The Stickler Weekly 154 Solution

Some cryptic crossword blogs ask readers to come up a clues for a given word. This is a good thing, giving readers to opportunity to channel their inner setter. Most crossword blogs are attached to a particular crossword or group of crosswords, so those brave enough to try their hand know that any submitted clues should have a similar feel. It also helps readers appreciate (I hope) how difficult it is to write a professional-style clue. On blogs like fifteensquared and Times for the Times, occasionally people will offer tweaks to published clues that they believe improve them. It’s common that people post their dislike for certain clues (as is their right), but rarely are alternatives offered. There are other blogs that list clues that the blogger doesn’t think are great and invites readers to submit replacements. I have mixed feelings about this style of clue analysis and emulation as the resultant clue offerings are sort of out of context. The clue submitters don’t have to conform to the standards of the original newspaper, they just write in their own style. You can’t compare the original and the submitted as they aren’t operating under the same rules. Most of the replacement clues simply wouldn’t be accepted by the original paper. Submitted clues aren’t assessed, even though the aim is to improve on the originals. Here’s an example from one such blog:

Original clue – Two men in kingly legend = ARTHURIAN [from Times 10679]
I understand the complaint here, two unqualified names butted together, one of them the name that spawned the adjective. The other problem, of course, is that the answer is an adjective and the clue asks for a noun.
Submitter’s clue: Are you Ben Fleming? The legend? Same construction (Arthur + Ian) essentially, but with added superfluous words, and one of the names is disguised by using a first name to indicate a last name. To cap it off, the same mistake regarding adjective/noun mismatch is also present.

I know that this is an amateur’s attempt at re-constructing a clue, but surely the same mistakes shouldn’t be made, especially as the original clues have been held up to ridicule to some extent? The owner of the blog too, I believe, should help budding setters by pointing out where clues fall down (this may be done offline, I don’t know). Some of the suggested clues might conform to the standards of the blog, but they certainly are nowhere near being better or even comparable to the original flawed clues that feature in the blog post.