CCCWC January competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 16: Conference pear core upset John's inside (7)
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A clue to PALAVER.
4 comments refer to this clue (from 4 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| A very nice set of clues, I thought; my only gripe is that Rod LAVER seemed a bit over-used. 25 gets maximum points for ingenious linkage of 'flatter' and 'TV format'. 16, to which I gave 4 points, seemed the neatest of the 'conference pear' clues. 52 was very straightforward, but none the worse for that, 3 points. 2 points for 24, in which 'Filet de' worked very nicely. Finally, 1 point for 5, in which I liked 'brave talk'. At first glance, I marked 23 highly, but 'employ soft soap' is an intransitive phrase while 'flatter' is a transitive verb. |
| 2. |
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Plenty of conference pears / Rod (& Pa) Lavers / carry ons / lap dancers and lav papers, but some accommodated within clumsy surfaces – so marks have been awarded to the cleanest, snappiest clues.
I had problems with – 1 did not seem to make sense – was Pal used twice in wordplay friend/lap dancing? 6 Gram. error in wordplay (should maybe be 'appearing'?) 7 R is 'first of rate', not 'first rate' 15 over-tortuous attempt to generate current commentary 16 did not quite work – might have been better without 'core'? 17 did not quite get the jam bit 18 Gram. uses multiple senses 21 a little unfair, P&L don't appear together 27 O&S are separated so OS not really fair 29 Def & wordplay should not overlap 47 'sarah' does not mean 'palin' any more than 'michael' does.('e.g. sarah' might). Also, 'out' is unfair, why not just use 'not in'? 50 Did not really get it – is 'state' really a synonym for 'palaver'
Most others were ok, some rather good but I suppose the word encouraged a lot of sameness |
| 3. |
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A great turnout of 62 clues making the most of a friendly clue word. I hope we get a correspondingly high number of votes and comments. With so many decent clues I had reluctantly to give zeros to some quite acceptable entries, such as 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18 and 37. I particularly liked the LAV for P in PAPER idea and the PAVER synonyms. Clue 8 handled the LAV idea best with an amusing surface. The work of an experienced clue-writer, I'm sure. 23 and 61 also used it effectively. 28's flags and 35's ground crew were the best of the PAVERs – the latter edged it thanks to its fully worked-out theme and 'carry-on' pun. The other clue that appealed to me was 14's succinct charade.
Rod Laver was a little too popular, and some clue-writers used 'Rod' to define 'Laver', not acknowledging with a question mark or a 'perhaps' that Laver is just one of many possible Rods (Stewart, Steiger…).
The two best punning definitions in the competition for me were 62's 'yak' and 29's 'how's your father', but sadly both clues were flawed. I couldn't accept 'possible exodus' as a hidden indicator, and 29's writer committed the cardinal sin of merging part but not all of the wordplay into the definition, leaving their Rod dangling cryptically.
A few other clues failed to exploit good ideas well: 11 and 53 stretch the meanings of their components too far in order to create a surface reading, hence the long explanations; 21 creates a very implausible scenario – surreality in its own right isn't necessarily entertaining; 32 really needs 'Lap dances! Rave parties!' – each word may change but the letters stay the same; in 38 and 39, 'parley' and 'palaver' for me are too close etymologically to make the clue interesting; 47, even Ms Palin would spell her name with an initial capital, surely; 50 uses a clever idea but puts it out of the solver's reach – there are just too many possible state names and abbreviations; and in 58 'utter' won't stand as a definition – without it this would have been a good & lit. |
| 4. |
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A clue word ofering many possibilities has produced the best of the 4 competitions I have entered so far. I usually award marks to only the top 5, but because of the high standard of the clues I've stretched it to 9.
Top mark to no 8, 4 points, a cracking idea exploited by two others, 23(2 points) and 61 (3 points). Top marks went to 8 because it was specific about which pee (p) was replaced. Looks to me like the work of one T.M.
25 and 38 (2 points each) are both excellent clues which I would have marked higher if more points were available. I awarded 0.5 points each to clues 14, 16, 18 and 20. Again, all would have received more had the competition not been so intense. |
