Listen With Others

Malva is the ornithological version of Dipper the Gardener, his previous puzzle with its migrating birds appearing less than a year ago in March. Here we had the answers and the clues being altered thematically, half one way and half another.

Cutting a long story short [Pun intended? Ed.], the thematic adjustents consisted of losing the last two or three letters of words. This seemed a bit vague to me, but assumed that all would be made clear later.

My favourite clue, due its novelty, was 7dn 4/13 + 2/3 + 3/4 + 1/6 is example of sum[ach] (4) for RHUS. I wondered if Malva thought this would be accepted by the vetters — or was it their clue?! And thank goodness he didn’t use this technique in his clue for BANDOLEONS! I also liked some of the thematic adjustments, like pass[age], fun[gal] and aster[oid].

Reaching the endgame, I must confess that the link between the title and the missing letters didn’t jump to mind. After all, losing two or three letters is not quite the same as scoring fewer shots, golf being a game where fewer is better! It needed me to find ALCATRAS in column 4 of the grid with its definition in Chambers telling me it was “a name applied to several large water birds, such as the pelican, gannet, frigate bird and albatross”. Kerching! And there in row 10 was ERNE the Eagle.

I have only ever seen one person at my golf club get an albatross, a rare feat indeed: as we left the green of a par 5, a ball rolled up and into the hole — from 220 yards away. One lucky teenager!

Slotting the SARDINE under the grid finished the puzzle. Thanks for the entertainment, Malva. I’d have been mortified if I hadn’t got there.