I was lucky to get one of my favourite setters, Brendan, this week – this was an excellent puzzle with a really interesting theme worked throughout almost all the clues
The theme here was literary and mythological trios of women:
- The three Bronte sisters appear as answers: ANNE, EMILY and CHARLOTTE (as well as Emily’s pseudonym, ELLIS)
- Three goddesses appear as answers, ISIS, CERES and NIKE
- The FATES: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos (In an earlier version I conflated these with The Furies – see the correction below.)
- The Furies, also known as the EUMENIDES: Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone
- THREE SISTERS, the Chekhov play appears as an answer
- The sisters from Little Women appear in several clues
- The three witches from Macbeth (the Weird Sisters)
- The three daughters of King Lear are referenced
- The three months of APRIL, May and June
… as well as multiple other literary references, e.g. Little Dorrit and David Copperfield, and other references to women in clues and answers, e.g. “sisterhood”
I love that Brendan manages to create these intricately themed puzzles, but the clues are never less than sound with great surface readings. Thanks, Brendan!
Across
9. Recast the three leading characters in play, not well (9)
INCAPABLY
(ABC IN PLAY)* – ABC is “the three leading characters” of the alphabet, but the surface nicely alludes to the theme of the crossword
Definition: “not well”
10. Venerated female heard but not seen in programmes (5)
CERES
Sounds like “series” or “programmes” – “heard by not seen” is quite a fun homophone indicator
Definition: “Venerated female” referring to the goddess Ceres
11. Name of David’s girlfriend — but her heart wasn’t in it (5)
EMILY
Cyptic definition: David Copperfield’s childhood girlfriend was Emily, known as “Little Em’ly” – i.e. the heart of her name (the I) wasn’t in it
12. Furious triad of Brussels bureaucrats ahead of a fateful day? (9)
EUMENIDES
EU MEN = “Brussels bureaucrats” followed by IDES = “a fateful day” (referring to the Ides of March in Julius Caesar)
Definition: “Furios triad” – the EUMENIDES are also known as The Furies among other names. This was surprisingly easy for me, since they have a very significant role in The Sandman comics.
13. Does, for example, what’s wrong in France, cutting wages (7)
FEMALES
MAL = “what’s wrong in France” in FEES = “wages”
Definition: “Does, for example”
14. Scene of drama — in which masked man wields knife (7)
THEATRE
I can’t parse this one, I’m afraid, other than the definition part being clear. Update: thanks to everyone who pointed out that I was missing the very obvious reference to an operating theatre with a masked surgeon!
Definition: “Scene of drama”
17, 21. What each little woman had in play (5,7)
THREE SISTERS
Definition 1: “What each little woman had”: There are four sisters in Louisa M. Alcott’s “Little Women” so each of them had 3 sisters.
Definition 2: “play” referring to Three Sisters by Chekhov
19. eg 23, preceded by 17 21 in novel (3)
AMY
Definition 1: “preceded by [THREE SISTERS] in novel” – AMY is the youngest sister in Little Women
Definition 2: “eg [DORRIT]” – Dickens’s “Little Dorrit” is about AMY Dorrit
20. Name first of female trio, annually (5)
APRIL
Definition 1: “Name”
Definition 1: “first of female trio, annually” – there are three consecutive months of the year which are women’s names: APRIL, MAY and JUNE
22. Arranged dowries as members of Shakespearean threesome? (7)
WEIRDOS
(DOWRIES)*
Definition: “members of Shakespearean threesome?” – the question mark is doing quite a lot of work here, I think 🙂 The three witches in Macbeth are known as “Weird Sisters”, so maybe WEIRDOS. This also reminded me of one of my favourite Terry Pratchett novels, “Wyrd Sisters”, which is excellent 🙂
24. Alcott and her characters represented as sweet (9)
CHARLOTTE
(ALCOTT HER)* – lovely anagram for this theme
Definition: “sweet”, referring to the cake Charlotte
26. Vessel carrying vital supply from China or Taiwan (5)
AORTA
Hidden in “[chin]A OR TA[iwan]”
Definition: “Vessel carrying vital supply
28. Field and bowl (5)
ARENA
Definition 1: “Field”
Definition 2: “bowl” (as in The Holywood Bowl – various stadia in the US are known as “bowls” because of their dish-like shape)
29. Growth man cut, in case (9)
ACCRETION
CRE[w] = “man” (as in to man / crew a boat) in ACTION = “case” (as in “a legal action”)
Definition: “Growth”
Down
1. Olympian English family raised (4)
NIKE
E = “English” + KIN = “family” all reversed
Definition: “Olympian”
2. Division in church exists between ends of spectrum (6)
SCHISM
CH = “church” + IS = “exists” in S[pectru]M = “ends of spectrum”
Definition: “Division”
3. Where I keep something secret (not my hand) (2,2,6)
UP MY SLEEVE
Cryptic definition, I think? I’m probably missing something, but this doesn’t seem very cryptic
4. A bachelor pursued by so-called queen, leader in sisterhood? (6)
ABBESS
A + B = “bachelor” followed by BESS + “so-called queen”
Definition: “leader in sisterhood?”
