Category: Tom Pepper

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Constructed by: Tom Pepper & Zhouqin Burnikel
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Rock ‘n’ Roll

Themed answers are either PLACES FOR ROCKS or PLACES FOR ROLLS:

• 22A Place for a rock : SOLITAIRE RING
• 27A Place for a roll : CRAPS TABLE
• 34A Place for a rock : CURLING MATCH
• 58A Place for a roll : SUSHI PLATTER
• 84A Place for a rock : ROSHAMBO GAME
• 105A Place for a roll : BOWLING ALLEY
• 112A Place for a Rock : COMEDY CLUB
• 123A Place for a roll : TAPE DISPENSER

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 13m 30s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

19 Harding biopic : I, TONYA

“I, Tonya” is a 2017 comedy biopic about the life of figure skater Tonya Harding, with a focus on the 1994 attack on Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan. Harding is played by Australian actress Margot Robbie. I haven’t seen this one, but it’s on my list as I hear good things …

21 Chihuahua coin : CENTAVO

“Centavo” is a Spanish and Portuguese word, and is used for the coin that represents 1/100 of the basic monetary units of quite a few countries, including Cuba. “Centavo” comes from the Latin “centum” meaning “one hundred” and “-avo” meaning “portion, fraction”.

The city of Chihuahua is the capital of the Mexican state of the same name. The city was founded in 1709 by Spanish explorers as a village called El Real de Minas de San Francisco de Cuéllar. However, the current name “Chihuahua” predates the Spanish conquest of Mexico, although the name wasn’t adopted until 1823.

22 Place for a rock : SOLITAIRE RING

In the world of jewelry, a solitaire is a single gem set alone.

24 1984 Jeff Bridges film that begins with a UFO crash : STARMAN

“Starman” is a 1984 sci-fi film about an alien who takes over the body of a human clone (played by Jeff Bridges). The clone was formed from a lock of hair belonging to the deceased husband of a woman (played by Karen Allen) who witnesses the cloning process. It sounds creepy, but the movie can actually be categorized as a romance.

25 Shorthand system : STENO

Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

27 Place for a roll : CRAPS TABLE

If one considers earlier versions of craps, then the game has been around for a very long time and probably dates back to the Crusades. It may have been derived from an old English game called “hazard” also played with two dice, which was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” from the 1300s. The American version of the game came here courtesy of the French and first set root in New Orleans where it was given the name “crapaud”, a French word meaning “toad”.

33 “Trainwreck” director Judd : APATOW

“Trainwreck” is a romantic comedy released in 2015 that brings together the talents of Judd Apatow as director and Amy Schumer as writer. Schumer also stars.

34 Place for a rock : CURLING MATCH

I think curling is such a cool (pun!) game. It’s somewhat like bowls, but played on a sheet of ice. The sport was supposedly invented in medieval Scotland, and is called curling because of the action of the granite stone as it moves across the ice. A player can make the stone take a curved path (“curl”) by causing it to slowly rotate as it slides.

39 Carbon compound : ENOL

An enol is an alkene with a hydroxyl group, and so is part-alkene and part-alcohol. The term “enol”, therefore, is a portmanteau of “alkene” and “alcohol”.

40 Short evening wear? : PJS

Our word “pajamas” (sometimes “PJs” or “jammies”) comes to us from the Indian subcontinent, where “pai jamahs” were loose fitting pants tied at the waist and worn at night by locals and ultimately by the Europeans living there. And “pajamas” is another of those words that I had to learn to spell differently when I came to America. On the other side of the Atlantic, the spelling is “pyjamas”.

44 Microsoft Office default typeface until 2007 : ARIAL

Microsoft Office is a suite of applications that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook,

45 Ore-Ida side, familiarly : TOTS

Ore-Ida’s founders came up with the idea for Tater Tots when they were deciding what to do with residual cuts of potato. They chopped up the leftovers, added flour and seasoning, and extruded the mix through a large hole making a sausage that they cut into small cylinders. We eat 70 million pounds of this extruded potato every year!

47 Tech company with an exclamation point : 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”.

55 Hulu alternative : ROKU

Roku is a manufacturer of digital media players that allow access to audio and video programming over the Internet that is shown on television. The company was founded in Los Gatos, California in 2002 by Anthony Wood. Wood chose the name “Roku” as it is the Japanese word for “six”, and Roku is the sixth company that Wood founded.

