Listen With Others

Just what we needed after catching a very crowded train from Euston to the north with a range of wet and snowy conditions. Naturally I started my solve by reading through all the clues to confirm Jago’s continued membership of the Listener Setters’ Oenophile Outfit (though as, for years, he has organised the Setters’ dinner, there could be little doubt – even if this year he is having a break and the dinner is performing some sort of Frexit to France). I hunted vainly for those telling clues only to have to resort to the RED in ‘A subject of severe doubters making another attempt (4)’ The red was hidden there wasn’t it – and yes, hidden even more effectively in the final grid – there was the RED, so cheers Jago!

The other Numpty was solving so quickly that all I could do was wield the pen and soon the right hand side of the grid was full and we still hadn’t found a single pair of letters that needed to share a cell but he then suddenly announced ‘It’s going to be WHITE LIGHT down the left’, and, of course it was. PRISM quickly followed  so that we realized that those split cells had to form two continuous lines. We were lucky to be given that anagram ‘At back of theatre agitated prude becoming distracted (5)’ PRUDE + (theatr)E* leading to EPERDU and the EP and ER were candidates for cell sharing, as were the GO of EGOS, the FU of FUERO, the TE of TASTES, KI of KISAN, AS or FASCI and UB of YORUBA. How clever to have made those tally with across clues that used the pairs of letters in the other direction: HOGWARD, TREETOP, PER PRO, LYOMERI, GRASSUM and HUBCAP. Neat setting!

We spotted our prism and wondered ‘Is that all?’ but, of course, it wasn’t. How had I managed to fill the grid without spotting a single one of the rainbow colours that the prism was splitting the white light into? Nice one Jago.

Did someone mention Poat’s hare? There was one cavorting round HAWES (just a few miles from here) in Jago’s grid but I am afraid it is RIP Hare – he is clearly not going to appear in a straight line in four letters in the grid.

We’ve had a touch of friction in the family. As I buried him, the anguished other Numpty said “You can’t do that to him! Why not just send him off with a little suitcase and a label ‘Please look after this hare’ or something like that.” So I passed him the pencils and there’s Poat’s hare off on his hols, heading in a straight line to the beach.