5. Reflective quality about top spy mystery, oddly (8)
SYMMETRY
(M MYSTERY)* – the S is from the first letter of “spy” M = “top spy” (from James Bond – thank you for the correction!) and “oddly” is the anagram indicator
Definition: “Reflective quality”
6. Son allowed to do survey (4)
SCAN
S = “Son” + CAN = “allowed”
Definition: “to do survey”
7. Indicator of tense change in excited raptor, such as a hawk (8)
PREDATOR
ED = “Indicator of tense change” (you add -ed to get a past participle) in (RAPTOR)*
Definition: “such as a hawk”
8. Divine female with one sibling (4)
ISIS
I = “one” + SIS = “sibling”
Definition: Divine female
13. Honours, we hear, those dealing with life and death matters (5)
FATES
“Honours, we hear” – FATES sounds like “fêtes” (to honour = to fête)
Definition: “those dealing with life and death matters” – another reference to The Furies, also known as The Fates This is a reference to The Fates, a trio of women in Greek mythology who represent destiny. (They are distinct from The Furies – thanks to Eileen for pointing out that I’d mistakenly thought they were the same!)
15. Removed in period prescribed, but not the first time (10)
ERADICATED
ERA = “period” + DIC[t]ATED = “prescribed” but without the first T = “time”
Definition: “Removed”
16. 11’s pen-name some embellished (5)
ELLIS
Hidden in “[emb]ELLIS[hed]” – this one was my way into the theme
Definition: “[EMILY]’s pen-name” – this is a references to Emily Bronte’s pen name, Ellis Bell. All three Bronte sister appear as answers in this grid, but this is the only one of their pseudonyms
18. Ruby embracing Victoria or Virginia, in other words (8)
RESTATED
RED = “Ruby” around STATE = “Victoria or Virginia”
Definition: “in other words”
19. Almost everyone protested in a way about a fierce dog (8)
ALSATIAN
AL[l] = “Almost everyone” followed by SAT-IN = “protested in a way” around A
Definition: “fierce dog”
22. Girl hiding sister’s last tool (6)
WRENCH
WENCH = “Girl” around [siste]R = “sister’s last”
Definition: “tool”
23. Novel heroine’s passionate, with extreme letters exchanged (6)
DORRIT
TORRID = “passionate”, swapping the first and last letters
Definition: “Novel heroine”
24. Preserve line within large family (4)
CLAN
CAN = “Preserve” (e.g. to can fruit) around L = “line”
Definition: “large family”
25. 17 21 constituted issue for this tragic father (4)
LEAR
Cryptic definition: “[THREE SISTERS] constituted issue” – this is the old sense of “issue” meaning “children” – King Lear had three daughters. Lear is a tragedy, hence “tragic father”
27. Girl taking a course from Exeter to Leeds (4)
ANNE
A + NNE (North North East) “a course from Exeter to Leeds”
Definition: “Girl”
Enjoyed this and the theme helped.
WEIRDOS was my FOI. THREE SISTERS made me smile and I liked FEMALES, ACCRETION, AORTA, ANNE (which had to be the solution because of the theme but took me ages to see why).
