Here's an interesting piece of trivia about the cover of the Beatles album "Help!": they are actually spelling out "N-U-J-V" in semaphore. Apparently, the photographer did not like the arm arrangements with the band spelling "H-E-L-P." And with that, it's on to the puzzle! The answer to the meta is a 6-letter word. Answer & explanation: https://www.xword-muggles.com/viewtopic.php?p=138698#p138698
Check out "The MOAT Mini Pack of Marching Bands" here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html. US$5 gets you 7 Marching Bands which, hard enough on their own, now contain metas too. And once again there's a mega-meta!
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Comments
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Dow Jones 3s · almost 2 years ago
Beatles are always great in metas. That was fun !!
Indeed! Unfortunately, the Beatles don't feature in my new MOAT Music Meta Pack (available here: https://www.ephesusscroll.com/about/interest4.html) but there are lots of other fun music-themed metas in there!
Just a castaway, I've fallen from the boat /
Another lonely day, to swim across this MOAT /
More puzzling than any man could bear /
Rescue me before I fall into despair, oh / I'll send an SOS to the world...
That sounds a lot like the Police! Very nice, indeed.
merlinnimue 10:05 · almost 2 years ago
i am completely pop music dumb, i know nothing about the beatles or rage against the machine, the last of which particularly stumped me here... i bet it was supposed to be easy, but i needed a lot of N-U-J-V on this puzzle... thanks anyway
There's absolutely no problem with using Google to help fill in the grid. I do it all the time, because it is impossible to stay completely up-to-date on all facets of pop culture. I personally have never listened to Rage Against The Machine; I would have had to Google the answer to 40 down.
Ergcat 14:41 · almost 2 years ago
Good one, Ben! Thanks for the Beatles Trivia, too… didn’t know that!
lbray53 2s · almost 2 years ago
Fun. Thanks.
boharr 4s · almost 2 years ago
Thanks
MatthewL 🤓6:54 · almost 2 years ago
Fun one, Ben, thanks! For a second, I thought these were some strange Aussie spellings, but then realized what was going on. And now I'm going to have Message in a Bottle stuck in my head all day (the Police one, not Taylor).
Tyrpmom 3s · almost 2 years ago
I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed that semaphores weren’t required. I thought the intro was a clue.
There has been at least one muggle puzzle involving semaphore in the past; but it's not something that's in my particular wheelhouse!
I K Snamhcok 14:14 · almost 2 years ago
Just for what it’s worth, my particular favorites from the “Help!” album are the title track and “Ticket to Ride”. Anyone else here tend to view the latter as underrated Beatles? Thanks, Ben!
I think our use of "thong" is much funnier. I wear thongs (that is "flip-flops", to any Americans out there) to the beach all the time!
ReB 3s · almost 2 years ago
I first came across the use of "torch" in Lewis' "Prince Caspian". When 46D came up here, I assumed that Aussies would use the British term. I also assumed the same with ochre (49A).
Yes, I try to always use British/Australian spelling. (If I have to use a US spelling I usually try to indicate that in the clue.)
ReB 3s · almost 2 years ago
Once I caught on to what was happening with the inconsistent cross-spellings, everything quickly fell into place - especially with your SEMAPHORING (so to speak) in 54A.