Listen With Others

Nudd is an old hand at setting barred crosswords, with some 40 in Dave Hennings’ database, so we can expect a well-made puzzle – and so it was.

Some puzzles take their springing point from a set of words, and in this case I suspect Nudd had to begin by building a list of word-pairs in which the first word generated a real second word when subjected to a Caesar shift. I wonder if he was able to automate this, or has to use an encryption program and enter a large array of words to see manually which ones came out “right”? Will we get a setter’s blog perhaps?

All that of course was there to be discovered as I set about the solve, which proved relatively gentle. As I started in the NW corner I found ADVANCE and OPENERS in the message quite quickly, and the letter patterns of PURPURA and CHECHEN for 1d gave the game away. I had to avoid putting MELDED instead of MELTED at 26a, and nearly entered VENA (from IRAN) instead of VEND (from IRAQ) at 33a. 

A neat and satisfying puzzle which was just as well as we were on our travels. Thanks to the hotel who kindly printed it for me, but most of all to Nudd. A-nudd-er one soon please!