Three in the NE took me longest but I laughed when I finally got APRIL and CERES
Thanks Brendan and mhl
Oh and didn’t parse 14a either
14a the man is a surgeon 😉
I think THEATRE is just a cryptic definition or double definition, the masked man being a surgeon. I wasn’t sure about UP MY SLEEVE. Your hand is the one thing that you can’t hide in a sleeve, or if you are cheating at cards, the one up your sleeve is not in your hand. Great puzzle.
A classic Brendan with overlapping themes. My favourite was WEIRDOS which brought a smile, but really the puzzle as a whole is just so much better than its individual clues.
If I had a slight quibble it was that 25d LEAR didn’t really seem to be cryptic, but was a straight definition once you’d got 17 21. (Though I see you think maybe a double meaning was intended with “issue”, mhl.) But this was a minor point.
Many thanks Brendan and mhl.
Thanks for the blog, deja vu all over again. A very similar theme in March this year, fully cracked by Gladys I recall, even had THREE SISTERS in the grid plus the Brontes and other similarities. I am all in favour of recycling but not for my Saturday puzzle please.
Thanks mhl, had no idea who this EMILY was and agree with others about the man in the operating theatre. Also, the top spy in 5d is M ( of Bond fame) otherwise anagram fails. Thanks Petert for an extra meaning to 3d as I had the same feeling as our blogger. Really enjoyed wrinkling this out, thanks Brendan.
Yes, was aware of the Brontes, the ‘littles’, the witches and some classicals, but not really the overall intricacy. Clever Brendan, and ta mhl.
… plus by Lear’s troublesome trio of course…
Many thanks Brendan … and mhl. Literature not my forte so I needed quite a lot of help. Was I the only one looking for a literary character called DERVIF?!
All the threesome stuff was very clever. Disappointed only by the clue for ARENA.
As you said, mhl, an excellent puzzle with a really interesting theme – overlapping themes, in fact, as Lord Jim pointed out.
I struggled with 27d ANNE, which I tried to solve from memory away from the grid, but forgetting the vital component ‘a’ at the start! A highly original clue, and of course a fair one.
Thanks Brendan and mhl.
Thanks Brendan for a typically intelligent and ingenious puzzle. A couple of errors held me up: I came up with ELIMINATED rather than ERADICATED, and BELLS (which sort of worked) for Emily’s)rather than ELLIS, so that APRIL and THEATRE both eluded me. Liked FEMALES, ANNE and ALSATIAN, but thoroughly enjoyed the whole ride.
I finished this, but with several points unclear. So my thanks to Jay@3 and Petert@4 for clarifying THEATRE, and Gazzh@7 for identifying M (rather than S), as I thought the 5d anagram was wrong. Thanks, mhl, generally, and for explaining who David and EMILY are.
All in all, a very clever puzzle, congrats to Brendan, joining several linked themes. Particularly liked the arithmetic of THREE SISTERS. Also note, in 2d, that ‘church’ works cleverly both as part of the answer and as &lit, since SCHISM is particularly a ‘Division in church’.
As to 3d, it might have been ‘in my pocket’, or ‘up my kilt/skirt’ (had they fitted), so I think the reference to ‘hand’ does contribute to the cryptic solution.
At 18d, I went down the false route of Vita Sackville-West and V Woolf, which caused delay. Once I got there, I felt Brendan was clever to link (unusually) an Australian and a US state.
Super, educational puzzle but defeated by ERADICATED, THEATRE and ACCRETION and now kicking myself. Too many ticks but I loved UP MY SLEEVE.
Ta Brendan & mhl
Indeed, Roz @6: deja vu struck very early with this one, which is at core an alternative version of Brendan’s identically themed March 8th puzzle. Maybe the editor thinks we have deficient long-term memories, or perhaps he does. Very disappointing.
Gazzh @7: at least I managed to parse SYMMETRY as you did, so pleased with that.
I enjoyed this a lot. Very clever to get all those female triples in one crossword. I couldn’t parse EMILY though. Having to think of someone called David with a girlfriend is too obscure without additional help.
Your parsing of SYMMETRY doesn’t work, I’m afraid, it’s an “m” short. I read it as “M”, Bond’s boss, in *mystery.