58 Place for a roll : SUSHI PLATTER

When I’m thinking of sushi, I’m really picturing “makizushi” (also “maki”), which is fish, vegetables and sushi rice combined in layers and rolled up in seaweed. “Makizushi” translates from Japanese as “rolled sushi”.

61 __ as punch : PROUD

The phrases “pleased as punch” and “proud as punch” come from the traditional “Punch and Judy” puppet show that used to be popular in England, especially at seaside resorts.

Punch and Judy puppets date back to the 17th century, with roots in Italy, The manifestation familiar to the English-speaking world features Punch wearing a jester’s outfit and carrying a stick. Punch is very violent, and tends to use his stick to wallop his wife Judy. Frankly, the storyline used in traditional PUnch and Judy shows is very, very inappropriate …

64 Shopping cart count : ITEMS

I say avoid any express checkout lane in a market that is labeled “10 items or less”. It should be “10 items or fewer”. I know, I know … I should calm down … and get a life …

66 Fit together, as some dolls : NEST

Matryoshka dolls are those wooden nesting dolls that are on sale at every tourist trap across Russia. “Matryoshka” is Russian for “little matron”.

69 Brobdingnagian : GIANT

Brobdingnag is one of the lands visited by the hero in Jonathan Swift’s novel “Gulliver’s Travels”. Brobdingnag is inhabited by giants, so we use the term “brobdingnagian” to mean “huge, enormous”.

73 Kung __ chicken : PAO

Kung Pao chicken (or maybe shrimp) is a Sichuan stir-fry dish that includes chicken/shrimp, peanuts, vegetables and chili peppers. The name “Kung Pao” is thought to come from a governor of the Sichuan province whose title was “Gongbao”, meaning “Palace Guardian”.

80 Dave Barry genre : HUMOR

Dave Barry is a very humorous guy, an author and columnist. Barry also plays lead guitar in a rock band called The Rock Bottom Remainders. Also included in the band are noted authors Stephen King, Amy Tan and Scott Turow.

84 Place for a rock : ROSHAMBO GAME

Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people, at least here in North America. Back in Ireland we called the game “scissors-paper-stone”, and another name encountered around the English-speaking world is “roshambo”. The game is often used as a way to choose between two options or two individuals.

90 Mammal with more gray matter than a human : ORCA

Gray matter and white matter are the two components of the central nervous system. Gray matter is mainly made up of neurons, and white matter is largely made of axons, the projections of the neurons that form nerve fibers.

91 Caesar __ : SALAD

The caesar salad was created by restaurateur Caesar Cardini at the Hotel Caesar’s in Tijuana, Mexico. The original recipe called for whole lettuce leaves that were to be lifted up by the stem and eaten with the fingers.

92 Nabe in lower Manhattan : SOHO

The Manhattan neighborhood known today as SoHo was very fashionable in the early 1900s, but as the well-heeled started to move uptown the area became very run down and poorly maintained. Noted for the number of fires that erupted in derelict buildings, SoHo earned the nickname “Hell’s Hundred Acres”. The area was then zoned for manufacturing and became home to many sweatshops. In the mid-1900s artists started to move into open loft spaces and renovating old buildings as the lofts were ideal locations in which an artist could both live and work. In 1968, artists and others organized themselves so that they could legalize their residential use of an area zoned for manufacturing. The group they formed took its name from the name given to the area by the city’s Planning Commission i.e “South of Houston”. This was shortened from So-uth of Ho-uston to SoHo as in “SoHo Artists Association”, and the name stuck.

93 Miami Heat coach Spoelstra : ERIK

When Erik Spoelstra was appointed head coach for the Miami Heat in 2008, he became the first Asian-American to serve as head coach in any of the four major North American sports leagues.

96 Australia’s national gemstone : OPAL

The largest opal ever found, and the most valuable, is the Olympic Australis. It was discovered in South Australia in 1956. That same year, the Summer Olympics were being held in Melbourne so the newly discovered stone was given the name “Olympic Australis”.

