Listen With Others

It is only as I type that title that I understand what it is telling me. We downloaded the crossword a few hours ago and saw Woracle, a name that is familiar in Crossword. With two new editors it is going strong again and gives you two more thematic cryptic crosswords each month if the Listener, Magpie, EV, IQ and Crossword Centre, etc. don’t provide enough (their website is waiting for some kind person to set it up again but you can contact clubcrosswords@gmail.com). Woracle is a regular setter there – but it seems that he hasn’t set a Listener since 2005.

But can we admit Woracle to the Listener Setters’Elite Oenophile Outfit? I scan his (her?) clues anxiously and am near the bottom of the downs before I discover that ‘Bill felt ill after bottled ale (7)’ We anagram ALE and FELT and produce LEAFLET. Then ‘Picked up liquor in Scots ditch in uproar (7)’ This was a BREW we ‘picked up, or heard as BRU (Irnbru?), followed by HA-HA giving BRUHAHA. That was followed by ‘Addresses to the rich ordained in small measures (7)’ We put ORD into MILS and found MILORDS. Well with the bottled ale, liquor and small measures, I think Woracle earns his entry ticket.

As usual, by the time I had found the alcohol, the other Numpty had half filled the grid and we had spotted the nine answers that somehow had to be shortened as well as eight rather odd little words telling us to PERUSE CONTENTS SEEKING DIRECTIONS. “What could that mean?” we asked ourselves. We had TAILBACK, BILINGUAL, WELL-ROUNDED HEREABOUTS, OVERTURNS, MISUNDERSTOOD, PHLOGISTON, PYRAMIDAL and CARTWHEELS. Light dawned and now I realise that that was what the title was telling me. PHLOGISTON was the only one that puzzled us for a while, though the PHLOG had already gone in upside down. Of course, it had to be PHLOGI going ‘south’ to ‘north’ so S TO N. Nice one Woracle!