Otherwise, a fitting blog to an enjoyable puzzle, thanks mhl and Brendan
Yes, at first I also thought that The Guardian had inadvertently re-published the “International Women’s Day” (which turned out not to be deliberate) Brendan puzzle, but I ended up persisting when I felt a lot of the clues were different from what I recalled. I’m glad I did so as it was a real treat! As you said, the whole is even cleverer than the parts, Lord Jim@5.
Thanks so much to Brendan for such a wonderful puzzle – recycle as much as you like, Brendan: I will relish this kind of thematic puzzle every time – and thanks to mhl for the very detailed and well-researched blog (I particularly loved your paeon for Brendan’s clever setting in your Preamble, mhl, but your thorough blog was indeed a bonus).
The non-thematic 14a THEATRE was my stand-out – one I sent to my brother who is also a surgeon (although of course surgeons can be women too, I noted). I could have ticked every other clue as a favourite, really. [I loved the Alcott re-mention: one of my memorable pilgrimages was to Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, in 2019, one-time home of Louisa May Alcott’s family]
Thanks Brendan & mhl. Glad to see I’m not the only one who had trouble working out what was going on with THEATRE, but it seems so obvious now. Doh! I rumbled the theme pretty quickly – EUMENIDES and THREE SISTERS were my first in – but got held up in a few places due to some of the references. This is where I confess I’ve not read enough books (Dickens specifically): wouldn’t have remembered Little Dorrit’s first name in a month of Sundays, and had no idea who “David’s girlfriend” was, though it had to be EMILY given we’d already had the other two. Managed to fill in all the blanks thanks to useful definitions/helpful crossing letters/blind guesswork though.
Roz @6 – this is where having a terrible memory comes in useful… although I must say I did think some aspects of this felt strangely familiar.
I realised that there was a general theme of women in literature, but never quite picked up that they were all to groups of three. Which didn’t stop me enjoying a splendid puzzle, but did show up some gaps in my reading. LOI was AMY, which seemed plausible (not many options, really) but having read neither Little Women nor Little Dorrit, I really couldn’t follow the clue. I’m embarrassed to say I held myself up by spelling WEIRDOS as wierdos – whoever drummed into me “I before E except after C”, in direct defiance of my own name, has a lot to answer for,
Impressive work, Brendan; thanks for explaining it, mhl.
JinA @19 has said it all for me. I enjoyed doing this and the clues were fun though there was a very strong feeling of deja vu. It certainly didn’t spoil the puzzle and, like Widders, my memory is not good enough to recall individual items from the previous outing. I’d be surprised if Brendan recycled clues but am much less concerned about him readdressing the theme. (Though I’m actually slightly intrigued that he should choose to do so. Of all of us, he is the one who deffo knows he’s done it before). ANNE made me smile as a construction but SCHISM was by far my favourite.
Thanks Brendan and mhl
I loved it: several references to Eng. Lit. – definitely not my thing – but all to facts that if you didn’t know already you could well have picked up if you’ve been doing these Cryptics for a while. I managed this all in one sitting except for CERES which required a good night’s sleep before it mentally manifested.
Curious to see if there were any other connections to the theme, I checked Wikipedia for Ceres and found “She was originally the central deity in Rome’s so-called plebeian or Aventine Triad” (who were not all female). So yes, but only as for being one of three; just a bonus to an excellent theme.
Not that it made a material difference here, but I found it interesting that in 16d both parts of Emily’s pen name Ellis Bell are to be found in embellished.
SCAN reminded me of my mother’s response whenever I asked “Can I?” for permission. “You can, but you may not.”
I loved it, had to look up Amy Dorrit as another one who hasn’t read enough Dickens, but Little Women was part of my childhood (along with the following three books, as published in the UK), and I knew the Brontë sisters and their pen names. I only got Emily from the Brontë references, because David Copperfield is also on my unread list. CERES was my last one in, but a long way.
I was trying to shoehorn in Cordelia, Regan or Gomeril at one stage when I’d spotted what I thought was LEAR, which wasn’t confirmed and entered until later.
