As is often the case with Brummie’s puzzles, this one turned out to be not so tricky as it looked at first sight. Getting the long answers early on was a big help.
Those long answers provided a rather macabre mini-theme, so here’s something to cheer you up – although I found several smiles in the puzzle. Thanks to Brummie for an enjoyable solve.
Across
1,22 As long as a ruler gets buried near the end? (3,4,2,3,5)
ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE
Cryptic definition – a ruler is usually one foot long
I thought there might be a theme on the TV programme but I can’t find one – which, as always, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
5,21 Looking at the downside of maturity (4,3,4)
OVER THE HILL
Cryptic definition – and I’m depressed already!
9 Lie around entrance to basilica that’s columnar (5)
TABLE
TALE [lie] round B[asilica]
10 Outstandingly good sewers assembled with joints? (4,5)
BEE’S KNEES
BEES [sewers assembled, as in a sewing bee] + KNEES [joints]
11 Blossom indisposed, so Annie’s dressing (10)
MAYONNAISE
MAY [blossom] + anagram [indisposed] of SO ANNIE
12 Number of books consisting of lives and biographical novels, primarily (4)
ISBN
IS [lives] + first letters [primarily] of Biographical Novels for the International Standard Book Number – some people may not like this, as it’s not a pronounceable word in its own right but it’s pretty well-known and I think it’s acceptable
14 Short of three lots of supporters in the cemetery? (3,4,5)
SIX FEET UNDER
Another cryptic definition [short of three pairs of feet] on the same depressing theme!
18 Magical image of Victorian parlour entertainment (7,5)
LANTERN SLIDE
I think I may be missing something here, as the definition is barely cryptic
25 Fish channel, deep sounds with this (4,5)
BASS VOICE
BASS [fish] VOICE [channel]
26 Equal volume is central to currency (5)
RIVAL
V [volume] in RIAL [currency] – I’d question the definition here, as ‘rival’ means ‘try to equal’
27 Lock mechanism dryer (7)
TUMBLER
double definition – lock mechanism and tumble dryer
28 Lays out problem plant (7)
ALYSSUM
Anagram [out] of LAYS + SUM [problem]
Down
1 Having taken the stage, send up prompt (2,4)
ON TIME
ON [having taken the stage] + reversal [up] of EMIT [send]
2 Potential issue, more by fancy (6)
EMBRYO
Anagram [fancy] of MORE BY
3 Queen Elizabeth‘s reliance on cooks? (5,5)
OCEAN LINER
Anagram [cooks] of RELIANCE ON – question mark because it’s a definition by example
4 Not much pulled up to cover one’s bone (5)
TIBIA
Reversal [pulled up] of A BIT [not much] round [to cover] I [one] – we have to take one’s as ‘one is’
5 Cricketing events before spring flood (9)
OVERSWELL
OVERS [cricketing ‘events’?] + WELL [spring]
6 Fraternal order of molluscs lacking two dimensions (4)
ELKS
[wh]ELKS [molluscs, lacking w[idth] and h[eight] – two dimensions] – for this fraternal order that I hadn’t heard of
7 English region is doubly English when gripped by extremely tedious arrogance (8)
TEESSIDE
EE [doubly English] in [gripped by] T[ediou]S + SIDE [arrogance]
8 Theatrical location used by hotels in Oregon (8)
ELSINORE
Nicely hidden in hotELS IN OREgon – the location of ‘Hamlet’
13 Instrument inserting last of Cointreau in double dry (ugh!) cocktail (5-5)
HURDY-GURDY
U [last letter of cointreaU] in an anagram [cocktail] of DRY DRY + UGH
15 Banker elected to be grabbed by one keenly interested in breeding (9)
FINANCIER
IN [elected] in [grabbed by] FANCIER [‘a person who breeds special varieties of plants or animals’ : Collins] – I’ve only come across it in connection with pigeons. [For once, ‘banker’ means, er, ‘banker’! 😉 ]
16 Group leader with live-time characters (8)
ALPHABET
ALPHA [group leader] + BE [live] + T [time]
17 A muscle-flexing, name-concealing land representative (5,3)
UNCLE SAM
Anagram [flexing] of A MUSCLE round [concealing] N [name]
19 Cloth (small) removed from doorstep (6)
CANVAS
CANVAS[s] [doorstep, as a verb] with s [small] removed
20 Very fancy, Lumley — no end of fancy paper (6)
VELLUM
V [very] + anagram [fancy – for the second time] of LUMLE[y] [with no end]
23 Sympathy enables accommodating source of laughter? (5)
HYENA
Hidden in sympatHY ENAbles
24 Rising bog round ground (4)
OVAL
Reversal [rising] of LAV [bog] + O [round] for the London cricket ground
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
I almost drew a blank on the across clues; fortunately the downs were easier. For some reason that I can’t put my finger on, I didn’t particularly enjoy solving this.
