NPR Puzzle 9/4/11 - Greetings from Scotland! (Naltoc Smorfs: G'nite Erg)

It's the palindrome game:

Here's this week's (and next: see below) NPR puzzle:

This is a special two-week creative challenge involving palindromes. A palindrome reads backwards and forward the same. Write a palindrome that contains the name of a famous person. For example: "No, Mel Gibson is a casino's big lemon." Or "Ed, I saw Harpo Marx ram Oprah W. aside." You can use the famous person's full name or just the last name, whatever you like. The object is to write the most interesting palindrome that contains a famous person's name, past or present. Any length is fine, short or long. Palindromes will be judged on their interest, elegance and naturalness of syntax.

Did y'all have fun doing this?  I won't lie and say I did -- I just assigned it as a computer programming challenge for Ross and his software.  In the end, he wrote one and fragments of half-a-dozen others.  I cobbled together a completely lame sentence (see that bit about "naturalness of syntax"?  Yeah, mine doesn't have that) from one of Ross's half-prepared bits.

Here's Ross's:  No doge, T.S. Eliot sees toile stegodon.

Here's mine:  Purely TV ill luck nabs bank; cull Liv Tyler up?

Neither was entered.  Frankly, we did them today, well past the deadline!

Incidentally, we haven't provided a link or plug for TEA Crossword Helper in awhile, but someone must have done so because Ross got an all-time record number of orders last weekend.  Turns out Microsoft has an annual Puzzlehunt event and past winning teams have used TEA.  Someone blogged about that, and the rest, as they say, is more money.  (Still a modest amount, but...)

Other than commerce, we've been making a very leisurely tour of the East Coast of Scotland: Aberdeen, Montrose, St. Andrews, and lunch tomorrow in Edinburgh.  I have pictures, but I'm too much in holiday mode to bother posting them.  Maybe later...

Here are the photos I used in my last post (September 4), and their palindromic connections:

City Hall in Glenelg, South Australia

Neuquen, Argentina

Ada, near Belgrade

It's captioned on Flickr as "Mt. Renier" but of course that's a typo-palindrome.

Hajjah, Yemen

Edde, Byblos, Lebanon

Time for ...

P I C K   A   R A N G E

Here are this week's picks: 

Fewer than 50 -- Ross 50 - 100 -- Phil 100 - 150 -- Magdalen 150 - 200 -- Dave 200 - 250 -- DaveJ 250 - 300 300 - 350 -- Bob 350 - 400 400 - 450 450 - 500   500 - 550 550 - 600 600 - 650 650 - 700 700 - 750 750 - 800 800 - 850 850 - 900 900 - 950 950 - 1,000

1,000 - 1,050 -- David 1,050 - 1,100 1,100 - 1,150 1,150 - 1,200 1,200 - 1,250 1,250 - 1,300 1,300 - 1,350 -- Mendo Jim 1,350 - 1,400 1,400 - 1,450 1,450 - 1,500 1,500 - 1,550 1,550 - 1,600 1,600 - 1,650 1,650 - 1,700 1,700 - 1,750 1,750 - 1,800 1,800 - 1,850 1,850 - 1,900 1,900 - 1,950 1,950 - 2,000

2,000 - 2,050 2,050 - 2,100 2,100 - 2,150 2,150 - 2,200 2,200 - 2,250 2,250 - 2,300 2,300 - 2,350 2,350 - 2,400 2,400 - 2,450 2,450 - 2,500 2,500 - 2,750 2,750 - 3,000 3,000 - 3,250 3,250 - 3,500 3,500 - 4,000 4,000 - 4,500 4,500 - 5,000 More than 5,000 More than 5,000 and it sets a new record.

Our tie-break rule:  In the event that a single round number is announced, AND two separate people picked the ranges leading up to and leading up from that round number, the prize will be awarded to whichever entrant had not already won a prize, or in the event that both entrants had won a prize already or neither had, then to the earlier of the two entries on the famous judicial principle of "First Come First Serve," (or in technical legal jargon, "You Snooze, You Lose").