Comments on the clues |
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1. A blight here affected large acreage with dire and extreme starvation. |
1. | Only clue to mention potato famine. |
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2. A country flat where one's gone for style |
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3. A Dubliner upset, not oddly, about leaving this country (7) |
1. | Dubliner gives away too much, too soon | 2. | Like the idea but the clue's quite clunky. |
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4. Airman pays for his whiskey, not us. |
1. | Bit complicated! | 2. | Airman for a composer is simply unfair, as is lower-case 'us' for US. I fail to see anything in the clue that leads a solver to the answer. |
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5. An idler is getting mellow — they love their crack here |
1. | I don't think that Crack = Craic without a qualifier – sound, broadcast, radio etc | 2. | 'is getting mellow' is pretty dubious as an anagram indicator, even allowing for the meaning of 'mellow' as slightly drunk. |
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6. An idler loafing in Hibernia |
1. | Loafing an anagrind? | 2. | How is a word meaning 'loiter' suitable as an anagram indicator? |
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7. Angry country? |
1. | Not very cryptic | 2. | Very bland, and cluing LAND as a separate component is not good practice in my opinion |
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8. Angry neighbour? (7) |
1. | Dull | 2. | Cluing LAND as a separate component is not good practice, and if it's intended as a CD it's pretty insulting, not to say inaccurate |
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9. Are high hopes for Brexit solution fading here? That could make one come down to earth again |
1. | Nice wordplay but a bit too long | 2. | Nice idea but I don't see the function of 'could make' in the cryptic syntax. Normally the wordplay 'makes' the definition. |
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10. Composer’s alight with rage at first |
1. | Composer could be anyone. Too vague |
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11. Composing Preludes for Piano might have been purpose of him. |
1. | Clever anagram | 2. | An anagram of the standard of 'genuine class' = 'alec guinness'! :) | 3. | John Ireland seems a bit obscure, but this clue works so wonderfully well that I can overlook that. 5 points. | 4. | Remarkable! What a wonderful discovery. | 5. | Surely the composite anagram formulation requires AB jumbled might be XY jumbled. 'Might have been' doesn't really represent the equivalence |
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12. Cook ran deli in Cork's country |
1. | Wordplay in defintion ? |
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13. Country I learn about, with the capital of Dublin? |
1. | Too much of a giveaway to be a satisfying solve | 2. | Although Dublin's capital (D) is valid, Dublin gives away too much | 3. | Very nice clue but answer too obvious. |
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17. Daniel Radcliffe's first fancy? Erin! |
1. | Clever construction | 2. | Clever bit of research/knowledge | 3. | Well spotted! | 4. | Must confess I hadn't heard of this lady but a lovely original clue. | 5. | Lovely clue. Second place behind only Clue 11. | 6. | Neat and original anagram clue |
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18. Delta follows linear arrangement leading to Emerald Isle |
1. | Emerald Isle without wordplay gives away too much | 2. | The surface doesn't make a lot of sense. |
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19. Emerald Isle – fanciful name for me |
1. | Emerald Isle without wordplay gives away too much | 2. | This and 32 tied for max points – despite being rather obvious |
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20. Emerald Isle formed Erin lad |
1. | Emerald Isle without wordplay gives away too much |
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21. End rail trip in the country (7) |
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22. Erin spread around darn lie (7) |
1. | Erin needs wordplay | 2. | The surface doesn't mean much. |
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24. First signs of impala repopulating antelope country |
1. | The only clue to use eland, but not the most interesting surface |
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25. Fled rain touring here, after rejecting France? |
1. | This and 41 are both appealing clues using the rain anagram |
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26. Foolishly, to read French and here? |
1. | Over-contrived, and the surface doesn't mean much |
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28. He composed a pointless telegram to European city-state. |
1. | Perhaps expecting a lot of solver to find (and then manipulate) wire from telegram? | 2. | The hyphen linking city-state is unfairly misleading. Three sets of abbreviations prefaced by the middle two letters of a word is excessive. |
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32. Idiotic hardliner wants borders here |
1. | "wanting" would make it clearer that the fodder is topped and tailed before anagramming – but a winning clue all the same | 2. | Neat construction and brilliantly topical | 3. | Best of the Brexit clues. Lovely anagram. | 4. | This is great apart from the choice of anagrind |
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34. Impediment retarding EU leavers' agenda? No deal initially . . . |
1. | Difficult to see this as & lit. It looks promising up to "No deal" then it fails. |
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35. Iran led revolution to build a nation. |
1. | A nounal anagram indicator followed by another word that looks like an anagram indicator (build) |
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36. Irate country? (7) |
1. | Clever & concise. | 2. | 'Ire' is a noun; 'irate' is an adjective. |
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37. Is divided about dire article 5O ? |
1. | Is is a valid abbreviation for Island?’ | 2. | This one had great potential – needed a aharper definition eg reference to the border issue. | 3. | Clever, though 'Is' to mean island requires a full stop according to Chambers. Without the full stop it just means 'Is' or the
plural of I. |
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38. Island nation rejects Cnservative for Republican (7) |
1. | A bit obvious, and it's a slight weakness that 'nation' could be part of the definition. |
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39. Island where religious teaching takes over society? |
1. | Nice surface but not as true as it once was, I think |
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40. Kerry's here, dancing in a red lace top |
1. | Satisfyingly different definition |
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41. Led rain dancing? It's not usually necessary here! |
1. | I like this and 25 equally |
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44. One would briefly take in Larne when moving here? |
1. | An elegant clue. | 2. | Neat clue with a natural surface. |
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45. Our neighbour is flying Aer Lingus – 50% off to Germany! |
1. | Very classy construction and surface reading |
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46. Paddy field |
1. | Good idea but there’s no def. of Ireland the country or the island | 2. | With a ? would be a cryptic defintion for me | 3. | Beautifully simple |
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48. Place of anger, we hear, becomes a colder, more remote island after RC conversion |
1. | This seems to clue ICELAND. Needs to be 'would become'. |
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49. Real freedom in independent European nation |
1. | 'Real freedom' does not indicate a jumbling of REAL> |
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53. Rocks realigned to form, e.g., this isle? (7) |
1. | A nice idea but 'Rocks realigned' doesn't tell the solver to jumble REALIGNED. 'Rocks' needs to follow 'realigned'. |
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54. Sadly board liner after Rob left – for a Tir na nOg neighbour apparently |
1. | The letters of ROB are not in order in BOARD, so a separate jumbler of ROB is needed. |
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56. 'Two Nations' is forgotten name Disraeli coined |
1. | Original idea, but a rather imperfect definition. | 2. | The syntax is a bit clunky, and the definition is inaccurate. |
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57. Where one might encounter lots of paddys? |
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58. Where tipsy islander wanting last drop of Guinness might be? |
1. | Clever but too easy to solve. | 2. | Nice | 3. | Nicely constructed, possibly just the simplicity of the solve stopped me awarding points. | 4. | Best of the island/islander clues. | 5. | Neat clue with a natural surface |
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