Listen With Others

What can I say? These three-monthly sorties into numbers are anathema to me and even the more numerical Numpty moaned when he saw just 14 clues and a carte blanche with only bars to help, maybe, and a few blocks. I crept out of the way of bad language and potential missiles and only returned when there was a rather surprised “Well C and H must be 3 and 2 and that must be 6561, and there is only one place that is likely to go … Two solutions, then, will begin with 66 and those are likely to be 3d and 4d …”

And on it went – but the other bloggers will certainly fill in the details – all I got to do was make a pretty, coloured grid – and, of course, hunt for the alcohol as I do believe this is Child’s Play’s very first Listener crossword (though we have met him several times in the Magpie). Can we admit him to the Listener Setters’ Oenophile Elite? Things looked somewhat gloomy. I hunted for Vat 69 – anything at all but, in the end, had to give him the benefit of the doubt because of all those primes – well ‘primeurs’ are wines where we live.

Cheers, Child’s Play.