| The practice of submitting two clues in one, as in 19 and 54, is dubious, and sticking to a single idea would have improved both. Final choice: 18, 29, 15, 16, 35. |
| I thought this was an excellent set of clues, with a pleasing variety of approaches – which didn't make voting any easier. I gave 5 points to clue 29, which combined the WAT and S-S elements ingeniously. 4 points to clue 48, a very clever combination of two Scottish words in an &lit. 3 points to clue 15, which I thought was the best of the initial/final letters &lits. 2 points for clue 54, original and clever, though I didn't think 'with release of energy' quite worked. And 1 point for clue 43, which is simple but highly effective. |
SWATS was quite difficult to get to grips with especially if, like me, you missed the 'beer' definition and had to think of something original to do with a plural noun or 3rd person verb, and it was great to see so many competitors up for the challenge. Initial letters clues were plentiful, so something special was needed here, and only no 15 really delivered, with properly grammatical wordplay and a decent & lit. (and despite my aversion to otiose exclamation marks). Likewise double definitions had to produce a convincing surface rather than just stringing two meanings together, and no 46 did this best with the 'hits the buzzers' idea. No 18 (the other 'buzzer') just missed my top 5. Not many misleading definitions considering the number of alternatives for 'hits', but 43 found a good one. 29 was one of the best & lit. clues. 'Rebel' for 'Wat' is just about ok, and while 30's 'Rose Tyler' has very clever wordplay, the definition is a bit of a let-down.
The main faults I found were: i) Not indicating initial letters properly (e.g. 'Primary school with…' in 27), ii) some unconvincing definitions (NUS=swats? – not in my experience), and iii) the usual surplus verbiage: more is almost always less in cryptic clues, so 19's twenty-one words put me off before I even started to read it. |
I was taken aback by the dictionary definition of “swat” as a “heavy blow”, which gives a quite different nuance to the word than what it suggests to me, but the meaning is unquestionably supported by both Chambers and the OED and must therefore clearly be allowed.
With a short word like SWATS, it is perhaps not surprising that a significant proportion (14.5%) of the entries opted for an acronymic (or, in one case (11), bathonymic) approach, while nearly half of all the clues employed some device to indicate the first and/or last letter of one or more words. These devices ranged from the unimpeachable (eg, “START OF tests”, “support AT THE KICK OFF”) via the nigglingly slightly unsatisfactory (eg, “STARTER FOR ten”, “HEADS FOR sure would applaud these students”), the iffy (eg, “Students working assiduously to secure FIRSTS”) and the distinctly dodgy (eg, “when HEAD”, “Science FINAL”, “PRIMARY school”) to the, surely, completely unacceptable (eg, “Demonstrates how flea that bites TERMINATES” – “terminates” can only be the 3rd person singular of a verb).
Two clues stood out, with an unusually large number competing for the remaining points. Among the latter, I decided to wink at minor flaws and to favour clues offering elegance and/or a convincing and original surface over those that, though entirely sound, adopted a more humdrum approach.
5 points:
18. Hits the buzzer with a starter for ten in two seconds! (The blend of (misleading) definition, wordplay and surface in this clue is so elegant that my niggle over “starter for” seems insignificant)
4 points:
2. Aims to undo flies in seconds, with a tug initially (A lovely definition and very neat wordplay)
2 points each:
15. Heads for sure would applaud these students! (A neat &lit);
29. Rebel in middle of lesson? They certainly won't! (“Rebel” for WAT is pushing it a bit, but otherwise elegant)
1 point:
35. Students working assiduously to secure firsts (I’m not sure quite why, but “firsts” (plural) as an indicator seems less unsound than the singular (eg, “win first”) employed in much the same way. This reservation apart, this is a neat &lit, though it would have benefited from a question-mark)
0.5 point each:
44. The debuts of Symonds, Waugh and Taylor – sensational knocks (The answer would be a little too obvious to the solver & “knocks” is a bit weak as a definition, but sound)
55. Worries about unloading Enfield’s lead slugs (Neat wordplay, but a slightly improbable surface – and would an Enfield rifle really use lead slugs?)
Two otherwise excellent clues marred by flaws:
51. Was rolled Times used for such blows? (“Times” for TS is, surely, not on);
53. What's drunk in Scotland's capital, Special Brew? (Doesn’t quite work. “Scotland” seems to be doing double duty: “What’s drunk in Scotland” = WAT and “Scotland’s capital” = S).
14. “Gunners, well-equipped for action, somewhat lacking home ground support at the kick-off” was ingenious, if a little on the long side, but, as far as I could establish, SWATS as an acronym (not in Chambers) stands for “Soldier Wearable Acoustic Targeting System” and thus can hardly mean “Gunners”, while to describe the U.S. police units called SWATs as “gunners” seems a bridge too far. |
