Listen With Others

The idea of T Maker first came to me a few years ago when I was planning a long overseas trip to Asia and Australia. As my plans progressed, I began looking at the then current exchange rates for various currencies. Unfortunately, Covid decided to raise its ugly head and so my planned trip had to be cancelled. However, the idea of creating a Listener around exchanging foreign currency/coins was sown, so I started by making a long list of names of foreign currency, coins etc. Initially, I had intended to find words which contained the name of a monetary unit/coin and that the exchange of that name for another would result in a new real word. I soon realised that it would not be possible to find a sufficient number of such words to use as the basis for constructing a puzzle. Consequently I decided that it would be more fruitful to use words in which the removal of a currency from a word would leave a real word, or the addition of a currency to an existing word would then make a real word. This led to a long list of possible words which would be appropriate, only some of which I eventually managed to incorporate into the grid.

I thought that the word “moneychanger” pretty well encapsulated the overall theme, and that this could form the title of the puzzle. However, after some reflection I decided that this would be too easy a pointer to the theme and that it would be better to use this as an actual unclued entry which, when discovered, would lead solvers to understand the puzzle’s theme.

It took me a long time to decide on an appropriate title for the puzzle. I wanted to have a title which followed the overall theme and to use a coin/currency which I hadn’t used in the grid. The use of Rouble making Troublemaker seemed to fit in well with the theme.

It should be noted that this puzzle was devised and submitted to the Listener long before the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia, so any reference to the use of Rouble and Troublemaker is purely coincidental even if it does feel somewhat appropriate!

KevGar.