Good Morning, AB-Linkers! This is Sheila (aka slaney) � and apparently dubbed by crofter as Lady Slaney. That's OK as a working title, but I DO have moments when I'm far from ladylike. One such was when I was somewhat taken aback to find myself Links Setter for the month of December. Two years ago I stumbled across this site when looking for an answer to a DTGK clue. I'd been in the habit of idly jotting down my guesses for the Herculis link words, wondering as I did whether anyone else was crazy enough to do this. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found that crofter & ShamrockBlue had formalised this into a game � and the rest, as they say, is history. Worse was to follow! I started to take a serious interest in cryptic crosswords � Beginning with The Spectator and Mephisto, moving up to EV and the Inquisitor, and even the (very) odd stab at the Listener. This story spells out one long downward spiral of addiction! My children remain resolutely underwhelmed "All that time and effort, and you've won a PEN?"
It may be obvious to you from my adopted cybername that I am a "blow-in" from the other side of the Irish Sea. Once crofter mentioned that my old motor car was probably fuelled by peat and I thought that was a dead giveaway as to my country of origin. Early settlers from Ireland spoke a language that was (incorrectly) taken to be Greek and that connection lives on today in the pages of Chambers Dictionary. Nonetheless, I never cease to be amazed when I go back how much has changed � the currency, the prosperity and the attitude to life. At the same time, the essentials change very little (if at all) -- the endless pleasure taken in chatting over a pint of Guinness, for example.
Devoted as I am to the "rools", I will follow those introduced by crofter. Each of my chosen link words contains at least four letters and at most eight. Stray outside this range and you will be wasting one or more of your attempts! Each of my selected words may go in front of or after my challenge word. The competition will officially close at 7.00pm on Sunday evening when crofter will still be celebrating the wedding of his son, Daniel. In his place, the worthy gen2 will declare my selected words, then apply the same rules for awarding points that have been applied during all MM Link Games in the past. My first set of words to be linked will appear below at 9.00am.