Deuce has been setting Listener crosswords since 2019 and this will be his sixth.
For the Numpty who is writing this week’s blog, this was a solving respite after some of the recent ones where she has struggled even to fill the grid. The answers to these very approachable clues, with fine surface readings, slotted in steadily and some sort of message was appearing from those extra letters produced by the wordplay of down clues.
However, the preamble was somewhat daunting. We had to perform a thematic change to six clues which contributed to a thematic sequence in the grid and spot three down clues which had wordplay only and had a thematic link. In our completed grid we would be drawing symmetrically disposed rectangles around items ‘that set up the scenario’, highlighting the ‘expected response’ and highlighting one ‘row or column’. As usual, nothing to do but solve.
‘Where was Warwick heading? South with a grass-covered joint?’ Well the letters already in, and the clue seemed to say San Jose. My son and his family live there so that should have been easy but I needed a prompt to remind me that Dionne Warwick sang “Do you know the way to San Jose?”
Two letters in one cell. After changing a D to an H in the clue ‘Crashed into a lad causing blurring’ (yes, we made six of those changes D to H, or H to S in the words dive, dot, lad, heed, oath, dead, producing hive, hot, lah, seed. oats, head) we had HALATION, a term for blurring, and that produced the two letters in one cell which had to go into the last cell intersecting with the 16d clue that was also a cell short. DIPLONT (a tough word to clue, but Deuce managed!) produced a big hint – there was ONE NT there and TWO H had appeared symmetrically at the other side of the grid. There were rather a lot of Ks and Qs in the grid too and, ah, what do I see? Two symmetrical NO BIDs
The down clue message said SIXTEEN POINTS FROM A K Q J
The initial letters of those six across clues clues spelled JACOBY. The wordplay-only down clues gave SPAN, CAM and FRANK which also suggested bridge. Help, please co-solver Wiki!
The theme is the Jacoby Transfer convention in bridge. A kind co-solver who had just returned from a session of bridge gave me his explanation of how it applied to our grid.
The six special across clues each need either D->H or H->S replacements (hive, hot, lah, seed, oats, head) and their entries intersect the four rectangles. First letters of those clues: JACOBY
The extra letters from downs give: SIXTEEN POINTS FROM AKQJ. As are worth 4, Ks 3, Qs 2 and Js 1.
Row 1 has Kx AxxJ Ax Axxxx giving 16 points. None of the other rows or columns do, so that is the row we highlight.
The scenario is the bidding sequence P(no bid) 1NT P 2H (Jacoby transfer to S) or 1NT P 2H P
The expected response is 2S (though in bridge terms that’s a rebid not a response – but Deuce could hardly use the word ‘bid’ without drawing attention to the repeated NO BID in the grid)
And the title? Does it refer to the fact that the 16 pt hand is not the column that opened 1N ? – No, Deuce has explained to me and I am smiling: The title refers to the bridge column, which appears to the right of the Listener in the printed edition of The Times. As though some printer’s devil has by accident put the bridge problem into the WRONG COLUMN.
I’m a pretty useless bridge player and knew nothing about a Jacoby Transfer convention, so thank you Deuce for that introduction.
And the Listener Elite Oenophile establishment? Of course Deuce qualifies with’By way of a beer, it’s in a state (9)’ producing INEBRIATE, then ‘A pint – round a local’s to stand (5)’. We removed an E from that clue and produced ABEAR. “Cheers, Deuce!”