Tree dwelling snake

Hi, I'm John, your guest blogger for the day. I've known Jim for many a year and we worked closely together in the distant past on various mostly forgotten software projects. It has been great to reconnect with Jim in the crossword universe and I am happy to contribute.

Today's Friday August 1 puzzle (answers) by Patrick Berry (his 6th this year) is nominally themeless, but boy did it have a strong martial feel for me. U-BOAT I got quickly — is there any more infamous ship sinker? A-BOMBS also came quickly as did WARHORSE. I've never read the "Charge of the Light Brigade" but it just screams CRIMEAN war era to me. CARBINE was tougher for me, I was thinking of highways and roadways for the M-1 clue. Didn't know OCHS for "Draft Dodger Rag" singer but with a little fill it was there.

The martial trend completely tripped me up on Wellington however. Even thought it wasn't a proper response, DUKE kept flitting through my head. I had no idea what a Wellington BOOT was...apparently if I knew my Duke of Wellington trivia better, I would have known that it was a style of boot he helped to popularize.

My favorite military entry was my weapon of choice, WATER BALLOONS. The closest I ever came to getting arrested in my life was as a kid when, with my friends, I would regularly hide near the main thoroughfare in our town and pelt passing cars with water balloons. Apparently one of the cars was driven by my future mother-in-law and held my future wife as a passenger; they still remember the scare of the water balloon hitting the windshield. Good times.

Speaking of cars, who doesn't lament the passing of American Motors and the Pacer, the Gremlin, and the HORNET? Apparently even James Bond was a Hornet driver — I would have thought he was more a SAAB kind of guy (before SAAB became yet another GM nameplate with generic sedans).

A lot of animal kingdom activity in the puzzle too besides HORNET and WARHORSE. The Pack animal and Pack animal? clues were nice though not particularly tough. The MAMBA tree-dwelling snake is not something I care to encounter — thank goodness I live in the Northwest which is largely snake-free. I hike frequently and snakes dropping from trees would put a damper on that. Oh and has there ever been a less willing customer than a Spaying customer? I kind of think the PET owner is the customer more than the PET.

Proper names in this puzzle pretty much stumped me. I knew KAREN Silkwood, but Phil OCHS, LEONA Lewis, Jule STYNE, Frank NITTI meant nothing to me. Cross clues allowed me to get them all though.

And I was never much of a Monty Python fan, NORWEGIAN BLUE eventually became obvious, but I would have never known it.

I enjoyed GLUEALL as Elmer's product, first timer as fill in a puzzle, but it is misnamed — I glue a lot of things as part of my Halloween PROP building avocation, and GLUEALL doesn't glue all, in fact it doesn't really work on many materials. This to That is a wonderful resource for glue HOW-tos — just enter the two types of material you are trying to join, and there you go!

Elmer's is headquartered in Columbus Ohio, and I'm an Ohio State alum and huge fan. How oh how did it take me so long to figure out Snapper of a sort? I was stuck on animals, it took me several crosses to get to CENTER. By the way, go Bucks, beat USC in September 13's Game of the Century of the Week!

Comments

[Captain Jack]

This is why we find England so alluring. We just have boring old rubber boots. They name them after royalty.

Tricky puzzle. Thanks for the insights, John. I wish I had a Hornet so I could try that trick.

[ArtLvr]

Good wrrite-up, John -- thanks. This puzzle looked a bit daunting at first, but I eventually worked it out south to north, as I often do. Even at the end, in the NW, I looked at the clue "Like singing in the shower" and thought Aha, Soap Opera! Well, it went with three crosses... but no. Patrick Berry always has lots of neat clues, as well as enjoyable fill.

∑;)

[Wendy Laubach]

I still don't completely get "CENTER," but I assume a player of some kind "snaps" a ball of some kind.

I couldn't be sure I was remembering the parrot correctly. I knew that it was "pinin' for the fjords," and Norwegian Blue seemed to fit.

"Wellington boots" demonstrates again the usefulness of Patrick O'Brien novels to crosswording.

[Bill from NJ]

It's a football thing, Wendy. You essentially have it as the "center" hikes or delivers or "snaps" the ball to the quarterback to begin the play

[JimH]

Thanks for filling in for me, John. It's always interesting to see the different perspectives from my guest bloggers.

I followed your Norwegian Blue link to Wikipedia and found this wonderful paragraph:

It was at Graham Chapman's memorial service, that John Cleese began his eulogy by stating that Graham Chapman was no more, that he had ceased to be, that he had expired and gone on to meet his maker, and so on. Cleese went on to justify his eulogy by claiming that Chapman would never have forgiven him if he had not delivered it exactly as he did. Near the end he also called him an "ex-Chapman".

[joon]

awesome puzzle, great writeup. and "ex-chapman"! i love it!

[Wendy Laubach]

He had joined the choir unseen, he was pushin' up daisies. The surviving troupe did a great talk show routine once, too, that involved setting Chapman's urn on a coffee and reminiscing, then in the heat of an anecdote, kicking it over.

Thanks, Bill, for the football explanation. I was assuming it was basketball.