Listen With Others

Oh dear! I’ve fallen behind again in posting my comments. Apologies for the late arrival of this one.

Well, after some white-knuckle challenges of late it was good to find myself completing the grid within a couple of hours. I eventually spotted CORD and TIE and removed them (I was looking for diagonal “strings” attached to Pinocchio), but then I got stuck. Changing NOSE to NEB – assuming I’ve got it right – is one of those steps which are almost impossible to spot but which look a lot more obvious after the event. I reverse engineered it by pondering what HERESY could become; HEREBY stood out.

I wasn’t quite sure why RADIATION wasn’t RACIATION in the first place, except I guess that it disguised PINOCCHIO. My favourite clue was 18ac – French po(e/r)t’s finally written on collapse of euro – I liked the surface reading and the memories it evoked of a visit to France many moons ago.

I loved Ferret’s earlier puzzle “Moving Up and Down”, perhaps because the 3 tenors and funicular railways have more appeal than Pinocchio. And I look forward to Ferret’s next offering – Italian-themed again perhaps?