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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Content commonly consumed by commuters : PODCASTS

A podcast is an audio or video media file that is made available for download. The name comes from the acronym “POD” meaning “playable on demand”, and “cast” from “broadcasting”. So, basically a podcast is a broadcast that one can play on demand, simply by downloading and opening the podcast file.

Our verb “to commute”, meaning “to go back and forth to work”, ultimately derives from the Latin “commutare”, meaning “to often change”. Back in the late 1800s, a “commutation ticket” was a season pass, so named because it allowed one to “change” one kind of payment into another. Quite interesting …

16A Like Miss Piggy and Captain Kirk, by birth : IOWAN

According to the storyline in “Star Trek”, Captain James Tiberius Kirk was born in Riverside, Iowa on March 22, 2233. The town of Riverside displays a plaque, noting Riverside as the “future birthplace of James T. Kirk”, but the date given is March 22, 2228. I sense a disturbance in the space-time continuum …

18A Condition that may be treated with SSRIs : PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a category of drugs that are usually prescribed as antidepressants.

19A “Bygones will be bygone, ___ fadin’ into gray” (Taylor Swift lyric) : ERAS

Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” made history by becoming the highest-grossing tour of all time, and the first concert tour to ever surpass $1 billion in revenue.

23A Diploma equivalent, for short : GED

The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a battery of four tests designed to demonstrate that a student has the academic skills of someone who has graduated from an American or Canadian high school.

24A Poet who wrote “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” : ELIOT

The last two lines of T.S. Eliot’s 1925 poem “The Hollow Men” are oft-quoted:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

40A Vans alternative : PUMA

The German sportswear company Puma was founded in 1948 by Rudolf Dassler, the elder brother of Adidas founder Adolf Dassler.

Vans is a manufacturer of mainly skateboarding shoes. The company was founded as a shoe manufacturer in 1966 called the Van Doren Rubber Company. The business turned towards skateboarders in the seventies, and then adopted the “Vans” name in the nineties.

41A Staggering blows? : GALES

A gale is a very strong wind, one defined by the Beaufort scale as having wind speeds from 50 to just over 100 kilometers per hour.

43A Alfresco dining spot : TERRACE

Our word “alfresco” means outdoors, in the fresh air. The term came into English from Italian, in which language “al fresco” translates literally as “in the cool air”.

56A Something raised during Oktoberfest : BEER TENT

Oktoberfest is a 16-day beer festival in Munich that actually starts in September. About six million people attend every year, making it the largest fair in the world. I’ve attended twice, and it really is a remarkable party …

Down

1D Not listen to, as on Spotify : SKIP

Spotify is a popular music-streaming service that was launched in Sweden in 2008.

8D Boxing Day mo. : DEC

Boxing Day is a holiday observed in some parts of the world, for example in the UK, Ireland and Canada. It is the day after Christmas, and historically is when servants and tradespeople would be given gifts known as “Christmas boxes”.

13D 7-5 and 6-0, e.g. : SETS

That is probably tennis.

22D One under a mare’s care : FOAL

There are lots of terms to describe horses of different ages and sexes, it seems:

• Foal: horse of either sex that is less than one year old
• Yearling: horse of either sex that is one to two years old
• Filly: female horse under the age of four
• Colt: male horse under the age of four
• Gelding: castrated male horse of any age
• Stallion: non-castrated male horse four years or older
• Mare: female horse four years or older

27D Luxurious European gambling mecca : MONTE CARLO

Monte Carlo is an administrative area in the Principality of Monaco that covers just under a quarter of a square mile. The area is known in particular as the location of the famous Monte Carlo Casino. “Monte Carlo” translates as “Mount Charles”, and was named in 1866 for Charles III of Monaco who was ruling the principality at the time.

29D One of 1,665 in the Eiffel Tower : STEP

The “Exposition Universelle” (World’s Fair) of 1889 was held in Paris, France. The 1900 fair is remembered for the magnificent entrance arch that was constructed for visitors. That entrance arch was to remain standing for only nine years, but the city decided to keep it and you can visit it today. Today we call that entrance arch the Eiffel Tower. The tower is sometimes referred to in French “La Dame de Fer”, meaning “the Iron Lady”.

35D Stage character who says “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child!” : LEAR

In William Shakespeare’s play “King Lear”, the title character is betrayed by two of three daughters. He refers to this betrayal, by Goneril in particular, with the words:

If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

40D Stickler, of a sort : PEDANT

A pedant is a person “who trumpets minor points of learning”, a person who tends to nit-pick. “Pedant” comes via Middle French from the Italian word “pedante” meaning “teacher”.

42D Ridged rod in construction : REBAR

A steel bar or mesh used to reinforce concrete is called “rebar”, which is short for “reinforcing bar”.

45D Not a striking personality? : SCAB

We first started calling strikebreakers scabs in the early 1800s, and before that a scab was a person who refused to join a trade union (back as early 1777). The word “scab” probably comes from the use of “scab” as a symptom of a skin disease, and so is a term that is meant to insult.

46D British bum : ARSE

Well, the word “arse” would never make it into a crossword on the other side of the pond, as it would be considered too rude. I have a similar reaction to the word “shag” as in “The Spy Who Shagged Me”. The film would never have been released with that title in the UK (where it was released as “Austin Powers 2”).