Eileen has mentioned the two points I was going to make – I am one of those who dislikes an unpronounceable acronym being given as a word (e.g. ISBN as (4) rather than (1,1,1,1)), and I too can’t see anything cryptic in LANTERN SLIDE (if you haven’t heard the expression, early projectors were called “magic lanterns”).
I was going to comment on VELLUM not being “paper”, but apparently there is now a “fancy paper” (“fancy” doing double duty?) that is called “vellum”.
Thanks Brummie and Eileen. I found this amusing but easier than yesterday’s Rufus. I wondered about the derivation of bee’s knees and found this: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bee1.htm
On 15dn component FANCIER: this is widely used in horticulture, esp among collectors and growers of primulas and snowdrops.
I enjoyed this although I got stuck on lantern slide – never heard of it – and I thought I must be missing something in the clue too.
Thanks Eileen, notably for the Eric Idle song which I hadn’t heard before. I agree with all your comments, esp 18a. On15d I didn’t of pigeons, but of someone randy – obviously wrong. Liked hidden ELSINORE.
Hi molonglo
Perhaps the song needs a bit more explanation for overseas solvers. It was the theme song for the very popular [The catchphrase, “I don’t believe it!” was very widely used] sitcom which I mentioned at 1,22. You can find out more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onefootinthegrave/
PS
I had the same thought about 15dn.
Pleasant puzzle, thanks to Brummie and Eileen.
Is there really such a thing as a sewers bee? I’m not sure why Brummie would want to use such an obscure use of ELKS rather than the dear animal. 😉
I think the RIVAL here is a noun – my Thesaurus gives: ‘In terms of versatility the tool has no rival’ for equal.
Thanks for the Eric Idle link which did cheer me up a bit. 🙂
Incidentally on ISBN, my first thought was “initial letters”, from the “primarily”, but I put that aside until near the end, on the grounds that a word ending BN wouldn’t be pronounceable. The solution shows that it isn’t!
Hi Robi
“Is there really such a thing as a sewers bee?”
I’ve never heard that expression: it’s called a ‘sewing bee’, as I said in the blog: see here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0165nj8
Thanks Eileen and Brummie
I found this well-clued puzzle relatively easy but enjoyable overall despite the mini-memento mori – albeit alleviated by the forward-looking 2d.
I ticked 10a, 14a and 6d.
Fraternities such as the Elks are a well-known and well studied feature of (and perhaps especially of) US ‘civil society’ – they seem inter-alia to have provided a passport of respectability for members in a highly mobile society especially during the C19 in addition to serving as ‘local benevolent societies’. It is interesting in this regard that membership of the freemasons seems to have been much less secretive there. I suspect that the Elks’ name may have been influenced by the presence of many Elk fraternities among ‘plains Indians’ such as the Cheyenne. I had assumed that the ‘Buffaloes’ would also have been of US origin but they appear to have started in London and there are of course many comparable groups in the UK and elsewhere.
Thanks, Eileen.
I wasn’t sure about the sewers either but Chambers does give the example of a “quilting” BEE which was close enough for me.
Robi @8, I’m not American, but had certainly heard of the Elks and loved Brummie’s “Fraternal order of molluscs”!
Re. elks: I was in Toronto once when I found myself in the middle of a large group of men all dressed like Tommy Cooper. A Canadian friend told me they were “Shriners”, which is one of these vaguely freemason organisations.
I’m pretty sure that “bees’ knees” originated as the pronunciation of business in a cod-Italian way as ‘beez-neez’, with the other versions derived as jokey variations on the the, though there doesn’t seem to be good historical evidence.
Brummie can be tough, I have found, but this solve proceeded smoothly, helped by getting the three long across answers fairly early.
CANVAS gave the greatest problems. Fixated too long on having an E between the V and the S.
I’m just going to drop in to say that Brummie has always been one of the Guardian setters that I’ve never got on with, in the sense of seldom being able to finish one of his puzzles. But I managed this today, so am feeling quite chuffed. Might put the kettle on.
Thank you to Eileen for blogging and to Brummie for losing gracefully.
