Bob Farrer of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posts the following:
We need a new pepper grinder, apparently. Milady says the reason the current one “doesn’t work properly” is because it’s actually our old salt grinder.
I say so what! A grinder is surely just a grinder…it grinds stuff. Does it really matter if it’s peppercorns or salt? Do I really need to fork out a tenner on a new pepper (or possibly salt!) grinder?
Comments:
Leo Guttridge: They are different, and don’t call me Shirley.
Josie Foster: If your wife says you need a new pepper grinder, you get a new pepper grinder. Have you learned nothing in your marriage?
Leigh Bosworth: When she says she needs a new pepper grinder, she means the sultry Italian waiter at your local ristorante.
Stephen Arthur: Don’t grind pepper as it can sometimes explode – gunpowder is made from a pepper & mustard mix.
Adrian Bull: I wonder how many people are injured by exploding pepper each year….?
Stephen: Thousands.
Adrian: My guess would be zero. Any evidence for yours?
Stephen: Well known; common sense.
Robin Smith: We’ve lost our last three houses as a result of the search for a finely seasoned steak.
Ruth Hunt: All those poor Italian waiters with their giant peppermills — have they been properly risk assessed ?
Murray Atkinson: The notion of exploding pepper is sheer nonsense. Flour explodes, though.
Sultan Brown: This man is experimenting with drugs. Give him a wide berth.
VP JD Vance, a Catholic convert, has picked a fight with the top American leaders of his church. Vance accused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of resettling “illegal immigrants” in order to get federal funding. NY Cardinal Dolan denounced the remarks as “scurrilous” and “nasty.”
Vance claimed that a concept from medieval Catholic theology — “ordo amoris” in Yiddish — justifies Trump’s America-first immigration crackdown. He says it delineates a hierarchy of care — to family first, followed by neighbor, community, fellow citizens and lastly those elsewhere.
I’m getting some popcorn — you want anything?
Will Shortz must be a fan of the Spice Girls. Since he returned from his illness recently, members of SG have already appeared three times. Today it was Emma Bunton. “Baby Spice” is 49 now, English, and married to Jade Jones who was also a performer but has become a chef. They have two kids: Tate and Beau.
Learned some neat stuff from the puzzle and comments today. “Kojak and Friday, for two,” was the clue for TV COPS. Have you heard the expression “to find a Kojak?” It means finding a parking spot right in front of your destination, especially in an area where it’s hard to find parking. It’s from the show KOJAK where Kojak always finds a spot right in front in Manhattan, where even God usually has to circle the block a few times. If I were in charge I would have them circling the area for ten hours before parking. Ten hours of: “Is that a spot?” “No, it’s a hydrant.” “Think we can fit there?” “No way, are you nuts?” “Is he leaving?” “How about near that corner?”
The other phrase I learned was “plot armor.” That’s when a character is very important for the plot, so you know he or she can’t be killed. It arose in connection with 1A in the puzzle where the clue was “Like the ending of a typical rom-com.” I filled in “boy gets girl,” but it was wrong. The answer was “PREDICTABLE.” It set Rex off on a rant:
The cluing was really holding back my enjoyment today, in a big way. Let’s start with the worst clue, from my perspective as a broad-minded movie lover: 1A: Like the ending of a typical rom-com (PREDICTABLE). I would never have expected the puzzle to have such a sneering attitude toward rom-coms. Slightly surprised to see a woman’s name on the byline, as honestly that kind of sneering, dismissive *&$% is far, far more indicative of a man who pointedly proudly and smugly doesn’t watch rom-coms (or calls them “chick flicks”) (maybe the clue was an editorial decision, who knows?). It’s such a weird, weak, judgmental, ignorant, and (because rom-coms are primarily aimed at women) sexist take, and it’s not even true. Or … at least it’s hard to either prove or falsify. Are rom-com endings PREDICTABLE? Are they any more PREDICTABLE than the “typical” endings of literally any other genre?? Most movies are bad and boring. Reflexive denigration of the rom-com specifically is some Awful Movie Guy stuff, so I’m very surprised to see it here (in a puzzle not made by a guy).
Sheesh. Guess it hit a nerve.
The next thing I learned was about sea urchins. The clue was “Site where a previously unidentified species of sea urchin was discovered in 2004.” You’d think it could be some sort of bay, but EBAY? What? It turns out:
Sea urchin shells and spines are popular collectors’ items on eBay, but buyers began to get confused when the shells they received didn’t look like anything else in their collections. “Every week I’d get collectors contacting me and asking me to identify the species,” says Simon Coppard at the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When he and colleague Heinke Schultze, an independent researcher, compared similar unidentified specimens from New Caledonia in the South Pacific with species records, they found nothing matched. (From New Scientist)
At 22D the clue was “Some sources of typhus,” and the answer was LICE. Rex was not happy:
Some sources of typhus? How many are there? How much of my day do you think I spend going “hey, what are the sources of typhus? I wonder if I can name all the sources of typhus? Or maybe just a quick half dozen.” It’s like the world’s worst party game: name the typhus sources. I barely know what typhus is, and can name literally zero sources. So LICE was a complete surprise. I’m sure it’s correct, but “Some sources,” LOL, like I have a vast store to pick from. I Have No Store. Make your clue more LICE-like, more LICE-specific, please.
Margaret Atwood has a cat. She also wrote this poem called “February,” which appeared in today’s Writer’s Almanac.
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
We’re going to let a pretty Spice Girl send us off tonight. See you tomorrow! (George!! Get Emma a Fresca — what the hell’s wrong with you??)
The Wellington Files 