The Crossword Centre Clue-Writing Competition

CCCWC April competition voters’ comments
 
Clue no. 46: That ends leaving turntable playing "Misty"

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A clue to NEBULAR.
5 comments refer to this clue (from 4 competitors, 0 others)
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Here is the text

Comments on the clue
1.Nicely done.
2.Clever use of "that ends" for TT, but it makes for a rather fragmentary surface.
3.'That ends' for 'ends of that' does't seem natural, nor somehow does the surface reading
4.I like the different track (pun intended) to the rest.
 
Comments on the competition
1.
An excellent choice of clueword which gave solvers a variety of options for anagrams and containers. Common weaknesses in clues were faulty or absent anagram indicators(9, 19, 32, 35, 36, 44, 50), superfluous words (21, 29, 44, 48, 52) and failure to combine a clear definition with a sensible surface reading (3, 4, 5, 7, 13, 14, 16, 18, 23, 25, 28, 39, 42, 42, 46, 48, 52) . In fact three clues seemed to define 'nebulous' rather than 'nebular' (16, 21, 26). Of the rest, 24 referred in some way to the heavens and another 21 used cloudy/misty in a general sense. Only two clues used the ophthalmological meaning (8 and 45), and just one tackled 'of the nature of a liquid for spraying', which deserved a mark for bravery ! (42)

There were 16 variations on straight or simple compound anagrams, with UNABLE + R being the most popular by far (7 in total, clues 15 and 51 were the best of these). Personal favourites were LAUREN + B (6) and LUREXBAN – X (24), which I made joint winners – well done ! In third place was
LUNARBASE – AS which conjured up images of Space 1999.

Of the container clues, variations on BUL in NEAR or NE+AR were by far the most popular (13). My favourite of the BULKs was 10, and of the BULLs 30.