CCCWC June competition voters’ comments
Clue no. 43: Third-rate balls set to be returned
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A clue to Any “Double” Word (6 or more letters) (A Game of Two Halves).
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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Many of the clues were over long and/or too convoluted for what was quite an easy exercise with the scope offered with the extra word and the short subsidiary part to clue. The use of more than 10 words, in my view, indicated lack of cluemanship, and initial letter devices, centres of words, etc, were a complete cop-out under the circumstances.
One or two words chosen had etymologies which meant that the half word was too similar to the full word for my liking. At the other end of the spectrum, I thought HOTSHOTS and TESTES were interesting choices. There were a few good and topical clues for these (e.g. 43, 45 and 22) which drew most of my votes. Unfortunately 15 seemed to be clued the wrong way round – surely TEES is spurned by E? |
| 2. |
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Part of the challenge was that the clue should have a footballing surface. In my view, it was not enough simply to introduce the name of a character associated with football, but in a non-footballing context (eg, 10 or even 41), let alone simply to mention a World Cup venue in this way (eg, 6, 8). Beyond that, I gave more credit to surfaces dealing with actual events (especially events associated with the World Cup) than to those involving (as far as I can discover – my apologies if this is down to my ignorance of the game) purely imaginary incidents (1, 3, 12, 33 and 50) or vague generalizations (2, 23, 25, 40, 42). Unfortunately, quite a few of the clues that met these criteria were seriously flawed (eg, 5 – indirect anagram – 20 – I don’t think “Rob Green’s last” can mean “Green after last has been taken away” – 26 – “who” plays no valid part – 31 – “by” ditto – 35 – “no longer” ditto – 46 – “heads” does NOT mean “heads of” – 34 and 44 – “set back” and “setback” are NOT the same thing). 24, 32 and 49 also sailed fairly close to the wind wrt soundness (much as I liked other aspects of 24 and 49 especially). In the economical 9, a “can” and a “potty” may have the same purpose, but they are not, unfortunately, the same thing. In 16 and 19, the definitions made dubious sense in the context of the surface, while 17, though it had an excellent definition, was rendered very stilted by the need to include “team”.
My votes as follows:
2 points each: 15, 21, 37
1.5 points each: 22, 24, 29, 43
1 point each: 7 32 49 |
