CCCWC February competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 19: Dubya's mum leaves out pub in Argentina – constant about her relationship to his daughters.
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A clue to BABUSHKA.
2 comments refer to this clue (from 2 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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| Good to see a record turnout of competitors having a go at a difficult clue word, and delivering a pretty sound set of clues overall. The main difficulty seemed to be putting the elements of definition and wordplay togther in a coherent and convincing whole. Some clues veered too far towards absurdity, such as 13, 16, 40 and 64, and others towards improbability, such as 12, 19, 30 and 51. The clues that appealed most were ones that painted a plausible picture with interesting wordplay. 2 has a whole string of goaty elements to fit with the 'nanny' definition. 7 avoids complexities with its straight anagram (though hijabs might be more the norm in Baku than babushkas). 20 is a neat little pen-picture, and 49 and 50 both find a political angle with misleading definitions. |
| 2. |
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One of the problems in judging this was deciding how precisely a Russian headscarf, or an elderly Russian lady, should be defined. Should it have a specific reference to Russia, or could it refer to any old lady or headscarf? My final decision was that those definitions that didn't point to Russia explicitly would be fine; however, if a definition (and not the surface) suggested a country other than Russia, I considered this too much of a logical leap. Example of this were 6, 19 and 30. 63 also fell into this category, I felt, but I must congratulate the contributor on the clue's surface. 7 was another that fell foul here, mostly because I can't be sure that Azeri people (speaking a Turkic language) would refer to such an item the same as a Russian (who speaks a Slavic language).
On the positive side, points to:
5: 35 – Gots the edge over 36 due to a smoother surface.
4: 36 – See above.
3: 29 – Clever defintions.
2: 62 – Indirect anagram is perhaps obscure, but it doesn't harm the clue much.
1: 38 – Good surface.
I should also give mentions to 4, 14, 18, 25 and 49, 53 and 54. 46 has an excellent surface, but I'm not sure Red is synonymous with Russia. |
