The Crossword Centre Clue-Writing Competition

CCCWC June competition voters’ comments

Back to competition result  |   Other competitions

A clue to OSCAR.
10 comments were received for this competition (from 9 competitors, 1 other)
Move your mouse pointer over any bold clue number to see the clue.

Here is the text

Comments on the competition
1.
38 is not quite right, attractive as it looks as Oh does not equal Oscar, but rather equals O which the equals Oscar so it's one stage indirect
8 is clever but to understand it you need the note re Home which lessens is appeal
Some nice clues, especially those which avoid the obvious ACTORS link
2.
Not sure about the winning clue, but it looks like the winning word is 'award'. Much similarity this time around, though I wish I had seen 'stretch limo' (o/s car) which 3 or 4 people did. Spreading my votes widely and thinly in recognition of the many o.k. but not outstanding efforts.
3.
Not a vintage collection, I thought. Some interesting ideas seemed to me to be flawed. While 4 is fine by me, I know from bitter experience that some editors would demand an second anagrind for "tin" since its letters are nonconsecutive. The idea in 8 demands "homes" in the cryptic reading; likewise 21 with "initiate". 12 surely needs recasting to bring "new" to the front, where it can legitimately be capitalised. Several clues use "no" for the O, which I cannot see any justification for (if so my apologies to the composer of 7, which I should otherwise have supported)
4.
Although the word offered a lot of different meanings and references, it seemed many competitors struggled to make a coherent clue out it. The best were: 21, an excellent & lit., if a bit of an easy definition; 15 with lots of misleading elements, a professional job, almost more than what was needed; 42, good surface, misleading context; then 4, 16, and 33, all original ideas that work and read well. Too many unsound clues this time to single any out, but 'stretch limo' clues certainly need a question mark, and I can't accept 'no mark' = '0 scar'.
5.
Any clue beginning 'Award' is a bit too pedestrian at this level. No14 would have been in the reckoning had it read 'can/will…take', which (to my mind) is required for grammatical soundness, but I suspect that several judges will not realise this and give it unwarranted points. No1 was my winner for its elegance and simplicity, even though it's not really very hard to solve.
6.
A very good set of clues,
7.
Two leading letter clues (21 & 48) use of both as an indicator of which letters to use and as part of those letters – surely both are clues to "scar"??
8.
Two clues 15 and 33 – 3.5 points each – stood out for me for their originality, creating convincing and (quite fairly) misleading surfaces supported by deft and sound wordplay. 1 – 2.5 points – offers a neat, economical composite anagram (though, personally – and no doubt I’m in a minority – I dislike the dash convention, which seems to me less elegant than indicating the clue word by “this” or equivalent). 36 – 1.5 points – was very pleasing, but I am slightly doubtful about “ops” = “works”. I thought 9, 28 and 52 – 1 point each – the best of the many other (often perfectly acceptable) clues based upon an anagram of “actor(s)”, largely because they had the most natural-sounding surfaces, and 52 the most satisfactory of the many outsize vehicles and the like. 42 – 1 point – neatly manages to use the statuette definition while creating an ostensibly archaeological surface.

Four other clues perhaps require comment. It was with regret that I had to reject the splendid brevity of 38 with its Buddy Holly echoes. Unfortunately, despite the author’s words of explanation, “Oh” cannot mean the letter ‘O’. In maths, if A=B and B=C, then A=C, but it doesn’t work that way for words. “O boy!” would have been sound, but a less satisfactory surface. For me, the almost equally succinct 7 was self-fulfilling! I couldn’t accept ‘O’ = “no”, as opposed to “nothing” or “nought”. 48 was potentially a reasonably good initial-letters clue (“leading lights” being a satisfying indicator in the context), but unfortunately “of” was asked to do double duty, which surely won’t do. And, as is depressingly often the case in these competitions, the claimed &lit isn’t one: not only does “honour” play no part in the subsidiary indication, but the sentence as a whole doesn’t define OSCAR. The ingenious 30 falls down because “one gold-plated” is, surely, much too vague to pass muster as a definition of OSCAR.
9.
Snakes Alive! So many clues;
Just fifteen points! Oh what to do?
Well, if perchance, it makes me smile,
Or makes me ponder for a while;
Or if, despite its common theme,
It rises to the top, like cream;
Or if it makes me say "Oh drat!
I wish that I had thought of that";
Or if, by clever turn of phrase,
It has me singing songs of praise;
Then points it gets, and my job's done;
We'll soon find out who's number one.

Good luck all.
10.
15 Awakening memories of flying a single-engined Piper Apache across the Tanami desert north from Alice Springs, there could only be one winner for me. Fully fuelled for five hours max, after four hours of radio silence across a desert of nothing, obsessive setting and resetting of compass from gyro and – crotch-tight hopefully – holding true a straight course, I can STILL hear the feint pips of – – – what was that? – – – a Morse code signal reaching us 40 miles out from our destination airport's ADF beacon. Louder and louder, Schubert with Bollinger, 5 points.