Thanks, Eileen.
Fun puzzle. The long answers looked daunting but yielded fairly easily and the whole thing fell out without too much difficulty.
I couldn’t parse 15d because I was fixated on ‘elected to be grabbed by one keenly interested’ being IN inside FAN and couldn’t work out where the CIER came from! I agree with muffin that 18a is barely cryptic; I was late entering it because I thought there had to be more to it. But that’s the only duff clue in a good set. I don’t have an issue with ‘equal’ = RIVAL (as nouns) or ISBN, because the letters are always run together without spaces or abbreviation stops.
Favourites were the surface/anagram of 3d and the cleverly worded 8d – we’ve had some excellent ‘hidden’ clues in recent crosswords. LOI for me also was CANVAS.
I hope Brummie is not suffering too many intimations of mortality….
Muffin @1 – Acronyms are by definition pronounceable. ASBO is an acronym. The word radar is derived from an acronym. ISBN is not an acronym, it is an abbreviation. The entry in Chambers is not I S B N so (4) is correct.
PeterM @14 – see cholecyst’s link @3. The origin of ‘the bee’s knees’ is obscure. Chambers and Collins are no help. Likewise with ‘the cat’s pyjamas’ and ‘the dog’s bollocks’.
I know of a sewing bee active in a nearby village. Women take turns to host an afternoon of tea, sewing and chat in the absence of men. It’s known as Stitch & Bitch.
Enjoyed most of this puzzle, but I’m not a fan of ISBN clued as (4), and I hesitated over ‘voice’ as ‘channel”, is this something to do with mediums ‘voicing’ or ‘channeling’ the departed?
I agree with Eileen that this looked difficult initially but gave way steadily. Somewhat oddly ISBN was my first answer. My paper copy had a rather distracting pale blue stripe through the clues. I have to admit to entering ELKS (my last in) more in hope than expectation. ALYSSUM was new to me too (plants are often a blind spot) but the wordplay was clear enough. I liked UNCLE SAM.
Thanks to Eileen and Brummie
A friend of mine in publishing told me that ISBN is pronounced ‘is-bean’. Books produced before the ISBN system are then known as ‘has-beens’.
Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You explained a couple which I had failed to parse.
I am with George@19: the link between ‘voice’ and ‘channel’ is not visible to me.
chas @22 – I though it might be alluding to the “Voice of America”. Nice to see HURDY-GURDY in a crossword too.
chas and George, from Chambers:
channel (10): (in pl) means of communication
VOICE (15): a medium of expression
(Yes, I know, I’m reaching down the order) but the definitions seem close enough to me and, I hasten to add, I only looked in Chambers to respond to your comments. 🙂
Thanks, Brummie and Eileen.
When I saw the mini theme, I hoped that Brummie was in good health! Eileen’s link to One Foot in The Grave was very timely.
I hadn’t spotted the hidden ELSINORE before the solve but the crossers made it highly likely anyway.
Giovanna xx
Thanks all
I too thought that 18ac was not cryptic
I suspect we were supposed to use the nouns in 26 ac but I still doubt the equivalence.
Robi@8,yes but has no rival is not the same as ‘rival’.
1 down took me a long time to convince myself especially ‘send’ = ’emit ‘hence CotD.
On the Elks:
This is one of those (for once) where being an American is actually an advantage. Of these fraternal orders mentioned @11 by tupu, the Elks are among the more commonly seen.
Driving into a small American town, you’ll see a sign not far from the town line, identifying the various fraternal orders that have chapters in town (Rotary, Lions, Elks, Optimists, etc.) and where and when their weekly meetings are. So no, they’re not secret societies at all. (These days, they seem to be populated almost entirely by the grey-haired set–I’m WAY too young to see any point to joining one of those. But I do live about a mile from the Elks national headquarters here in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.)
Most of the big ones have chapters abroad, the Elks included.
The Elks are often also seen in American crosswords. As many know, the typical American crossword is not cryptic, but derives its elegance by having every letter be a part of at least two words (the grid is fully “checked,” as they say, with many fewer black squares than white. As a result, setters often need short words with odd letter combinations. If you judged by crossword puzzles, tennis wouldn’t have moved on from the era of ILIE (Nastase) and (Arthur) ASHE, and the most famous actress of all time will have been TERI GARR, who is unique in having two useful crossword names.
So anyway, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (the full name of the club) is identified in its signs as BPOE. So if you see “club,” “fraternity,” or “order” in an American crossword, and need four letters, try that.
