Listen With Others

I’ve recently been encouraged by shirleycurran to post a few thoughts on this blog.  I’ve taken up more seriously trying to solve The Listener just this year – and if I get more than half right in my first year will feel I’m doing very well!  This is my first published post so forgive me if it doesn’t goes 100% smoothly.  I am trying to write it more as a supplement to that posted by Shirley and Dave – so I will try to avoid covering the same ground if at all I can.  FYI, as well as being a keen solver, I’m also beginning to get a few puzzles of my own published here and there – with hopefully many more to come – under my pseudonym Encota.

First of all, many thanks to Jago for a gentle, cleverly constructed puzzle.  Showing my ignorance, I had to look up GOITRE to confirm it really was the result of Iodine deficiency; the other three (rickets, scurvy and beri-beri) were better known to me.  I thought the entries that crossed quadrant boundaries were particularly neatly constructed.  CHADO was also new to me but very generously clued, so easy to find.

As usual, I spent a little while try to read more (too much?) into the Title* but with little success.  EDICT with a (vitamin) C deficiency reduced to EDIT perhaps?!  No.   After that I was struggling.  Perhaps the TIDE is turning, given the occurrences of at least one of these deficiencies aboard ship??   No.  Hmm…  Am I missing something?

Overall, I love the variety of difficulty in The Listener and on balance prefer the harder ones; nonetheless this was great fun to solve – and reduced my excuses to avoid the dreaded ‘To Do’ list on home DIY (for which I think I am grateful!)

Tim / Encota

* With examples of Titles in 2016 including ‘Cycle 20% More’ and ‘Stomach’ I hope I am not the only one to find sussing the Setter’s train of thought here almost irresistible?