101 Orecchiette shape : EAR

Orecchiette are small dome-shaped pasta from Southern Italy. Each piece resembles a small ear, hence the name. “Orecchietta” (the singular) comes from the Italian “orecchia” meaning “ear” and “-etta” meaning “small”.

102 Asgard god : ODIN

Asgard is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse religions. It is where the Norse gods live, and is also home to Valhalla, the enormous hall ruled over by the god Odin.

105 Place for a roll : BOWLING ALLEY

Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

108 Actress Jennifer in Capital One commercials : GARNER

Jennifer Garner is an actress who garnered (pun!) attention for her recurring role as the lead in the thriller series “Alias” on ABC. Garner was married to fellow actor Ben Affleck from 2005 to 2018.

110 Letters after nus : XIS

The Greek letter “xi”, despite the name, is not the precursor of our letter X. Our X comes from the Greek letter “chi”.

111 “Othello” villain : IAGO

In William Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Iago is the villain of the piece. At one point he readily admits this, saying “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse”. Here he is claiming to make money out of making fools of others. In this case, he takes money from Roderigo, who believes that Iago will help him bed Othello’s wife Desdemona.

112 Place for a Rock : COMEDY CLUB

Chris Rock is a great stand-up comedian. Interestingly, Rock cites his paternal grandfather as an influence on his performing style. Grandfather Allen Rock was a preacher.

123 Place for a roll : TAPE DISPENSER

Scotch Tape is a brand of adhesive tape made by 3M. “Scotch Tape” is one of those brand names that has become a generic term for the product. The equivalent brand name of the product that we use over in Ireland is Sellotape. This British brand also has become a generic term, and so is our equivalent to “Scotch tape”.

130 Knobs on a pipe organ : STOPS

A stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits a flow of air to a specific set of organ pipes. The organ player can allow air to flow, or can “stop” it (hence the name “stop”). Stops are classified according to the group of pipes that are controlled, with stops often being named for the sounds imitated by those pipes. So, for example, there are flute stops, string stops and reed stops.

Down

1 Loch in hoax photos : NESS

The Surgeon’s Photograph is an image that was taken in 1934, supposedly of the Loch Ness Monster. It is perhaps the most famous picture of Nessie to this day, the one with a “head” and “neck” sticking up out of the water. The picture’s renown doesn’t seem to have abated, even though in the mid-nineties the photograph was shown to be a hoax. The picture is called the Surgeon’s Photograph because it was taken by a Dr. Wilson.

3 Strong wind : GALE

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.

4 Word with column or cord : SPINAL …

The vertebrae are the individual bones that give strength and flexibility to the spinal column. The word “vertebra” is Latin. The term probably derives from the verb “vertere” meaning “to turn”, the idea being that the individual bones in the back allow turning and twisting.

5 Oregon’s oldest city : ASTORIA

The city of Astoria, Oregon developed around Fort Astoria, which was established in 1810. Fort Astoria was a fur-trading post built by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company, hence the “Astoria” name.

6 Cha, chai, or matcha : TEA

“Cha” is a Chinese word meaning “tea”.

Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk, with “chai” being the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up in Ireland, with “char” being our slang word for tea, derived from “chai”.

Matcha is a powder made by grinding dried, green tea leaves. The selected tea bushes are heavily shaded for several weeks prior to harvest, which stimulates the production of chlorophyll resulting in darker green leaves. Matcha is used in East Asian cuisines to prepare tea for drinking, and also as an ingredient in dishes such as ice cream, cakes and sushi rolls.

8 2021 Marvel movie directed by Chloé Zhao : ETERNALS

“Eternals” is a 2021 superhero film in Marvel Cinematic Universe. The title characters are an offshoot of humanity created to defend Earth with their superpowers. In the film, they are sent to Earth to exterminate the Deviants, who have invaded the planet.

10 “32 Flavors” singer DiFranco : ANI

“32 Flavors” is a song that was written and recorded by Ani DiFranco in 1995. Alana Davis released a cover version of “32 Flavors” as her debut single in 1998. The song title is a pun on the Baskin-Robbins slogan “31 flavors”.

13 Chess legend Karpov : ANATOLY

Russian grandmaster Anatoly Karpov was the official world chess champion from 1975 until 1985. He transitioned into the world of politics, and was elected a Member of the State Duma in 2011.

