CCCWC June competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 18: Gerrard goes reasonably — at first — in South African spell
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A clue to Any “Double” Word (6 or more letters) (A Game of Two Halves).
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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A dog's dinner, make that two – an impression of both the tournament and this competition – inspired by 19 which features surely the best clue-word used. That entry is one of no fewer than ten clues entered with explanations NOT in the format suggested by the organisers. A smaller number gave the details in the correct order, but without any punctuation. Very few entries reveal any thought given to the solver's first task – to identify the word to be omitted – and so to make it more of a challenge by arranging that any word, or at least most words, when removed, would still leave a readable clue. However, in the end I did not let these misgivings affect my votes.
I selected seven clues :-
10 Elegant, apt, and witty – 5 points
7 Sound construction, straight to the point – 3 points
22 Apt and very well honed – good surface(s) – 2 points
45 The best of the 'testes/balls' clues – 2 points
15 'spurned' is a very classy feature here – 1 point
17 Let's hear it for Germans and Aussies, beautifully disguised def. – 1 point
19 Spoilt by a disjointed 'thrash', but a great attempt – 1 point
Other clues
49 Better than many of those above, but 'with' superfluous content, great pity
11 Brilliantly worked surface and subsidiary, definition needs improving
16 A gem, but I suspect many will judge it to be a bit off-focus, unlike 17
18 "'i" for "in" needs to be flagged by some means for the majority of solvers
30 Reminiscent of Baldrick's riddles, baffling surface & no real definition
46 High quality in every respect. Not a central theme for most, however |
| 2. |
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Some lovely ideas but also lots of clues made unsound by the use of linking words which implied that, for example, BUL is the same as BUL-BUL, which it isn’t. This is something repeatedly mentioned by Azed over the years (Slips 1200, 1441, 1459, 1596, 1707, 1914 ).
Some of the linking words used were ‘as’ (4), ‘in’ (8 and 13), ‘for’ (12 and 26), 'is’ (39 and 41) and ‘prove to be’ (44).
One can normally work round the problem (eg High kicking action? Crouch has the power) but avoiding them does make life harder.
My favourite clue was 48 (where the ‘as’ is part of the definition), then 18, 17, 3 and 1. |
