The Crossword Centre Clue-Writing Competition

CCCWC June competition voters’ comments
 
Clue no. 38: Oh boy!

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A clue to OSCAR.
1 comment refers to this clue (from 1 competitor, 0 others)
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Comments on the competition
1.
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.