| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| I found this the most difficult of the competitions I've scored, as there are several clusters of very similar clues. I fear I may not be doing some very worthy clues justice, but here goes: First place, for 5 points, I award to Clue 34, which, while slightly wordy, is witty and original. Second place I give to Clue 11 (4 points), which has an excellent surface and a neat 'hidden' indicator. Third place (3 points) I give to Clue 32; I'm a little hesitant about how well known the film reference is, but overall it seems to work very well. I thought the best of the 'Offensive' clues was Clue 25, to which I give 2 points, and the best of the 'batter' clues was Clue 9, to which I award 1 point. Near misses for clues 24 and 39, which stood out for originality. |
| 2. |
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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. |
| 3. |
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| This was a friendly word to clue, but the temptation to go for an obvious anagram or a hidden was strong, and many of the clues were just too easy. 34 managed a good misleading definition and 3, 9, 24 and 43 had nice surfaces, so they got my marks. A few comments on the rest: 1. Too many unwarranted exclamation marks. What has 42 done to deserve two? 2. I can't accept 'offensive' indicates 'Tet'. The other way round would be ok (just). 3. If you're cluing TETRA as a prefix, you need to indicate this clearly. 'Tetra-' may do the same job as 'four-' but 'tetra' doesn't mean 'four'. |
| 4. |
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| 21 - Excellent choice. 12 - Also turned my head. 32 - Well spotted. 40 - Good compound. 34 - Nicely disguised. |
| 5. |
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Am I alone in thinking this was a slightly dull set of clues? Maybe it was because the word itself leaves little to the imagination.
I discounted 'four' unless the fodder made reference to a 'combining form' and not being a great fan of Spenser ... so really not much to do with it other than to use or define 'fish'. Any that did slightly more scored points in my book - without of course, tying themselves in knots. Clue 1 deserves special mention for being 'clever, clever' though the sharpest hook was 'fishy treat' - Simple! Also ran - clue 34. |
| 6. |
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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 |
| 7. |
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TETRA offered lots of possibilities as a clue word. There were quite a few clues that had no serious faults in their construction, but were rather flat and humdrum or had feeble surfaces. On the other hand, there were disappointingly few that combined soundness with flair, several of the more interesting approaches being flawed in their execution, even if not always seriously so. In my book, "fish" as the definition needed the zest of an original surface or particularly neat and/or sparkling wordplay to make the grade.
4 points:
37. Tank group offensive, supported by gunners
Simple, but sound, wordplay, and a good (and (quite fairly) misleading) definition and surface. (Clue 28, which used the same idea, has a less convincing surface and includes a word ("counters") that appears to play no role in either definition or subsidiary indication.)
2 points each:
5. Chromatic scales are a feature of this 'retro' quartet? Without question!
The word "are" would have been better omitted or placed at the beginning of the sentence to produce a real question, but otherwise the clue offers sound wordplay and an original definition and surface.
11. Fish paste. Traditional sandwiches!
The neatest of the many "hidden" offerings, with a convincing surface.
40. Up late waiter? Not pilau, we ordered fish
I suspect that some will object to the fact that the letters of "pilau we" do not appear in the same order in "Up late waiter". Personally, I don't strongly object to this variant on the device - and I enjoyed the surface.
1 point each
24. Odd glimpses of The Eternal that could come to those fishing on lake?
An excellent idea, and the wordplay in the first five words is very deftly done, but the rest of the clue does not, unfortunately, quite live up to either. It's odd, since one "catches" both glimpses and fish, that the author should have chosen to use the slightly unsatisfactory "come to", which doesn't really suit the definition: "caught by" would have saved two words and been much more appropriate. And, as far as I can establish, tetra are typically river fish; "on lake" is thus neither really appropriate to the definition nor quite adequate to suggest Lake Galilee in particular.
26. Offensive artist displays fish
This has the edge on the very similar 25, because "displays" has possible overtones of Damien Hirst that "coloured" does not, producing a rather more convincing surface (even if "offensive" is arguably a rather strong descriptor, even for those who don't think much of Brit Art).
34. Site traffic reveals what can be got from net with a search on Amazon
An interesting idea for the surface, but less than totally convincing - would one really cite "site traffic" as the evidence for the variety of what is available on Amazon? And "what can be got from net with a search on Amazon" is both a bit long-winded and rather vague as a definition of "tetra".
0.5 point each:
38. Telecommunications equipment's to regulate ambulances, primarily
I'm not at all sure that TETRA is used "primarily" for regulating ambulances, which makes the &lit slightly dubious, but otherwise this is quite neat. |