To Roz @6 (as the first person who raised this) I realise this is a similar theme to the one in March, but who knows when Brendan submitted it and how long it’s been sitting with the Guardian Puzzle Editor. It may have been produced some years apart, rather than the 6 months of publication.
Thank you to Brendan and mhl.
Perhaps it’s one of a CERES of three related puzzles?
Thank you mhl for filling in my gaps. From a recent cryptic I’ve learned that Hampshire has its own Rose Bowl, which is a cricket ground.
Perhaps Brendan ran out of time to complete his March crossword and this was his intended result.
I had no idea about many of the references but had an interesting time looking them up and was pleased to be able to complete the grid, with a lot of online help.
I think some of the cluing didn’t match the otherwise impressive theme.
I don’t agree with mhl that “heard but not seen” was a “fun homophone indicator” in CERES. Not sour grapes because it was my LOI, but the definition “venerable woman” is too wide and the wordplay is, I believe, unnecessarily wordy and confusing.
Hardly think EMILY is fair. You’d have to guess Copperfield out of all the Davids who have ever lived, or were literary characters, and know the work, to know anything about David’s girlfriend or her heart. That was just a guess from crossers. Unlike DORRIT, where you had a chance with the wordplay.
I chuckled at THEATRE, a nice version of an old joke, and previous cryptic clues. But I thought it was a missed opportunity not to clue “masked woman”. Also liked ABBESS, for the entertaining surface and definition.
Three Sisters Mk 1 was a memorable puzzle. This being so close was a bit disappointing.
I’m always surprised more people don’t remember previous puzzles. Boatman’s recent rock puzzle was a repeat that nobody commented on, and Brendan has repeated in the past.
Ah, I get it now. The Bronte Sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, a theme within a theme, was the signpost to EMILY and ANNE in particular. No wonder I had so much trouble with them for not making that connection. CHARLOTTE I did know as a sweet. EMILY, no idea. Asked the web all sorts of questions about roads and rivers from Exeter to Leeds, until I looked at a map and twigged to NNE in ANNE.
Lovely puzzle. I tend to get annoyed with theme puzzles because once you’ve twigged the theme, more and more answers can become write-ins on the basis of the theme alone, even if you have no idea how to parse them — as indeed was the case here for me with EMILY. Not having read David Copperfield, I don’t think I would ever have guessed this from the clues alone, but the answer was obvious from the crossers and (especially) the theme. I agree this clue was asking a bit much: maybe mentioning “young David” instead of just “David” would have helped? But overall this was a delight. (Count me among those who couldn’t parse THEATRE either!)
I meant to get in quickly with a pre-emptive apology about the overlap with the previous THREE SISTERS puzzle, but my timing was off. It’s simply a memory issue. Indeed, six months after setting a puzzle, I find it quite hard to solve. Predictably, the full range of graciousness is represented in the responses. Thanks much to mhl, and for the various clear pieces of feedback on weak clues — I should have spent more time on UP MY SLEEVE, in particular.
Glad I wasn’t alone with EMILY Chris Baum@30.
Just to be a bit parochial : -) … something I did know was that the Bronte sisters’ father was a minister of religion…..
a bit closer to home we have our very own 3 Sisters in the Blue Mountains NSW, just up the road from me, with their very own dreamtime/creation stories.
https://bluemountainstoursydney.com.au/attractions/three-sisters/
Thank you Brian for dropping in @31 and your graciousness.
I would add that I think EMILY was a very clever clue for anyone who had read the book!
It just shows that to be an ace solver you have to have a ridiculously good memory (perhaps not so much on the setter side? 🙂 )
I chewed over this all week and was left with only A_Y as a LOI but it had to be AMY (never read either book but have traveled through life presuming her first/given (/christian) name was Dorrit). I enjoyed it muchly (although I didn’t like the (very close to indirect) anagram aspect of INCAPABLY which required us to identify the ‘three leading characters’ as ABC to complete the anagrist).
Thanks to mhl for seeing more than I could in the overall construction and to Mr Greer for his continuing entertainment.
I’m totally with Julie @19 and PostMark @22. Brendan could go on writing puzzles like this until the cows come home, as far as I’m concerned. I thought it was brilliant that he could produce such a fresh follow-up to the March one, which attracted such praise.
