Listen With Others

I read in Dave Hennings’ Crossword Database that this is KevGar’s eighth crossword in the Listener series. We read the preamble with some apprehension as we are not very good at finding definitions that have wandered away from the entries that they apply to and we realize that we need to keep careful control of the ‘one or two’ consecutive letters that are ultimately going to tot up to 23 and spell out three further thematic items (whatever those turn out to be).

Types of wine, I wonder, as KevGar hasn’t included much alcohol in his clues to confirm his continued membership of the Listener Setters’ Elite Oenophile Outfit. He just scrapes in by sprinkling rosé around, ‘Holy water container sprinkled rose spray (9)’. We anagram ROSE SPRAY to get ASPERSORY – a generous clue.

There were a number of generous clues and the bottom half of our grid was nicely peopled by dinner time (almost, though we were flummoxed by the EMYD as we had entered EMYS as a familiar turtle word which gave us a problem with the CLOSED SHOPS). But then we were head-scratching.

It was the ‘WASP’ that clearly defined the HORNET who appeared in 9d where the clue obviously spelled out TRET, ‘Concerning having two tons without waste allowance (6)’ that hinted to us what was going on. TRUMPETFISH then appeared where the clue seemed to be spelling ELFISH. ‘Tricky rock-star swaps centre for female, hard to follow (11)’ (Elvis with V changing to F). That had to be the SWIMMER who had sneaked into the UEYS clue.

We realized that we had to find another nine instruments (and one in the title) that were each going to replace a couple of letters in their solution (or a letter) and produce words that had to be defined by RINGLEADER, STINGRAY-LIKE, HOUNDS, EDGES, PIPED, TRAMPS, FOLLOWS, BULB and YELLOW. This was a tough solve but we finally produced our FLUGELMAN, WHIPLASH, BASSETS, SHARPENS, TUBATE, HOBOES, SEGUES, CORM and LUTEIN and decided that our instruments were the FLUGEL, WHIP (yes, Collins confirmed that it is an instrument, as did Mrs Bradford), BASS, HARP, TUBA, OBOE, GUE (that crossword favourite), COR and LUTE.

We had 21 letters from the original solutions that those instruments had replaced, so we were puzzled about how those were going to spell out three more instruments. They formed, nicely, into a CLARINET, a TROMBONE and a PIANO. But then we realized that the ORGAN that was supporting this rather weird orchestra and appearing in REORGANISATION (our new title) was giving us another two letters and converting our PIANO to a seven-letter PIANOLA.

Thank you KevGar. This was challenging, particuarly, for us, as we are not much good at solving tricky clues like the ELFISH one where we flounder around looking for an 11-letter word when the original solution has only six letters (OK we finally found our fish).