Listen With Others

When I wrote to thank Phi for his 8 x 8 puzzle (Listener 4652), I described it as “delightful – an original construction and a great workout”. The same is true for Run to Seed, with its pleasing iteration between solving the double clues and using the theme to suggest candidates for anagramming in order to identify the remaining answers.

The other feature I like (present in The Don’s pillars of wisdom last week too) was the way the final grid depicts the theme. Indeed I wanted to highlight the rungs of the salmon ladder.

That said, this was not an easy climb. For a day or more I was floundering with an almost-full grid at the bottom of the ladder before KIPPER LADDER leapt out at me from RIPPLED DRAKE, and I remembered GRILSE from long-distant biology lessons. I then derived LIGGER and BAGGIT, which eluded my anagram solver. A sudden leap and I was at the top, swimming againJ.

Once again I’m in awe at the variety of Phi’s subject matter, and greatly look forward to his next original offering.