Every Friday a doctor and I (I’m a hospital librarian) work the WSJ crossword. This week’s theme was “Taking Up a Collection” and the theme answers were “Chasing Like a Bird,” “Loony Britain,” “Natural River,” and “Onions Commission.” Once clue read (I’m paraphrasing) “Collection from [all the theme answers]” and the answer was “Charitable Donations.”
We cannot for the life of us figure out this theme. What do these answers have in common and how do they relate? The doctor and I think it’s pretty sad that we can complete the puzzle, but don’t understand it!
I didn’t see the WSJ puzzle myself, but if one goes to Diary of a Crossword Fiend, scrolls down to the entry for “Friday 10/26”, and clicks on the “Read More…” link, one finds:
With that explanation, I suppose that I can see what’s going on, although I’m sure that it would make more sense with the original clues on hand. For instance, peedin, did the clue for “Loony Britain” just imply “loony bin”, or was there some indication that “Britain” was in the solution?
Antonius, the clue for “Loony Britain” was : Home of Monty Python and Benny Hill?"
I’m still not seeing it and OH YES I AM!!! The penny just dropped. I said to Dr. G. “maybe you take letters from each answer and put them together.” That’s it! It just came to me while I was typing.
The first answer was “chasing like a bird.” The phrase is really “sing like a bird” but stick the “cha” on it and that’s the first 3 letters of “charitable donation.” “Loony Britain” is “loony bin” with “bri” inserted.