

80D Like jellyfish … but not books about jellyfish? : SPINELESS

Jellyfish are found all over the ocean, right across the whole planet. They have been around for 500-700 million years, and so are the oldest multi-organ animal extant.

87D Cable channel that awards V.M.A.s : MTV

The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) have been presented annually since 1984, and honor the best in the world of music videos. The award itself is a statue featuring an astronaut on the moon, which was an image associated with MTV when it launched in the early 1980s. The statues are known colloquially as “moon men”.

88D Common poke ingredient : AHI

Poke is a Native Hawaiian dish featuring diced raw fish. “Poke” is a Hawaiian word meaning “to slice”.

89D “___ Doubtfire” : MRS

The 1993 comedy “Mrs. Doubtfire” is based on a 1987 novel called “Madame Doubtfire” by Anne Fine. The movie is set and was filmed in San Francisco. The title role is played by Robin Williams, who spent most of the movie dressed as the female Mrs. Doubtfire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the movie won the Oscar for Best Makeup.

91D Peaceful kind of music : AMBIENT

Brian Eno was one of the pioneers of the genre of ambient music. He composed an album in 1978 called “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”, which was the first in a series of four albums with an ambient theme. Eno named the tracks, somewhat inventively, 1/1, 1/2, 2/1 and 2/2.

93D ___ Arbor : ANN

Ann Arbor, Michigan was founded in 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. Supposedly, Allen and Rumsey originally used the name “Annsarbour” in recognition of stands of bur oak that were on the land they had purchased and in recognition of their wives, both of whom were called “Ann” (i.e. Anns’ Arbor)

96D Calculus calculations : SLOPES

Remember doing calculus at school, and all those derivatives and integrals? Well, you probably also remember that an integral calculates the area under a curve (for example), and a derivative calculates the slope of a tangent at a particular point on a curve.

99D Golden Globe winner Elba : IDRIS

Idris Elba is a British actor and DJ. He was born in London to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother. Elba’s breakthrough role came in 2002, when he was cast as Stringer Bell in the HBO series “The Wire”.

100D Grand Slam tournament winner Osaka : NAOMI

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

104D “Without ___, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable”: George Bernard Shaw : ART

George Bernard Shaw (GBS) was a very successful Irish playwright. Shaw was one of only two people to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature, and an Oscar (the other being Bob Dylan). He won his Oscar for adapting his own play “Pygmalion” for the 1938 film of the same name starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Most people are more likely to have seen the musical adaptation of “Pygmalion” that goes by the title “My Fair Lady”.

107D Oft-torn body parts, in brief : ACLS

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee. It is located in the center of the knee and connects the femur (thigh bone) to the tibia (shin bone).

108D “Smile!” : SAY CHEESE!

Photographers often instruct us to say “cheese” to elicit a smile-like expression. Even Japanese photographers use the word “cheese” to achieve the same effect. Bulgarians use the word “zele” meaning “cabbage”; the Chinese say “qiézi” meaning “eggplant”; the Danish say “appelsin” meaning “orange”, the Iranians say “sib” meaning “apple” and many Latin Americans just say “whiskey”.

109D Computer cable type : USB

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard dealing with how computers and electronic devices connect and communicate, and dealing with electrical power through those connections.

112D Carte preceder : A LA

On a restaurant menu, items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately. A menu marked “table d’hôte” (also called “prix fixe”) is a fixed-price menu with limited choice. “Table d’hôte” translates from French as “table of the host”.