Listener 4862 The bank Job by Apt

More than seven lines of pre-ramble for Apt’s latest Listener crossword.

The pre-ramble spells out clearly that entries are going to go into the grid in more than one direction – at least the ‘crossing’ ones. We are given fairly generous clues to three ‘Items’ that spell out for us CABBAGE, WOLF and GOAT. For some solvers, that may say it all but it didn’t for us (who know it under a different name – see later).

We have seven ‘crossings’ and in some of their clues the wordplay will give us an extra letter that will be replaced by one of the thematic items, so, yes for example we see that GOAT will replace one of the Rs of HEN R ROOST. GROW and TUFF of the two 6 clues give us a G and a T, so rather dubiously, we enter HENR GOAT OOST. Those crossing clues, producing HEN ROOST, KNIFE BOARD, RUISDAEL, MAEANDER, DSOMO, DIRECT and PLACATED, give us RIVER.  So we are crossing that river somehow. Still head-scratching.

Pairs of down clues slowly people the grid, though not yet seeing the light, we have DIRECT, EARCON and PANICS mistakenly entered the wrong way round – a mess. The penny-drop moment comes when that anagram of I FOR BANKED gives KNIFEBOARD, which has to be entered backwards to fit with the words already entered. Ah, could this be a version of that old chestnut, the fox, the hen and the bag of corn? Now, it makes sense!

Row 2: cross river with goat leaving wolf and cabbage
Row 4: return empty (so we return the answer)
Row 5: cross with wolf
Row 7: return with goat (another reversed answer)
Row 9: leave goat and cross with cabbage
Row 11: return empty (and DIRECT is entered backwards)
Row 12: cross with goat

I’ve just asked my US son whether this is an American version of the old riddle and all he could say was “Whichever version you choose it’s a load of blarney. Who on earth is going to be taking a wolf or a fox across a river? Wouldn’t you choose to dump the cabbage rather than make seven trips? And the wolf would scarper if you left it on its own wouldn’t it?”

The construction and clues must have a cheer at this point. The theme was well conceived and interpreted in the grid, even if the instructions proved a bit of a mouthful, and the double clues were well-handled. A favourite was “Cooler resident of France’s made ten unisex skirts, glaring once dancer’s lost one (6)” giving DETENU and ASTARE. The prize for the Obscurity Of The Week goes to MAEANDER (“Tortuous course of the old Republican-leaning church section rejected after Mass. (8)”) with its use of the Latin version of the Greek original, lifted from the etymology in Chambers. All’s fair in love and Chambers when it comes to the Listener so no whinges from us but if the clue hadn’t already been, well, tortuous, some sort of flag for the use might have been added (e.g “Rome’s …).

We hadn’t finished. We had to use the words related to those three items in the rows without crossings. Not easy! GREENS for the CABBAGE was fine, and Mrs Bradford kindly supplied COYOTE for the wolf and ANGORA for the goat. We manage to fit them into their symmetrically opposite columns and we’re home and dry.

COYOTE shows where  the wolf is, ANGORA the goat, and GREENS  the cabbage.

Home and ‘Dry’? Well this crossword almost was dry. It was a hunt to find that Apt could retain his oenophile status. Fortunately he was ‘brewing’ in 16ac. Cheers, Apt.

PS Full parsings are available as always at https://listenercrossword.com.