Listen With Others

Ares seems to be a new setter pseudonym and we muse about it. It anagrams to RASE, SEAR, ERAS and the Spanish word SERA doesn’t it? Later on, we muse that it is a combination of elements 18 (Argon) and 99 (Einsteinium). One friend commented to me that the pseudonym and title clicked immediately for him (and that it was a good thing that he or she didn’t entitle the puzzle 1834) but it took us the solving of several clues and the finding of DMITRI to produce the p.d.m. No, not Shostakovich, but MENDELEEV. From then on, the other Numpty completed the solving of the clues, while I tried to make the solutions mesh, putting some double letters in as their elements.

This didn’t prove to be as easy as I initially suspected – why? Well, I naively assumed that Ares was using the original Mendeleev table which I printed and scanned for Ra, La, and Es. But it was not to be. At last, the other Numpty opened Chambers on the Chemical Elements page and my task became easier – easier, yes, but how was I going to combine the Ts of INSISTs and SiReNSUITs. I struggled for a while before checking with my friend Wiki whether there was a new element whose symbol was Ts. Tennessine (element 117) he tells me, is the second heaviest element known. It fits three times into my grid and all is well.

And the alcohol? Wiki tells me that it is a popular myth that Mendeleev invented vodka but Ares has been indulging, anyway. I find ‘They wait on board ship to provide three pints(ish) in buoys. Not socially acceptable’. I have to work backwards from the CABIN BOYS who appear as my solution, to find that a CAB is an ancient Hebrew measure of ‘about three pints’ and that is IN BUOYS from which we remove the U (not socially acceptable). So cheers, Ares!

Most of Ares’ clues were more gentle than that and it was a sppedy and enjoyable solve for us, “Thank you, Ares.”  But I shall have to try my new words out this week: KIKUMON, IBIBIO, SCRAUCH, FASCIAL and YINCE. The family who are coming over to ski this week will suspect that I have been dabbling in a new language.