The Crossword Centre Clue-Writing Competition

CCCWC October competition voters’ comments
 
Clue no. 51: The first to take off orders longer motif

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A clue to MONTGOLFIER.
4 comments refer to this clue (from 3 competitors, 0 others)
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Here is the text

Comments on the clue
1.Rather an irrelevant surface reading
2.Anagram good, definition not.
3.The surface reading lacks coherent meaning and the definition seems imprecise.
 
Comments on the competition
1.
Unsurprisingly, this month's clue word produced a plethora of anagrams, many of them incorporated into the & lit. (2, 3*, 18, 19, 26, 33, 38, 40, 43*, 52* and 56*) or semi & lit. (5, 9*, 25, 32 and 55) format. Clues which relied on a generally descriptive definition in non & lit. format (10, 11, 21, 37, 46, 48, 50, 51 and 57*) tended to be more challenging to solve than those including (hot air) balloon (1, 6, 7, 8, 23, 29, 31*, 39, 45 and 54*) or variants (47* and 58). Other references to 'hot air' appeared in 8 clues (14, 17, 20, 34, 36, 44*, 49 and 53), with 2 clues each defining by 'floater' (12 and 42) and 'air transport' (22 and 41). The remaining 9 entrants chose to define the inventor/family/pilot, rather than the invention (4, 13, 15*, 16, 24, 27, 28, 30, and 35).

The commonest anagram strategy was to combine MOORING with either LEFT (7, 8, 16, 29, 36, 38, 39 and 52*) or FELT (31* and 47*), with 6 clues using FOR LONG TIME (14, 28, 30, 32, 40 and 58) as the fodder. LIFT also featured with MEN OR GO (41 and 56*) and R GO ON ME 934). 2 clues each used GOLFER I'M NOT (10 and 49), MELTING ROOF (37 and 53) and FLOATING MORE – A (13 and 42) and there were single occurences of FROGMEN TOIL (12), GROOM LEFT IN (45), LONGER MOTIF (51) and ON ROME FLIGHT – H (55).

Surface readings with a golfing flavour were popular (10, 48, 49 and 50) with two clues featuring (Tiger) Woods in the wordplay (35 and 57). Just 3 clues included the Golf motor car in their wordplay (21, 22 and 44*), with two of these managing a topical reference to the VW emissions scandal.