Listen With Others

Starting with the Title, I am hoping my logic of approximately equal items is JFD’s train of thought:

• Les nourritures terrestres ->
• Fruits of the Earth ->
• Les Pommes de Terres ->
• Potatoes

This week’s puzzle was based upon a quote from Gide which translates, again roughly – my French is middling at best – to: “Let every emotion become an intoxication for you”. i.e. No half-measures – now that seems a good rule for life …

One clue in particular (6 across) stood out for me:

Out of bed, Queen dresses at Balmoral or Sandringham, maybe (7)

You may recall, the wordplay in this puzzle led to the answer with an extra letter. In this case it is (U)P (‘out of bed’) + ER (‘Queen’) + HAPS (‘covers up’, with Balmoral as a Scottish_indicator and Sandringham as an East_Anglian_indicator, the two regions where HAPS has that meaning!), and with the definition being that seemingly throwaway ” , maybe ” pretending to be a Definition By Example indicator. So the answer is PERHAPS. Fabulous! We see a lot of good clues in the better cryptic offerings each week but that has to be one of the best in recent times! YMMV etc. caveats applying, of course.

Wishing you all a great Xmas.

Cheers,

Tim / Encota