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!
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
||
| 5 | BONSAI | Small tree, one a pretentious person brought back (6)
I (one) + A + SNOB (pretentious person) = IASNOB, all brought back to give BONSAI |
||
| 10 | PEARL DANIO | Aerial pond adapted for fish in an aquarium (5,5)
anag, i.e. adapted, of AERIAL POND |
||
| 17 | REHIRES | Takes back onto the staff latter half of Leicestershire Cooks (7)
anag, i.e. cooks, of ( |
||
| 18 | NEUTRAL | Renault changed gear (7)
anag, i.e. changed, of RENAULT |
||
| 20 | LANDSLIP | Evidence of Fall in the Rockies? (8)
CD – a fall, uncapitalised, in the Rocky mountains could be a LANDSLIP |
||
| 25 | BOA | Stiff paper, way-out neckwear? (3)
BOA( |
||
| 28 | AINSLEY | TV cook Harriott from NE Islay (7)
anag, i.e. from, of NE ISLAY |
||
| 29 | LAH | Note: 50 per cent reduced, after setback (3)
HAL( |
||
| 31 | SEASHORE | Is it found down the Strand? (8)
punning CD, a SEASHORE could be found on any ‘strand’ (poetic, beach, shore), but not on THE Strand, in London! |
||
| 34 | ROTORUA | Blade – posh one – at NZ springs city (7)
ROTOR (helicopter blade) + U (posh, not non-U) + A (one) |
||
| 36 | STOPGAP | Temporary bar opening (7)
STOP (bar) + GAP (opening) |
||
| 40 | NUTSHELL | Bananas by bottomless pit and fruit container (8)
NUTS (bananas, crazy) + HELL (bottomless pit) |
||
| 41 | NIECES | Family members’ new compositions not requiring piano (6)
N (new) + ( |
||
| 42 | COME SECOND | Moeen’s caught me out and wins silver (4,6)
anag, i.e. out, of MOEENS + C (caught, cricket notation) + DOC (me) [‘wins silver’ implies ‘comes second’?] |
||
| 43 | CO-HOST | Salmon, by the way, for fellow presenter (2-4)
CO_HO (salmon) + ST (street, way) |
||
| 44 | ATHLETES | The least bad runners? (8)
anag, i.e. bad, of THE LEAST |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/Parsing |
||
| 1 | LUCERN | Swiss city cut cattle fodder (6)
LUCERN( [although Chambers has ‘lucerne’ and ‘lucern’ for cattle fodder/alfalfa – so maybe a double defn, if the cattle fodder is cut before being fed to the cattle?] |
||
| 2 | RED LINES | Lender is out at hockey rink markings (3,5)
anag, i.e. out, of LENDER IS |
||
| 3 | IRADES | Such decrees are timeless outbursts (6)
( |
||
| 4 | EDERN | Socialist in Tyneside, turning up at village on the Lleyn (5)
N_E (the North-East, e.g. Tyneside) around RED (socialist), all turned up to give EDERN |
||
| 6 | ONER | Expert from Folkestone, reading (4)
hidden word in, i.e. from, ‘folkestONE Reading’ |
||
| 7 | SOLAR ENERGY | Royals dabbling with green source of power (5,6)
anag, i.e. dabbling, of ROYALS + GREEN |
||
| 9 | RABELAIS | Drink pub served up is for bawdy writer (8)
ALE (drink) + BAR (pub) = ALEBAR, served up to give RABELA, plus IS |
||
| 11 | CYCLONE | Bowling during series creates storm in Sri Lanka (7)
CYCL_E (series) around ON (cricket term, a bowler is ‘brought on’ to bowl) |
||
| 14 | VEEP | e.g. Vance – outside on record (4)
VE (outsides of VancE) + EP (Extended Play, vinyl record) [definition and wordplay overlap slightly!] |
||
| 15 | RUTH | Pity it has only four chapters (4)
double defn -pity can be RUTH; and the book of RUTH on the Old Testament only has four chapters, apparently?) |
||
| 16 | CHAINSTITCH | Needle patterns represented in chitchats (11)
anag, i.e. represented, of IN CHITCHATS |
||
| 19 | UTAH | State of posh topper turned up (4)
U (posh, not non-U, again) + TAH (hat, or topper, turned up) |
||
| 21 | LAYE | Actresses Evelyn or Dilys in Cinderella? Yes! (4)
hidden word in ‘cinderelLA YEs’ |
||
| 23 | DOG-EARED | Shabby party clothes with news boss (3-5)
DO (party) + G_EAR (clothes) + ED (editor, newspaper boss) |
||
| 25 | BLUR | Confused impression of old car firm city (4)
BL (British Leyland, old car firm) + UR (ancient Mesopotamian city) |
||
| 27 | NEOPRENE | Rubber prone to distort? Renew after stripping (8)
NEOPR (anag, i.e. to distort, of PRONE) + ( |
||
| 31 | SURE | Safe section of 31A reported (4)
