Listen With Others

I was up till after midnight completing this challenging crossword by Yorick and didn’t I kick myself when I saw what had been staring me in the face all along! Of course, we did need to have worked out which were the clashing clues and what the clashes spelled out, in order to know what we were looking for, but ‘Eigg, Laos, Erica, Tuco, Taiwan, Essen, Roofie! We did wonder what some of those were doing in their clues but did the light dawn? THREE-LETTER COUNTRY CODES. What a feat to have managed to engineer all those clashes giving OSLO, RIGA, KYIV, ROME, BAKU, DOHA, LOME, JUBA and MALE.

The capitals emerged very slowly as we solved and I was wondering what a mole and a male had in common. JUBA? Oh my ignorance! It took Google to tell me it’s the capital of South Sudan and the other Numpty knows all about BAKU (something to do with wartime bombing) but he was in bed and happily dreaming of other things by the time OSLO, ROME. KYIV and RIGA told me what was going on.

What have I forgotten? Oh, the alcohol. Well this was Yorick’s fourth Listener puzzle so there was little doubt that he would be at the Listener bar in Bristol in March but he confirmed it instantly with that fine first clue, ‘Persuade to buy all drinks (8, two words)’ and we immediately filled in GET ROUND! What a fine start – Cheers, Yorick.