CCCWC October competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 5: Alternatively, put into custody
Back to competitor’s clues |
All the comments |
Other competitions
A clue to CAPTURE.
5 comments refer to this clue (from 5 competitors, 0 others)
Move your mouse pointer over any bold clue number to see the clue.
Here is the text
| Comments on the competition |
|---|
| 1. |
|---|
I thought this was an excellent set of clues, by far the strongest that I remember in this competition. After my first run through, I had at least 15 candidates for votes, which made the task of awarding votes (pleasantly) demanding.
Ultimately, I gave 5 points to 40, which is as good an &lit. as I've seen; 4 points to 12, for a perfect and succinct surface; 3 points to 5, an excellent clue which is, to my mind, slightly outshone by 40; 2 points to 26, another with an excellent, tight surface; and 1 point to 51, which is pleasingly original. |
| 2. |
|---|
| No 5 was the & lit we should all have found, so it gets my top vote. Not a bad bunch and more than five clues getting my initial 1 point in the box. I thought some seemed to define the verb with an object. The usual bizarre stuff too — for instance, what the dickens is 13 all about?! |
| 3. |
|---|
| With so many entries it's not surprising to see some very similar ideas, for example 18 and 40, 43 and 47, 44 and 59. 24 and 37 rely on practically identical but dubious homophones. Several clues don't read very naturally, e.g 11 13 17 20 32 33 34 42 53. I don't see how "screen" works as a definition in58. Dr.Edwards is supefluous in 22. Vacuum = capture dust in 23 is tenuous to say the least. 14 is probably the most inventive clue but since a capon is not necessarily a turkey I ruled it out, sorry. (Chambers simply has "a castrated cock".) Some excellent pithy clues – 5 stands out, and 26 is very elegantly constructed. I also rather like 2, 10 12 18 and 40. Perhaps surprisingly, no references to the Tea Party. |
| 4. |
|---|
| Not many of these really grabbed my attention, and there were quite a few ungrammatical anagram indicators that spoiled some otherwise good ideas. 5 and 40 stood out for their smooth &lit treatment, with 40 coming top for me because of its natural surface reading. |
| 5. |
|---|
A lot of reasonable clues this month, and I distributed lots of half points. The clues that stood out to me for more points than that were 40 and 5, the former with a perfect surface reading &lit, the latter slightly strained, but still the same great idea; 29 and 47, both original ideas, well worded with respect to surface and cryptic reading.
For 15, a "castle" is not a chess piece, but "castling" is a chess move, which could not possibly result in the queen being taken since it would be illegal. Clue 22 seemed to have a lot of superfluous wording for surface reading only. Clues 19 and 31 were not quite up to "above half points" because of the exact wording. I thought 19 would have been better as "Curate fidegeting with priest's collar" and the "first" in 31 seemed to me to be a bit clumsy. |
