The Stickler Weekly 30 Solution

I was recently interviewed by an excellent cryptic crossword blog called Crossword Unclued. You can find the interview here. We covered a whole range of topics, but the focus was on life as a professional full-time setter and how I’d changed in clueing style from the early days. I mentioned more than once a shift away from setting for myself and focussing on setting for the solvers. What did I mean by that? I’ll explain with an example. A recent clue from the UK, “A number of ducks crossing the sea (4,2,2)”, had me pondering for quite some time and was only solved once all the crossing letters were obtained. The answer is LOVE ME DO, a Beatles song released over 50 years ago. The definition is “A NUMBER” and “OF” is a linking word. The wordplay requires “DUCKS” to equal LOVEO and “THE SEA” to equal MED, with CROSSING being the containment indicator. For me, this clue asks too much of the solver. First they have to realise “A NUMBER” is a song and then find one from the millions that have ever been released – the definition may be clever in the context of the clue, but it’s far from giving the solver a good pointer to the answer. Next “DUCKS” must be seen as just two (separate) “DUCKS”, and one of them equated to “LOVE”. While DUCK and LOVE are zero score (0) in cricket and tennis respectively, they are not interchangeable and surely not synonymous without making a giant leap. For a solver to come up with “DUCKS” = LOVEO without first finding the answer would be almost impossible.
So, this is a setter’s clue: one that has great surface and construction but has been written with little regard to how a solver will actually solve it. One may say that it works technically, but is that enough?