CCCWC January competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 35: Member of ground crew, one might imagine, accepts one piece of luggage for carry-on
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A clue to PALAVER.
2 comments refer to this clue (from 2 competitors, 0 others)
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| Comments on the competition |
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| 1. |
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A great turnout of 62 clues making the most of a friendly clue word. I hope we get a correspondingly high number of votes and comments. With so many decent clues I had reluctantly to give zeros to some quite acceptable entries, such as 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18 and 37. I particularly liked the LAV for P in PAPER idea and the PAVER synonyms. Clue 8 handled the LAV idea best with an amusing surface. The work of an experienced clue-writer, I'm sure. 23 and 61 also used it effectively. 28's flags and 35's ground crew were the best of the PAVERs – the latter edged it thanks to its fully worked-out theme and 'carry-on' pun. The other clue that appealed to me was 14's succinct charade.
Rod Laver was a little too popular, and some clue-writers used 'Rod' to define 'Laver', not acknowledging with a question mark or a 'perhaps' that Laver is just one of many possible Rods (Stewart, Steiger…).
The two best punning definitions in the competition for me were 62's 'yak' and 29's 'how's your father', but sadly both clues were flawed. I couldn't accept 'possible exodus' as a hidden indicator, and 29's writer committed the cardinal sin of merging part but not all of the wordplay into the definition, leaving their Rod dangling cryptically.
A few other clues failed to exploit good ideas well: 11 and 53 stretch the meanings of their components too far in order to create a surface reading, hence the long explanations; 21 creates a very implausible scenario – surreality in its own right isn't necessarily entertaining; 32 really needs 'Lap dances! Rave parties!' – each word may change but the letters stay the same; in 38 and 39, 'parley' and 'palaver' for me are too close etymologically to make the clue interesting; 47, even Ms Palin would spell her name with an initial capital, surely; 50 uses a clever idea but puts it out of the solver's reach – there are just too many possible state names and abbreviations; and in 58 'utter' won't stand as a definition – without it this would have been a good & lit. |
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My favourites, with good, misleading surfaces, were 61 and 35
Several clues just missed points:
14 seemed to define PALSAVER
18 "chopped pear" could be PE-AR, but PA-ER is more like "chopped and shaken pear"
27 what a pity O and S weren't adjacent in OPALSAVER
36 "precious stone" is needed only for the surface
50 A great spot, but too difficult for me to solve (without the hints) |
