CCCWC January competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 25: Flatter TV format means set 50% smaller
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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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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. |
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I was surprised by the number of clues that ignored hyphens in their definitions (4, 10, 11, 12, 13): "carry-on" is different from "carry on" and "to do" is different from "to-do".
There were quite a lot of alright but uninspiring clues, but the "lav for pee in paper" idea was a great one and most of my votes went to the three clues using this idea (8, 23, 61). My other choices were 24, 25 and 38 which all held together well, with decent surface readings and original wordplay.
I liked the idea of "state, state, state!?" used in 50 but thought it would be stronger worded as an &lit and even then with such a big choices of words and abbreviations for "state", perhaps a little unfair. |
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One or two very good clues this month. My suspicion is that the author of 16 made a slip: it seems that the word 'core' is not meant to be there. Without it it's an excellent clue and would probably have got 2 points.
1st (3pts): 25 (beautiful)
2nd= (2 pts each): 2, 8, 18
5th= (1 pt each): 23 ('Employ' is a bit cumbersome in the surface, and the comma for 'and' is also a bit weak I think), 37, 38 (not a totally natural surface), 44 (I don't like 'detailed' for 'de-tailed', and the surface meaning is perhaps a rather loose definition of 'palaver'), 56 (rather wacky and fun, but I felt the semicolon should have been either a colon or a dash), 62. |
