| Comments on the clues |
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| 1. Bird box dispute resolved, cat in it gross |
| 1. | I couldn't figure out what the surface implies |
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| 3. Bird fight follows dispute about past bird fights in a film |
| 1. | 'fights' doesn't reflect correct part of speech required for anagramming in this construction |
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| 5. Bird finding small fish in channel following huge liner |
| 1. | 'finding' seems odd, and 'following' seems out of place – order of clueing doesn't need to be specified |
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| 6. Bird knocks most of its food back intact – half of it, blooming huge! |
| 1. | some jarring elements in the surface |
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| 7. Bird knocks over rough old picture abandoned in attic |
| 1. | rough for row is not ideal I feel, 'rough old picture' doesn't really signify anything in particular | | 2. | Nice surface, but rough=row spoiled it for me. Use of obsolete synonyms is a bit unfair to the solver. | | 3. | v neat, sensible and plausible, favourite |
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| 8. Bird knocks over sail – it went down, unexpectedly–I can’t put it back on top (7,7: |
| 1. | too many breaks, especially one between the terms clued, and 'put' in the imperative doesn't work coming at the end | | 2. | Sail and row aren't the same thing | | 3. | Pelagornithid? :) |
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| 9. Bird species, any once of enormous strength, turning up in Cincinati trees |
| 1. | For the surface 'any one' perhaps ok, but 'any once' seems awkward |
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| 10. Birdie, second birdie – end off with birdie, hitting a nice chipped sinker! (7/7) |
| 1. | Sorry, but sinker was a downer for me |
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| 11. Bird's dispute, has to fight huge blue one that's crazy, having taken off first |
| 1. | Not a very convincing surface |
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| 12. Can one tit become huge bird in box to fight? |
| 1. | 'tit' appearing as is spoils the clue, and the imagery is far from being realistic |
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| 13. Crazy changing source of milk for another huge Bird's grocery line |
| 1. | Construction feels contrived |
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| 14. Divert? I can't, it's Big Bird's special flight! |
| 1. | it's could have been it is, avoiding confusion regarding fodder, and the question mark after the imperative is not ideal. |
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| 15. Flyer from box file in attic ruined – it succumbed to water damage (7 & 7) |
| 1. | A well disguised pair of definitions. |
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| 16. Giant chunk of ice responsible for downing this bird's second quiet flight |
| 1. | root issue with 'titan' as giant, the cryptic element gets lost |
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| 17. Ginger cat in it creates huge bird box disturbance |
| 1. | ginger up might work, but just ginger seems odd as an anagram indicator. Surely there were so many other options? |
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| 18. Huge manx cat scrapped with tit in bird box bust-up |
| 1. | tit appears as is, not the best choice | | 2. | Very good although would prefer ‘scrapping’ to ‘scrapped’ | | 3. | Subtle use of manx | | 4. | punchy, nice alliteration |
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| 19. Huge ship and enormously powerful pirate emerging from fight that hurt about half of the navy |
| 1. | Was Jack left stranded on the rum runners atoll ? |
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| 20. I'm a wreck but mostly fine after lying about having sex, singer argues |
| 1. | 'but' really doesn't work as connector, and 'argues' in verb form for 2 instances also doesn't work for me |
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| 22. It can! It can make big noise after boom, this bird |
| 1. | Not sure if this is meant to suggest Tweetie Pie, but I think it is, and like that |
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| 23. Johnny Depp's role to fight and argue with Leonardo Di Caprio's vehicle – epic! |
| 1. | 'with' suggests a break between terms. LDC's vehicle a definition for titanic?! | | 2. | Was Jack just an extra in the movie ? |
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| 25. Massive craft showing unsinkable confidence moving under steam will square off against boat of type propelled by oars, a small but agile flier |
| 1. | 'will' is out of place. Fairly wordy this |
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| 26. Monster film series on box, Chinese TV series |
| 1. | Very few wordplay elements here; even otherwise, for the surface to work it should be factual, but the TV series is not about monsters |
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| 28. Mountainous region of backwards Republic in a tit-for-tat wrangle and rumpus for bird |
| 1. | backwards doesn't work for surface, should be backward, and surface anyway doesn't read smoothly |
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| 29. Pirate Jack's extremely sharp weapon partly hit it, an iconic ship
LEFT – Def: Pirate Jack, extremely sharp:SP, weapon: ARROW
RIGHT – Def: ship, hiT IT AN IConic ("partly" is the hidden word indicator) |
| 1. | Quite good, though the explanation should have been posted in the earmarked box |
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| 30. Play: in it, cat and Big Bird argue repeatedly |
| 1. | I get the desire to clue 'Big Bird' but somehow feel 'big' doesn't quite capture titanic in the way 'huge' might |
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| 31. Say, Captain Jack's close friend spat at it in broken down backside of gigantic ship (7,7) |
| 1. | is spar being confused with sparring partner here? |
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| 32. Shop on-line for a bird – a small bird I can cook would be great. |
| 1. | on-line a bit libertarian; far from being seamless, the join between terms is overtly marked |
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| 33. Small singer fights huge singer in a heated opening to Carmen |
| 1. | repeated idea of singer could have been avoided |
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| 34. Small tailless bird with small bird, smaller bird and tropical bird start to call – terrific! |
| 1. | works, but here again, the join between terms is not seamless |
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| 36. Southern Palestinian Authorities initial response to conflict and Israeli missile exploding in attic – Monstrous ! |
| 1. | PA as stated not in Chambers, initial letter picking not truly grammatical, join between terms not concealed |
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| 38. Time traveling TV character engaged in one argument after another huge vessel found in attic |
| 1. | Incoherent surface imho |
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| 40. Two fights made bird tremendous – can I reform after another bird? |
| 1. | Don't see what the surface could possibly imply |
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| 41. What's inside iron box with shackles? Pirate ship captain spending a penny worried about it |
| 1. | Lovely stringing together of the various bits and pieces | | 2. | Perfect! With great surface: I remember what ‘spend a penny’ meant and that it was a great place to sit and think (or worry) |
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