Listen With Others

Having completely overlooked the fact that this is a leap year and that there are two more Saturdays to come, I miserably downloaded this crossword expecting a  numerical. The grumpy numpty was downstairs watching the snooker having announced “I am not going to do a numerical!”

Imagine my joy when Aedites’ name appeared and the preamble clearly wasn’t numerical except for telling us that a ‘number’ of cells contain a clash between the across and down entry. A smiling numpty appeared and we began a high-speed solve since Aedites’ clues are generous and even the misprints were sometimes evident. COATI, for example, had to be the solution for ‘Cover heart of agile animal that walks on base of root (5)’ – COAT + (ag)I(le) – “It has to be base of foot” I said and, to our amazement, Chambers confirmed that a coati is a plantigrade mammal – one that walks on the base of its foot. (Please, someone, tell me how non-plantigrade’ animals walk!)

‘Person with ferry beheaded donor (8)’ We mused about the surface-reading of that one. Were we in MacBrayne’s territory with the ferry owner somehow able to decapitate one of his passengers? By the time we reached this clue, we had worked out that we were being instructed to ENTER DIFFERENCES ROMAN NUMERAL, so we knew that we needed to produce a D with the corrected misprint. ‘Derry’ Chambers tells me, is a ‘feeling of dislike or resentment’. Well, that improved the surface reading (prompting us to go around beheadig those we dislike or resent – hmmm!)

It was you, rather than a ‘yob’ in ‘We hear you introducing fizzy drink for good digestion (7)’. We opted for EU + PEPSY and decided that that ‘fizzy drink’ could just about qualify Aedites for the Listener Setters’ Oenophile Outfit. Cheers, Aedites.

Here comes an admission. Take a look at this page from Dave Hennings’ Crossword Database and you will see that in May 2012 the Rasputin team that’s Artix, Ilver and Chalicea – this Numpty) set a circular Listener crossword in the form of a clock on the subject of Rupert Brooke’s poem, ‘The Old Vicarage at Grantchester‘. Ours had RUPERT BROOKE at TWO FIFTY (ten to three). As we solved Aedites’ Chat (obviously not gossip or a cat, so it was going to be about tea) the RUPERT quickly appeared in the leading diagonal ,so did we instantly spot the theme. Oh dear no. As the Listener arrived on my Mac, so did an email from The Oldie announing that it is the hundredth anniversary of RUPERT BEAR. We spent ages attempting to make NUTWOOD have 12 letters and looking for a couple of extra letters for the bear. Doh!

Thank you Aedites for an enjoyable puzzle.