CCCWC September competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 20: In spooky crypt psychic's a wag, holier than expected
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A clue to STEAR (Printer’s Devilry).
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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My first attempt at writing or judging a clue of this type, and I'm in no position to evaluate fairness or difficulty. Reading through, I found five that sparkled. The sentences both before and after evoked interesting scenes and ideas, plausible ones, that were fun to read.
In the end I just had a feeling that they sparkled in the following order of brilliance:
24 – 5
20 – 4
13 – 3
8 – 2
31 – 1. |
| 2. |
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| The quality of the clues was mixed, but it was good to see that everyone got the hang of P.D. clue writing, as it's quite a different proposition from normal clueing. Several clues fell down with an undevilled reading that made less sense than the devilled – this makes the clue very difficult to solve – including 23, 28 and 32. I also reluctantly excluded 10 (though I loved its bizarre devilled reading) and 12 (whose the devilled version was almost too smoothly worded). One clue, 6, contained an original idea, but overdid the devilry to the point where I thought it was unsolvable. The po/ly idea occurred to a lot of competitors, and 2 handled it best. But my points went to clues that managed to subtly shift the meaning or mood of the passage between the two readings, preferably adding something amusing along the way. These were 3, 20, 24, 29 and 31. |
