CCCWC February competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 22: Lawrence's skill returned with Spenser's plant
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A clue to TETRA.
3 comments refer to this clue
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| 2. A swimmer is put right back into the drink : 5 points, good surface reading, nice play on "drink". 10. Fish in batter, decapitated and fried : 4 points, another good surface reading, with clear and reasonable anagram and removal indicators. 26. Offensive artist displays fish : 3 points, nice clue for TET, British clue for artist is so common in cryptics to be something we Yanks should understand. 22. Lawrence's skill returned with Spenser's plant : 2 points, surface reading is a bit obscure, but TE + (ART reversed) was a nice change. 40. Up late waiter? Not pilau, we ordered fish : 1 point, very clever anagram and removal operation, but I don't understand the intended meaning of "Up late waiter?" - strained. |
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Some general thoughts first. #22 was I think the only entry to pursue the plant option - unwisely, I believe, given that there seems a convention that Spenserian language must be signalled (why?) but that apart from the ubiquitous "Ed" no-one seems to have any cryptic way of doing so. A bland "fish" as the definition, unless qualified or concealed, strikes me as neglecting the sorts of opportunities for a misleading surface that most of the better clues have taken. And a concealed clue has to be really good to pass muster, given the friendliness of the letters.
On specific clues - I think there is matter for debate about #32. I would solve it instantly (even not knowing of the fish, the letters hang together) but not understand it, not having seen the film. At what point does a setter's expectation of a solver's knowledge reasonably stop?
My favourites (top down) are
#37 Despite my comments above, "Tet" is I think justified by precedent (it was used without qualification, as here, in a recent Listener). The notion of offensive + gunners probably occurred to many of us - it's the "tank group" that makes the clue.
#11 As I said, a concealed clue has to be really good - and this is. Lovely evocation of childhood.
#21 I'm not so sure about the ! but the construction is admirable.
#5 Another clever definition. "Retro" is I think pushing it a bit, however
#12 I nearly decided against this on the grounds that "out" is not a verb in
the sense of going out. Fortunately a check revealed my error. Very elegant construction. |
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Although TETRA offers many good possibilities for building the word from components, partial anagrams or as a concealed word, I felt that if the clue contained the simple definition 'fish' it made the clue too simple for a five-letter word, however good the surface reading might be. Thus, I ruled out 7-18, 18, 23, 25, 26, 30-33, 40 and 42.
Clue 1 was spared on this score by its clever link to another definition. Similarly, clue 6 with its ambiguous 'fishy' and red nose reference survived the initial trawl.
Clues related to the fish definition that avoided the word 'fish', used oblique references related to tanks, scales, swimming, fishing, small fry, bite and net - with varying degree of success.
Of these, I found clue 5 with its 'chromatic scales', its additional clever 'four' definition reference and entire surface reading the most satisfactory, then clue 34. While clue 28 also had a good misleading surface reading, I found 'one in a tank' a little clumsy.
Of the clues that related solely to the 'four' definition I found clues 4, 20, 17 and 35 the most enjoyable.
I was unfamiliar with the definition used by clue 38, but found the construction somewhat insipid, despite the &lit, while clue 22's surface reading to get to Spenser's plant seemed a little contrived. |
