Listen With Others

It has been over two years since Ferret’s last Listener, Fieldwork with its theme of Crop Rotation. This week, we weren’t going round in circles, but up and down. This applied not only to the clues, where a word in each pair moved down with a word moving up to replace it, but also in the Vertical clues, where half were entered down and half up.

All in all, good fun trying to work out what words needed to move in order to make sense of the clues. Eventually, the initial letters of the moved words led to Neapolitan inclined plane railway. The last two words made me think we were dealing with Trains and Boats and Planes, but FUNICULI FINICULA soon became apparent in the central two columns of the grid with composer DENZA (who has a lot to answer for) and lyricist TURCO appearing there for good measure.

The song was composed in 1880. Unlike the funicular railway itself, it wasn’t destroyed in the eruption of Mount VESUVIUS in 1944. [Who just said “Unfortunately?” Ed.]

Thanks, Ferret. It’s always nice to see everything in a puzzle coming together thematically. And thanks to Turco and Denza for having the same number of letters in their names.