Listen With Others

The song ‘RING OF FIRE’ was number one on the Country Charts for Johnny Cash exactly 55 years ago (Spring 1963, for 7 weeks), according to the font of all knowledge and wisdom (i.e. Wikipedia).

I loved the PDM on this one.  I also really enjoyed the wide range of synonyms used for FIRE around Ring 1 in the interesting Circular grid used:

• DISCHARGE
• DETONATE
• IGNITE
• SHOOT
• ENLIVEN and
• SACK

Ring 3 contained the first two lines of the song, too.

What with all that Fire about, then things could easily get singed, so finally we had to add the perpetrator … namely the singe-r … in the centre of the Ring of Fire.

Once all the thematic part was dealt with, it was then that the hard work started – for me at least!  Of the 39 radial clues I still had 26 to solve and, crikey, I found them difficult.  Having little to go on, apart from answer length and a few crossers – but not knowing precisely where those checked letters were positioned – made this a long slog.  The shared characters in Rings 4, 5 and 6 offered a little respite in that it made it much easier to solve clues adjacent to ones already solved.  At 8 minutes or so per clue (whilst watching the Commonwealth Games at the same time, admittedly), it was many hours – in fact the following lunchtime – before I eventually polished this one off.

My rough copy attempt looked like this:

Hard work, great thematic material – thanks The Ace of Hearts!

Tim / Encota