So anyway, I’m probably the one person who filled in “Elks” and then had to come here to figure out how to parse the clue!
Hello all.
The OED defines ‘Rival’ as:
Verb: To be or seem to be equal or comparable to.
Noun:A person who or thing which is arguably equal or comparable in quality or distinction to another.
OED provides numerous quotations, both historic and recent, in which ‘rival’ is used in this sense.
Thanks to Eileen, and to Brummie for a very enjoyable crossword.
” As if a magic lantern threw the nerves in a pattern across the screen”
If it’s in Eliot it MUST be cryptic.
Still raining.
” in patterns on a screen” Sorry. Blame the rain.,
Re voice / channel [I’ve been out!]
Initially, I found NeilW’s Chambers pairing and thought that was acceptable.
Better still, I think, is what I’ve just found in my [elderly] Collins –
channel: ‘[often pl] a means of agency or access, communication, etc.
voice: an agency through which is communicated another’s purpose, etc.
Thanks for the several interesting contributions re ELKS.
Got a probbie with 3 down – that apostrophe S I can’t make work, not IS, HAS or the possessive. Any ideas?
The DBE I’ll buy for the QM.
@32 Surely it’s ‘is’; Queen Elizabeth is an ocean liner.
It’s not often that a setter can successfully disguise an anagram or a hidden word, but this crossword managed both! (OCEAN LINER, ELSINORE).
‘cooks’ should be a really obvious ‘grind…but somehow ‘reliance on cooks’ runs together so well that it just sucked me in!
Likewise ELSINORE – should be obvious that you can’t actually use the word ‘Oregon’ in any way (so it must be fodder of some sort)…but this too did me like a good’un, and only went in from the crossers. I suppose using ‘in’ as fodder will always lure you into searching for a container clue.
So, well done Brum (& thanks Eileen)…and the gloomy theme matched the weather nicely today.
Thanks Eileen. Bert began this at lunchtime but took a while to get started.
It was an enjoyable challenge but there were a few obscure definitions.
Thanks Brummie!
I always enjoy Brummie’s puzzles and I had no problems completing this one.
ISBN was obvious enough from the wordplay, I thought the hidden ELSINORE was excellent, and I do a couple of American crosswords every day so ELKS was easy once I had the E checker. The BASS VOICE/OVAL crossers were my last ones in.
Like others I had almost no across clues after the first pass. However the downs were kind and the whole puzzle soon succumbed.
I enjoyed this as ever with Brummie but this was the easier end of his spectrum.
I saw VOICE = CHANNEL as there is a type of channel called the “voice channel”
Thanks to Eileen and Brumnmie
BNTO @ 37
Curiously, my only across at first pass was the BASS VOICE that gave others trouble – it had to be BASS and only VOICE could follow (though I wasn’t convinced by the parsing, so it was only “pencilled in”).
Thanks Brummie and Eileen
Enjoy this setter a lot … he does usually strike one with initial trepidation and when you finish you wonder why he does. Found this good fun, albeit slightly on the down side theme wise.
Favourite, by far, was my last in – ELKS – very cleverly disguised ‘order of mollusc’ and neat use of w and h as dimensions. Tyneside kept trying to go into 7d until TEESSIDE finally presented – then was able to break away from the BEEF joint line of thinking.
Had not heard of the doorstep verb before looking it up. Smiled at the rising LAV.
Many thanks, Eileen.
Since nobody mentioned it (I think), “Six Feet Under” is also a TV series – a very popular one, too. And Googling made clear that “Over The Hill” was a TV series in the 90s.
As to 20d, I saw it as V + (LUMLE[y])* with deleting the Y clued as ‘no end of fancY’. And then VELLUM is just ‘paper’.
Great mini theme on the eve of my 60th, what?
Thanks all, I think…
I’m probably the last to comment as always. Thanks Eileen and Brummie. Not my favourite setter but I enjoyed this one.
‘Queen Elizabeth’ IS ‘reliance on cooks?’, Mr Whiting? Yeah, sure!
Thanks for the added information, Sil @40. I didn’t know about those programmes.
“As to 20d, I saw it as V + (LUMLE[y])* with deleting the Y clued as ‘no end of fancY’. And then VELLUM is just ‘paper’.” That’s [honestly!] how I parsed it when solving, then made a mistake when writing the blog. As you can see, I underlined only ‘paper’ as the definition.
Happy Birthday, Martin P! 🙂
Thanks Eileen! 🙂