Aaah Wideernie and Hooverman... There will be a time in years hence when will you hunt out this post, the intervening years a littered trail of discarded redundant editions of Chambers' dictionaries, crossword solvers, Google searches, hopeful queries posted on AnswerBank, weekend social events declined or forgotten in the pursuit of the solution, and reflect ruefully on what you were unwittingly get yourself into. I started doing the LIstener in the early 90s, attracted by the then prizewinning lure of watches and champagne and have been doing it ever since. Well not quite. I managed to quit the habit for a couple of years in the early noughties, started reading novels, seeing friends, attending to long-forgotten issues of personal hygiene, discovered that I had two kids whose existence had been virtually obscured by the towering piles of reference books. But then another Listener came along, I was cool about it, I could just do the one. No problem. I was clean. Pick it up and put it down again. But no. The hydra wrapped its tentacles around me again and, this time, has not let me go. Of course I could quit again next Saturday, except I might two weeks away from an all-correct year and, if not, there is the tantalising promise of the start of a new unblemished record just around the corner.....
Addictive? Naaah, not a bit