Listen With Others

As a relative newbie to Listener solving I haven’t solved loads of Shackleton’s puzzles – but I do recall that his was one of the very best of 2016 with the Endurance-based puzzle.

So what do we have here…?  Will it be another packed-full grid?  I am already assuming the answer is Yes 🙂

Let’s cut to the chase: row 10 is fabulous!  If you wanted to clue ARTHUR RANSOME, a name at a time, then what could be better than:

IN PART HURRIED ?

A hidden word ‘in’ (p)ARTHUR(ried) and a synonym-phrase of ‘RAN SOME’, all in one.  Delightful!

After a lot of rummaging the following copy appeared from a box in the attic.  Aside: why is there never enough shelf space for all the books one owns?  Is it some sort of fundamental law?  I build more shelves; I give hundreds to the charity MIND; but there’s still not enough space.  Anyway, back to the plot…

As shown on the cover, the North Pole the children visit is definitely to the left of the picture (and the map inside backs it up).

However … hold on a cotton-picking minute … don’t be fooled so easily!

Though it appears to be this, it isn’t at all.  The book title anagram actually reveals ‘Whored in Italy’, the until-recently lost (and slightly seedy) early autobiography of Roald Amundsen, the most famous explorer common to the North and South Pole expeditions, both in the Fram.  Some solvers may have thought that the publication date nods towards the death of Arthur Ransome on 3rd June 1967 but clearly it’s really about the departure of the Amundsen expedition towards the South Pole, having departed from ‘recreational activities’ in Italy on 3rd June 1910.

cheers,

Tim / Encota