Listen With Others

Latitude 10 is another fine Listener puzzle in the tradition of educating us about less familiar people. I loved Puffin’s apt and cleverly-chosen message “Opposite poles attract”.

I was so sad to read about Ross’s failed attempt to locate Franklin’s expedition. I shan’t be complaining about domestic “man-looking” failures for a very long time!

Talking about looking without seeing, I have a confession. I correctly solved no less than 5 across clues before spotting the characteristic that the definitions were the opposites of the required meaning! I am mortified to realise how careless I was. INUITS? I thought they lived in the Arctic but maybe I got that wrong. GUIMP? Sure, a rope. SEDER is a festival and CETYL is a radical (no excuse for that one, but it is 40+ years since I graduated in chemistry). REINSTALMENTS? Maybe it means something different in an IT context. And so on until the penny dropped with END USER and AINE of all things. Using antonyms was a great device though and I thought Puffin executed it very ably.

I’m delighted that Puffin has reappeared after Sharp Work (which I also enjoyed). And I like the thematic reference to the Arctic / Antarctic circles in the title.