CCCWC January competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 8: Excited Rev. calling with this could get a cleric marvelling
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A clue to MIRACLE.
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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I thought this was a deceptively tricky word to clue; the letters seemed promising, but the word was surprisingly difficult to define in any satisfactorily misleading way. As often seems to happen with the stiffer challenges, a fair amount of unsoundness was evident amongst the entry as clue-writers struggled to inject that little bit of extra zest into their clues.
I went with #8 as my winner for a well constructed comp. anag. & lit. even though it failed to adhere to my preference of there being an equal or lower number of extra letters added to make the composite anagram than there are in the clue-word itself. 2nd place went to #48 for a good solid &lit., though the surface is not wholly satisfactory (original relic?). 3rd place went to #32 for one of the more imaginative definitions and a nice, misleading surface. I gave #18 two points - not the greatest surface, but it does hold together as a possible, if unlikely, real-world sentence. I gave #20 5th place - again one of the better definitions (perhaps, even the best), but let down by the lack of a convincing thematic connection between the definition and the wordplay (anyone could be reversing a vehicle, why particularly a law-breaker?)
A couple that came close to the points were #3 and #5, which both displayed some nice wordplay; however, both contained an entirely superfluous word between the definition and wordplay parts. I also thought #41 was a good contender, but, for me, 'club' was far too vague an indication of RAC. |
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I eliminated those where I thought the link words or anagram indicators were dodgy, the Smokey Robinson references (too obscure for me; might have been worth doing if we were cluing 'miracles' plural) and a few that I didn't really understand even with the explanations. Given the high submission rate, that still left quite a lot, so plenty of perfectly serviceable clues have gone unscored. Surprised that no-one went for the "Motorway unusually clear..." construction. That aside:
Four pts to no. 3: a nice disguised reference to a specific miracle, and a good surface reading. Three pts to no. 22: most of the &lits seemed strained but this one worked; also 'initials' clues can be very obvious but this one managed not to be. Two points to no. 30: RAC in MILE was a blindingly obvious construction, but this version of it was succinct and joined the def. to the subsidiary neatly. One pt to each of the following: No. 43: a clever use of mathematical notation to make a compound anagram, and didn't suffer (as several other compound anagrams did) from long-windedness. No. 38: 'sort of' nicely used both to indicate 'type of' and as anagram indicator, and the &lit def. was not bad. No. 11: 'claim re' is a bit of a giveaway anagram, but the image of Maradona was nicely conjured. No. 6: much the same reasoning. No. 13: def. was a bit pedestrian but kudos due to the only person to risk a 'hidden', and it works fine. No 8: Another capable compound anagram, not TOO long, and nice construction around the religious subject matter. |
