CCCWC September competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 30: Rose Tyler’s possibly Doctor’s ultimate love – and Earth being razed? Small beer!
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A clue to SWATS.
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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. |
