| 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. |
| 2. |
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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) |
| 3. |
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A clue word ofering many possibilities has produced the best of the 4 competitions I have entered so far. I usually award marks to only the top 5, but because of the high standard of the clues I've stretched it to 9.
Top mark to no 8, 4 points, a cracking idea exploited by two others, 23(2 points) and 61 (3 points). Top marks went to 8 because it was specific about which pee (p) was replaced. Looks to me like the work of one T.M.
25 and 38 (2 points each) are both excellent clues which I would have marked higher if more points were available. I awarded 0.5 points each to clues 14, 16, 18 and 20. Again, all would have received more had the competition not been so intense. |
| 4. |
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I was surprised by the number of clues that ignored hyphens in their definitions (4, 10, 11, 12, 13): "carry-on" is different from "carry on" and "to do" is different from "to-do".
There were quite a lot of alright but uninspiring clues, but the "lav for pee in paper" idea was a great one and most of my votes went to the three clues using this idea (8, 23, 61). My other choices were 24, 25 and 38 which all held together well, with decent surface readings and original wordplay.
I liked the idea of "state, state, state!?" used in 50 but thought it would be stronger worded as an &lit and even then with such a big choices of words and abbreviations for "state", perhaps a little unfair. |
| 5. |
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PALAVER was a friendly clue-word, offering numerous possibilities. This was reflected in the size of the entry, but it was disappointing that so few of the clues offered much originality or flair and that some of those that did were unsound. Many of the surfaces were rather feeble or even, in a few cases, perverse. “Rod” to indicate LAVER without any reference to tennis seems unsatisfactory to me: there are lots of other Rods, and it’s half a century since Laver was at his peak.
4 points each: 2 and 38 – two neat &lits, though “engage in” sails a bit close to the wind.
3 points: 18 – simple and economical.
1 point each:
15 – a clever idea quite skilfully executed, but rather too long.
37 – an excellent idea for the definition. A pity that the words chosen for their first letters weren’t a bit pithier and less vacuous – “long and very extensive”? Also, “starting” isn’t quite right as an indicator; some approach like “starts to pall…” would have been sounder. Much Ado would have been quite adequate, thereby shortening the clue to good effect.
0.5 point each
28 – “One who might arrange the flags…” would have been sounder
34
51 – the simplest and best of the lap-dancing clues.
61
Prox. ac.:
13 – sounder and/or less contorted than the other Carry On entries, but suffers from the fact that the film is imaginary.
20 – the surface of a promising comp. anag, spoiled by the inappropriate word “Convoluted”, which doesn’t suit the surface.
43 – quite neat wordplay, but the surface is unconvincing. |