16 Shape of sesame seeds : OVAL

The sesame is a flowering plant that is cultivated mainly for its edible seeds. The seeds are a source of oil, and indeed, the sesame is the oldest known oilseed crop.

20 Indian city with a : AGRA

The most famous mausoleum in the world has to be the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. It was built after the death of the fourth wife of Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal (hence the name of the mausoleum). The poor woman died in childbirth delivering the couple’s 14th child. When Shah Jahan himself passed away 35 years later, he was buried beside his wife Mumtaz, in the Taj Mahal.

21 House channel : C-SPAN

C-SPAN is a privately-funded, nonprofit cable channel that broadcasts continuous coverage of government proceedings.

30 Disgraced energy company : ENRON

After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received ten years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved and she was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

34 Swimmer’s woe : CRAMP

“Charley horse” is a very American term for painful muscle spasms in the legs. The term possibly arose in the late 19th century, and may be named for baseball pitcher Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn who apparently suffered a lot from leg cramps.

35 __ Pradesh: Indian state : UTTAR

The nation of India comprises 29 states and 7 union territories. The largest state by area is Rajasthan, in the northwest of the country. The most populous state is the neighboring Uttar Pradesh.

37 “All in the Family” spinoff : MAUDE

The seventies sitcom “Maude” stars Bea Arthur as the title character Maude Findlay. “Maude” is a spin-off of “All in the Family”, as Findlay is a cousin of Edith Bunker.

42 Some whiskey drinks : SOURS

A whiskey sour is made from whiskey, lemon juice and sugar, and is usually garnished with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry. My favored variant (by far) is the delicious New York sour, which includes a float of dry red wine.

46 Largest island in French Polynesia : TAHITI

French Polynesia (Polynésie française) is a vast overseas territory of France that is located in the South Pacific Ocean. It comprises 118 islands and atolls dispersed over 1,609 square miles, the most populous being Tahiti.

54 Muppet who never says “I” : ELMO

The “Sesame Street” character named Elmo has a birthday every February 3rd, and on that birthday he always turns 3½ years old. The man behind/under Elmo on “Sesame Street” for many years was Kevin Clash. If you want to learn more about Elmo and Clash, you can watch the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”.

57 Port city south of Kyiv : ODESA

The city of Odessa (also “Odesa”) in Ukraine was founded relatively recently, in 1794 by Catherine the Great. The city was originally meant to be called Odessos after an ancient Greek city believed to have been located nearby. Catherine liked the way the locals pronounced the name as “Odessa” and so went with the less Greek-sounding name.

58 __ Lankan rupee : SRI

The island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southeast coast of India. The name “Sri Lanka” translates from Sanskrit into English as “venerable island”. Before 1970, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, a name given to the country during British rule.

60 Japan’s largest beermaker : ASAHI

Asahi is a Japanese beer, and the name of the brewery that produces it. “Asahi” is Japanese for “morning sun”. Asahi introduced a “dry beer” in 1987, igniting a craze that rocketed the brewery to the number one spot in terms of beer production in Japan, with Sapporo close behind.

67 Costco rival, familiarly : SAM’S

Sam’s Club is a warehouse club that is owned and operated by Walmart. It is named after the company’s founder Sam Walton. Walton opened the first Sam’s Club in 1983 in Midwest City, Oklahoma.

68 Bulky brass instrument : TUBA

The tuba is the lowest-pitched of all brass instruments, and one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra (usually there is just one tuba included in an orchestral line-up). “Tuba” is the Latin word for “trumpet, horn”. Oom-pah-pah …

72 Instrument for a troubadour : LUTE

A troubadour was a composer and musician of the Middle Ages whose works dealt mainly with chivalry and courtly love. Troubadours were usually men, and a female troubadour would have been called a trobairitz, a lovely word …

75 Prized statuette : OSCAR

Legend has it that actor Emilio Fernández was the model for the Oscar statuette. Cedric Gibbons, art director at MGM, created the design and supposedly convinced a reluctant Fernández to pose nude for “Oscar”.

