other Washington Post Sunday crossword, October 2 (contains answers)

Posted October 17, 2005 • Comments Off on Washington Post Sunday crossword, October 2 (contains answers)

Cw-051002

Title: PR Spin
Theme entries: common phrases with the letters P and R switched to form new phrases with new definitions.

23A, Course for wallet thieves: pocket science
28A, Bennett Cerf autobio?: Born To Pun
45A, Vacation spot for tightwads?: Piker’s Island
69A, Cause of a water main break?: pipe old age
73A, Dog groomer’s service?: pug shampoo
96A, Bit of Quantico KP scrap?: Virginia peel
110A, Reaction to a stubbed toe?: pain dance
121A, React to an alarm?: pound the clock

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

15A, Mail HQ: GPO [maybe it’s just my line of work, but when I see GPO I think of the GPO]
78A, Actress Merkel: UNA
101A, “Funny Face” director Stanley: DONEN
3D, Caesar cohort: COCA [I just got that this means Sid (and Imogene), not Julius, as I was about to look it up]
7D, Distinguishing marks: CACHETS
20D, Spiritual leader: REBBE [this one comes up a lot and usually gets me to write rabbi and screw up—but not today]
72D, Tamboura sounds: DRONES

73D, Idiomatic hoister: PETARD
[I knew this, but I didn’t know what one was. The best part of this is that there is a spoiler warning in the Wikipedia article. The work being spoiled? Hamlet. The whole section on the phrase is really interesting, though. Petard has two meanings; the animal trap definition makes sense, while the explosives one does not—until you read the explanation of what Shakespeare meant.]

74D, Field hockey relative: HURLING
77D, Painter of the Last Supper: DALI [his is quite something; it’s here in DC]

Overall:
I messed up zero squares in this one (streak: 3). This was a neat little theme, with a nice level of satisfaction when I got clever ones like pipe old age, and private joy when I saw Born To Pun. 8 theme entries, 6 things I had to look up, both low numbers.