CCCWC October competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 23: "Game over, everyone" – in terms of overpaid and greedy bankers.
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A clue to DOOLALLY (Misprints).
3 comments refer to this clue (from 3 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| Looks like a close run thing, with no outstanding entries. 10 is excellent although (minor quibbles) perhaps "in Britain" and "and" are unnecessary, and I don't know if "b" for "billion" is an established convention. I make it joint favourite with 49 despite the latter's rather imprecise definition. Are the nounal definition in 15 and adjectival use of "fad" in 20 acceptable? – I'd like to see confirmation in the explanations. 22 is certainly too long, as is the explanation, although the writer's enthusiasm for his or her subject cannot be denied. In 23 "terms" to indicate last letters is surely not on. 34 has an unfortunate drawback in that "natter" could be interpreted as "nutter" rather than the intended "hatter". The EU lollipop lady in 44 seems very contrived. Unfortunately 46 has no apparent misprint. |
| 2. |
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An excellent collection of clues this month. I had to discount clues that in an average month I would have given 4 or 5 points to. First place I decided had to go to 49 for its originality, completely misleading yet natural surface reading and interesting misprinted definition.
Apart from that I found it impossible to choose between another seven clues and so had to dilute votes accordingly. Of the BANKERS clues, 11, 18 and 23 were the best for their topicality and neat surface readings. Clue 10 was over-complicated and clue 9 irrelevant, but all of the others with BANKERS would have had a vote if I'd had enough to go round! Of the LOO clues, 30 and 32 were most natural. For originality packaged soundly and neatly, 34 and 48 also shared my second-tier votes. |
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Is this the best ever set of clues for one of these competitions? Many of them would in a normal month have been my top choice. It seems unkind to give some of them so few points.
Perhaps this isn't quite demanding enough: an actual setter will have to compose a misprints clue with a particular letter missing (or the correct one), not any old letter.
My choices: 1st: 32 (2.5 points); 2nd=: 3, 18, 34, 39, 49 (1.5 points each); 7th=: 10, 14 (1 point each); 9th=: 5, 6, 13, 23, 27, 29 (0.5 points each). |