homophone, i.e. reported – second syllable, or section) of 31A is SHORE, which could sound like SURE |
||
| 32 | STENCH | Small fish hum (6)
S (small) + TENCH (fish) |
||
| 33 | SPASMS | Fits in well with text service (6)
SPA (well) + SMS (Short Message Service, text service) |
||
| 37 | LUDO | Let us discuss our openings for game (4)
opening letters of ‘Let Us Discuss Our’ |
||
| 38 | OHMS | Resistance units – I see thousands (4)
OH (interjection, I see!) + MS (M, Latin, mille, thousand, pluralised) |
||
I concluded that the PLACE and the NAME must both be verifiable in the names section in Chambers. As a result, I have SABRINA for 24d, ALED for 8d and TERRY (which we are told derives from Thera) at 39a.
I agree with the blog regarding 42a, I also wrote “to win” next to the clue.
Thanks to mc, I look forward to Thursday!
Cheers to Doc.
Mc_rapper67, I think 24 D had to be Sabrina and 8 D is Aled as Chambers informs us about the places associated with the names. Al;ed os from the name of a Welsh river. Maybe the extra detail, re the locations,i is only in the paper Chambers? (Mine is the 13th ed).
I quite enjoyed the puzzle – and the blog.
As Kerry is given as ‘from the name of the Irish country’, it might be seen as just as valid as some of the others?
I quite enjoyed the clues, but found the theme interesting only up until a point – the point where I turned to the back pages of Chambers.
I used the Edit/Delete button to remove my 06.56 comment as I’d taken too long to type it and was repeating some of what Jay had said. I pressed ‘Delete’ immediately, ‘Your comment was removed’ appeared on my screen, yet the comment reappeared when I posted the 07.01 one. Odd!
Thanks Caran. Having looked again I suspect KERRY is correct, or at least the intended answer. I used the Revised 13th edition as reference.
Thanks, Jay. I was slightly annoyed – with myself, as I didn’t look at anything other than Kerry. Your Terry threw me, but I now think both answers are valid \(which is a shame, I always prefer one definitive answer).
What a busy commenting morning! Thanks – much appreciated, as usual.
Caran at #4 – I saw your comment at #2 was ‘in the bin’ and assumed it had been put there by an over-zealous spam-detector bot. It seemed perfectly innocuous so I reinstated it – I can re-delete it if you like, but there is no harm in a bit of affirmation of other bloggers’ opinions, especially when typing times overlap…
I must have overlooked the river connections for ALED and SABRINA – they make much more sense than my (un)educated guesses. A lot of them seem to refer to rivers, even BEVERLEY relates to ‘the stream of a beaver’ – but LORRAINE is a region and CANDIA a capital, and ROSS a headland, so that theory doesn’t quite stretch the whole way…
KERRY and TERRY seem to have equal claim, so some possible ambiguity there…
Looks like we might all have some right and some wrong…will there be any fully correct entries?!…
We didn’t submit this week as we had too many variables. I see that we were not alone. If the only way to be sure was to have a particular paper copy of a particular dictionary then I don’t think that Doc was playing fair and that would be unlike him.
I even wondered if “in a section in Chambers” had another cryptic meaning but couldn’t see it.
Can’t wait to see his explanation.
Mc_rapper,thanks for the update re my deletion/non-deletion. I think I was a bit underwhelmed with the thematic stuff anyway (I’m not as keen on lists as Doc is) and more so now that there seems to be ambiguities.
So it seems that SABRINA, ALED and KERRY are the intended solutions. Poor old Terry misses out and a DNF for me.
Nice puzzle from Doc today I thought.
Have to say that I was disappointed with the official answer. But hey ho.
Have just printed off our copies of Doc’s next which we will address the weekend before closing date. Fingers crossed it will be more like his usual offerings.
I see that our crossword for this coming weekend should be much easier. I wonder how much we will remember.