| Comments on the competition |
|---|
| 1. |
|---|
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. |
| 2. |
|---|
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. |
|---|
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 |
| 4. |
|---|
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!) |
| 5. |
|---|
| Seemed to be an abundance of exclamation and question marks this month. Personally I prefer a cleaner one line clue to the more complicated ones, e.g. Number 5 which had 11 words, an exclamation mark, a question mark and a set of inverted commas, which seemed excessive for a five-letter word. |
| 6. |
|---|
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. |