77 Sanders, for one : COLONEL

The famous “Colonel” of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame was Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur from Henryville, Indiana. Although not really a “Colonel”, Sanders did indeed serve in the military. He enlisted in the Army as a private in 1906 at the age of 16, lying about his age. He spent the whole of his time in the Army as a soldier in Cuba. It was much later, in the 1930s, that Sanders went into the restaurant business making his specialty deep-fried chicken. By 1935 his reputation as a “character” had grown, so much so that Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky gave Sanders the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel”. Later in the fifties, Sanders developed his trademark look with the white suit, string tie, mustache and goatee. When Sanders was 65 however, his business failed and in stepped Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. Thomas simplified the Sanders menu, cutting it back from over a hundred items to just fried chicken and salads. That was enough to launch KFC into the fast food business. Sanders sold the US franchise in 1964 for just $2 million and moved to Canada to grow KFC north of the border. He died in 1980 and is buried in Louisville, Kentucky. The Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices is indeed a trade secret. Apparently there is only one copy of the recipe, a handwritten piece of paper, written in pencil and signed by Colonel Sanders. Since 2009, the piece of paper has been locked in a computerized vault surrounded with motion detectors and security cameras.

79 “No Logo” author Klein : NAOMI

Canadian author and filmmaker Naomi Klein’s best-known works might be her best-selling 1999 book “No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies”, and her 2004 documentary “The Take” that she released with her husband Avi Lewis. The former discusses and supports the anti-globalization movement, and the latter tells the story of factory workers in Argentina who formed a collective to reopen and operate a closed manufacturing plant.

81 Big picture? : MURAL

A mural is a painting that is applied directly to a wall or a ceiling. The term “mural” comes from the Latin “murus” meaning “wall”.

82 Black swan of ballet : ODILE

“Swan Lake” is such a delightfully light and enjoyable ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by a sorcerer. The ballet also features Odile, Odette’s “evil twin”. Odile is disguised to look like Odette with the goal of tricking the prince to fall in love with her. In the ballet, the roles of Odette and Odile are played by the same ballerina. Odette’s love interest is Prince Siegfried, the only character in the ballet to appear in all four acts.

85 Rogue computer of sci-fi : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”. Even though Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

88 Hypocritical sorts : PHONIES

Something or someone described as phony (sometimes “phoney”) is not genuine or real. There is a suggestion that the term “phony” comes from “fawney”, which was a gold-plated brass ring used by swindlers in place of a one made of pure gold.

89 Polynesian kingdom with more than 170 islands : TONGA

The Kingdom of Tonga is made up of 176 islands in the South Pacific, 52 of which are inhabited and scattered over an area of 270,000 square miles. Tonga was given the name Friendly Islands in 1773 when Captain James Cook first landed there, a reference to the warm reception given to the visitors. The nation’s capital is the city of Nukuʻalofa on the island of Tongatapu.

92 Tortilla chip topper : SALSA DIP

“Tortilla” translates literally from Spanish as “little cake”.

97 Fish in some omelets : LOX

Lox is a brine-cured salmon filet that is finely sliced. The term “lox” comes into English via Yiddish, and derives from the German word for salmon, namely “Lachs”.

104 Ancient Cuzco dwellers : INCAS

Cusco (also “Cuzco”) is a city in the southeast of Peru. Historically, Cusco was the historic capital of the Inca Empire, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.

108 Italian city known for salami : GENOA

Genoa salami is made using preservation techniques that originated in ancient Rome.

109 Oldest of the Pointer Sisters : RUTH

The Pointer Sisters started out in 1969 as a duo, June and Bonnie Pointer. They grew to a quartet when sisters Anita and Ruth joined the lineup. Bonnie left the group to go solo, and the Pointer Sisters achieved their greatest success as a trio.

112 Lombardy lake : COMO

Lake Como is a glacial lake in Lombardy, Italy that has long been a retreat for the rich and famous. Lakeside homes there are owned by the likes of Madonna, George Clooney, Gianni Versace, Sylvester Stallone and Richard Branson.

113 Cartel founded in Baghdad : OPEC

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 at a conference held in Baghdad, Iraq that was attended by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nine more countries joined the alliance soon after, and OPEC set up headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and then Vienna, Austria in 1965. The basic aim of OPEC was to wrest control of oil prices from the oil companies and put it in the hands of the sovereign states that own the natural resource.

125 Safety gear for ER workers : PPE

Personal protective equipment (PPE)