April 16 2011
Clues of Summary
Summer is done, with only the summary to come. Ten of us spent the ten days unpeeling the pick of summer’s clues, and shaping clues of our own. While other players came and went, it was the most tenacious (including Mr X, and RK partway) who went the distance, submitting their best five on deadline. Word by word, here is the winner per clue:
RACIST: Supremacist lacking taste and measure! [Boniface set the pace with a sublime &lit. Special mention to RK & Peta for two fine hybrids, plus SK for his portrait of xenophobic France.]
BEDPAN: Plot to seek gold where you may do your business [JD invokes seed capital where only ordure exists. Also like Peta’s definition ‘invalid place to go’, DC’s gutted dump and El Pez’s use of desperate.]
SPIRIT: Headless, is it seen around epitaph when upset? [El Pez awakens the ghost of Ichabod Crane with eerie elegance.]
SPIRIT: Damaged Spitfire loses fuselage casing resulting in fire [Equal billing for Boniface. My lone qualm lies with the fairness of ‘fire’, but the imagery is technicolor.]
MILDEW: I’m lewd, perverted…but I grow on you [Just like SK’s clue grew on me. Also adored Peta’s idea of breaking the mould, and Mr X’s wild whim with Oscar Wilde, which grew a little too wordy.]
PAMPAS: Pete Sampras loses set replayed on grass [SK again, with top-seed wordplay, as tough and tricky as the Sampras serve. Applause too for El Pez’s parental embrace.]
Tallying trophies, with top spot earning 2 points, and a running mention just the one, we see SK sitting high on the summer heap with five, then El Pez and Boniface on four, with newcomer Peta showing a wildcard flair on three. Thanks for a great summer send-off. A “standard” Storm on Tuesday.
Comments
JD — 16 April at 03:56PM
Once again thanks DA. Can you provide a list of the solutions, just to double check that we do indeed have them all correct, or to pick up on the one or two that we may have missed. And congrats to you (and Amanda I guess) on podiumming (?) at the Archibalds.
Boniface — 16 April at 04:35PM
Well done SK and thanks as always to DA.
Peta — 16 April at 05:59PM
That was fun. Thanks DA and all who took part.
Rupert — 17 April at 07:14AM
What the others said. Thanks.
SK — 17 April at 03:30PM
Thanks DA, and to all for some great idea swapping.
Hey I have a question that came to mind when trying to clue PAMPAS, and I wasn't sure of the cryptic protocol...my first idea was to try to keep it simple for optimal surface, like-
Pete Sampras mostly prevailed on grass, or
Pete Sampras occasionally lost on grass
...but whenever I have seen a cryptic clue that takes "most" of the letters from a
word, they are always in order, ie selecting (or removing) "random" letters is rarely seen. Is this one of those golden rules (like no indirect anagrams), or is it a grey area? Anybody know?
DC — 17 April at 07:09PM
Didn't Anax address that directly in one of his reports? I think he was against random removal.
— 18 April at 07:57AM
Thanks DC. I don't remember seeing that but I will check the archives.
DA — 18 April at 08:48AM
DC, you're right. Anax chafed at messy deletions, where the letters to be struck lay dispersed through the fodder.
As a setter, I prefer the surgery to be clean too, though I will make exceptions when the 'story' is as eloquent as SK's Sampras clue.
DA — 18 April at 09:15AM
DC, even Anax will relent on the rule if the clue is top-shelf. Look at his awarding of a recent COW bronze to Qix on his blog. The clue is both diabolic and divine:
Cooked with olives, this could make pesto a vile sight (9) = PESTOAVILESIGHT minus OLIVES = SPAGHETTI