Alternate Accolades

19 October, 2013

Now and then a Storm appears that makes the most of ‘now and then’, and all those other signposts for alternate clues: occasionally, oddly, evens out, losing seconds, off and on. You get the hang. Alternate clues make strings out of every even (or odd) letter in a word or phrase. If you want to see some fine examples, read on.

We had seven cluesmiths competing, with each player ranking merit points in my final tally. Voided made me see BOAT hiding in BUOYANT, just as Bifidus Regularis revealed FIT in FAINT. I loved the ambition of Guerre Acrid, who contrived to pack RIESLING into a Rhine story, and felt Rococo’s AFL CHAMPION NEED was a just one small smidge unfair, where the odds of each word – not the phrase – render AL CAPONE.)

Anyhow, the Alternate podium:

Nepalese local is as odd as the European = SHERPA [Qetuo gets bronze for a nifty multinational stunt, perhaps with a redundant ‘as’, but still mighty classy.]

For fitne