Listen With Others

A very gentle start to The Listener crossword in 2019 – thank you to Apt and the Editors for that 🙂

I was impressed with the Chambers definition of HYPERCORRECTION – the word to be written below the grid – which cites ‘between you and I’ as part of its definition.

Though most clues were straightforward, a couple took me a little more time:

13d. Those attending Pharaoh fret when rule of law’s abandoned (4)

‘Pharaoh’ was the extra word, so becoming:

Those attending fret when rule of law’s abandoned (4) 

I even had ?ATE.  What I’d missed (yet again!) was R for ‘rule of law’, defined in the BRB as R: rule (law), leading to G(r)ATE.  One day I’ll remember that without the BRB’s help!

And 25d’s,

Heading north, skinned fish departed port city (6) 

which became, after word deletion,

Heading north, skinned departed port city (6) 

It looked like it was going to be ODESSA, but why?  Eventually I think I parsed it correctly as { (p)ASSED O(n) }<

And the Title?  I think it’s ME (for I) and OWED (for the Merchant of Venice reference in the hidden message, “ALL DEBTS ARE CLEARED BETWEEN YOU AND I”).

Surely coincidence, I did notice that the rumoured late-1970s punk alter ego of this professional opera singer ( http://www.roh.org.uk/people/robert-burt ) was present in the grid, in the form of SAM SMEGMA – but that’s quite enough about that 🙂

Cheers all,

Tim / Encota