Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

15a French port regrettably claiming half of Channel Islands? (6) - CALAIS

It appears to be "regrettably" = ALAS around/claiming I - which is "half of Channel Islands" - but where is the instruction to put (presumably) the other half of, the C, at the front?

The intention of the setter, I believe, is that "regrettably claiming half of Channel Islands" should be interpreted as "Channel Islands, with half claimed by regrettably".

On the basis that (say) "Ring drawn around half of word" would imply that the whole word is still there but the ring is only around half of it, I don't think the clue is unfair.

Brendan, I found it an odd clue at the time - and I still think the same! I don't feel it's unfair, just not a particularly good clue.

Thanks Spoffy, thanks Malone,

if I understand you right, you're saying that because the "I" is specifically told to go within ALAS, we should should assume the "C" doesn't. Thank makes sense now, I think.

PS. I wasn't criticizing the clue, I just wanted an explanation (a clue for, for me, isn't complete until I've parsed every letter.).

That's not to say I particularly like the clue myself, and one could certainly debate whether the setter is indeed "saying what he means".

However, the wordplay element here is no worse than several accepted constructions which do not stand up to close scrutiny - for instance, "One escaping from elegant trap" looks superficially ok for NET [NEAT - A], but "One escaping from elegant" should properly indicate A (the subject being the 'one' that is escaping from 'elegant') rather than NET, which would be "Elegant with one escaping" or similar.