Spectator 2764: Placenames by Doc

A fairly well telegraphed theme, or so it seemed, from Doc this week, with the puzzle title and reference to a ‘section in Chambers‘…

The preamble states that: ‘The unclued lights, all verifiable in a section in Chambers, are of a specific kind.‘

References to ‘a section in Chambers’ usually means one of the Appendices, which in turn usually means you have to have a physical copy…however, I am lucky enough to have an electronic version on my desktop PC that includes the Appendices.

That still doesn’t narrow it down too much – there are 20+ appendices, ranging from ‘Some First Names’ to ‘Major Planetary Satellites’, via various Scales (Mohs, Beaufort), Wedding Anniversaries and International Paper Sizes…the latter surely useful if you ever have trouble getting off to sleep! But no ‘place names’, as that would be too wide-ranging – we have atlases and A-Zs for those…

Nothing to do but start some solving, but at least I know where to start looking as the first few crossers start taking shape. I don’t recall the exact PDM entry, but after a while there seemed to be some possibilities – 22S ISLA, 35D AILSA and 26A SHANNON all seemed to be Gaelic (Scottish/Irish) places and girls’ names – and all were there in the ‘Some first names’ appendix.

But then 13A seemed to be BEVERLEY – another girl’s name, but located in God’s own county, not in Hibernia or Caledonia. That meant 8D was probably ALEX (Ice Cold in Alex?, although that turns out to be Alexandria, but there are a couple of places called ALEX), and it can also be a girl’s name. LORRAINE (France) and CANDIA (Crete) finally blew the Gaelic idea out of the water, although CLYDE and ROSS  both have Scottish connections, but are generally BOYS’ names!

39A was probably KERRY, rather than Gerry or Jerry, and 24D probably KATRINE (Scotland, again, and it has a loch), rather than Katrina or Sabrina, but by this point I was getting close to submission date and couldn’t really work out what ‘specific kind‘ all these places belonged to, unless I was trying to be too clever and they were all just ‘place names that also happen to be male or female names in the back of Chambers‘?!

So I submitted as below, with a few (hopefully educated) guesses, and I will cross my fingers until the solution is published – on Thursday if you have access to the website, or more like Friday/Saturday if you use the paper copy:

I couldn’t parse 42A COME SECOND at all – trying to make an anagram of MOEEN’S, C and ME – but I have just realised the ‘me’ is DOC, so the anagram fodder works, but the definition is a little strange, unless I have misinterpreted something: ‘wins silver’ implies ‘comes second’…maybe ‘to win silver’ would have been more appropriate?

DANIO is in Chambers, but not PEARL DANIO, which needed e-looking up, as did the actresses Evelyn and Dilys LAYE, and ROTORUA and EDERN. I knew of AINSLEY Harriot at 28A, but he may have been beyond the GK of some – although he does seem to have been famous and active for the best part of the last 30+ years.

My thanks to Doc for an interesting challenge, and I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed for Thursday!