CCCWC February competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 16: Fishy treat? Hardly!
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A clue to TETRA.
2 comments refer to this clue
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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5 pts: Clue 5 - Not the most fluent clue, but 'Chromatic scales' is really excellent 4 pts: Clue 9 - Much the best worded of clues using the 'batter' treatment 3 pts: Clue 43 - Very good &lit 2 pts: Clue 3 1 pt: Clue 11 - I would have preferred a comma to a full stop, and no exclamation mark, but otherwise very good wording
Near misses:
29 - Another good &lit, but the definition reading isn't quite as smooth as clue 43.
34 - Needs a capital for 'Net' in the surface reading
16 - Almost very good but 'Hardly' is superfluous to the cryptic reading; clue 15, on the other hand, needs a question mark |
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Well - not quite the glut of fishy treats I'd expected! I suppose it was too obvious - I certainly went through agonies of second- guessing, as I'm sure did at least forty others!
Curiously the two that did stick with the idea failed (for me) in opposite ways. If 15's simple "Fishy treat" had been given a question mark, it would have been the perfect &lit! 16, on the other hand, having got that right, blew it with the superfluous "Hardly"! I wonder how many of us are kicking ourselves?
Similarly, in clue 18, "Ate trawler full of fish?" (with question rather than exclamation mark) would be perfectly adequate. What function does the "I" serve?
Over-complexity seemed to be the order of the day. Perhaps given the shortness of the word people were afraid of being too obvious - or of duplication. A case in point is Clue 7 - the additional definition was again superfluous. "Fish and tater stew" or "Tater stew for four?" would have been fine. Using both reads rather clumsily.
That said:
1st - 5 points - Clue 5: Chromatic scales are a feature of this 'retro' quartet? Without question! A perfect marriage of surface and cryptic readings
=2nd - 3.5 points - Clue 6: False red nose is a little fishy? A good example of the "less is more" approach
=2nd - 3.5 points - Clue 32: Seconds from stifling Ken, Otto brazenly eats a fish Very clever - though I'm not sure I'm entirely grateful for being reminded of that particular scene! ;-)
=4th - 1.5 points - Clue 11: Fish paste.Traditional sandwiches! More ghastly memories I'm afraid - I still get nightmares at the thoughts of Shippham's! (Are they still going, does anyone know?)
=4th - 1.5 points - Clue 13: Fish supper, sprinkled with just the right amounts of salt and vinegar Again - simple but elegant (and much more palatable than 11!) |