I was amused to see, looking back, that Brian’s comment on that one was, ‘Thanks to loonapick for accurate dissection and all the affirming comments (you do realise how much pressure you put on me going forward, right?’) Well, he certainly coped well with the pressure! Another real gem of a puzzle – as Lord Jim said @5, ‘the puzzle as a whole is just so much better than its individual clues’. I made a similar comment on the previous puzzle.
Re 12ac: I’ve been out since early morning and there were lots of comments to read so I hope I haven’t missed one to the effect that the Fates (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos) are distinct from the Furies (Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone) – see here: https://www.thecollector.com/fates-greek-mythology/
Many thanks, as ever, to Brendan for the treat and to mhl for a great blog.
Picked up on the possibility of a theme when I had solved Anne and Emily so I went looking for Charlotte. I did not realise the full extent of the theme until I read the blog here.
I did not parse 11ac, 22ac, 19ac.
Failed to solve 10ac, 20ac, 7d.
Thanks, both.
Since, after reading some of the comments above, I couldn’t remember the earlier puzzle referred to, I looked it up – to find I had only done three clues and then obviously got side tracked.
I am now looking forward to doing it this evening.
Thanks Brendan and others who commented.
As others have said, Julie @19 said pretty much everything I would have wished to, as well as having done something I still dearly wish to: visit LMA’s family home. The Little Women series is a great favourite of mine and my daughters’.
3d made me remember the old joke:
Where did Napoleon keep his armies?
Up his sleevies!
I also couldn’t resist the other old chestnut:
Euripides? Eumenides!
at 12a.
Mr SR is very long suffering…
I thought this was very good but fell short of excellent as several themed clues lacked any real cryptic wordplay and relied on knowledge of the literary works.
Ticks for PREDATOR, EUMENIDES & ANNE
cheers M&B
Shanne@25. I read what I think of as more than enough Dickens nearly 60 years ago and never mind that it didn’t include the name of David Copperfield’s first girlfriend. In parsing 11a I had found from Google that his wife was Dora. I also worked out that Bathsheba (King David in the OT), and Victoria/Posh (Beckham) didn”t fit. Further Googlng revealed that there were Davids in Corrie and Emmerdale who had numerous girlfriends but none called Emily.
I didn’t know how many Little Women there were or that the youngest was called Amy or that this was Little Dorrit’s name. All this I worked out from the wordplay and crossers and it left me, as F E Smith would say, none the wiser but better informed.
On the whole, as I have said before, I liked Brendan’s non- themed puzzles even more than his themed ones.
Thanks to him and mhl
Prompted by my efforts my younger son, who had aso failed to parse 11a, did more reseach and found Em’ly.
I’m another who couldn’t think of a David and Emily combo. Also isn’t APRIL first of 4 girl months or isn’t July a name?
Thanks both
PeterT@26. Please keep up the one-liners. Appreciated here!
Hi Eileen@36 – ha, yes, I worried after posting that I had conflated the Fates and the Furies – thank you for picking that up! I’ll correct that in the post.
Thanks Brendan for a solid crossword. I more or less got the theme and that helped temper the difficulty level. I had to confirm a few correct guesses like EUMENIDES and DORRIT; I always enjoy discovering the unknown through expert wordplay i.e. Brendan’s style of clueing. Thanks mhl for the blog.
What Eileen@36 said. So, bring it on, Brendan.
Five of my favourite commenters (@6, 15, 19, 22 &36) have weighed in on the theme-duplication. I cast my vote with Eileen, JinA and PostMark – that makes it 4-2 in favour.
[ For those of us who haven’t read very much Dickens I offer this suggestion – he was a better writer of future BBC screenplays than a novelist. Almost all of the television adaptations are brilliant, capturing the best of his writing, and avoiding the worst. ]
Thanks Brendan for the fun and mhl for the excellent blog.
Cellomaniac @47 reminds me of Dickens’s work in provincial journalism. Now which newspapers would they be…. oh yes the Bicester Times and the Worcester Times. I’ve got my coat…
tim the toffee@48 😀 which led to a Tale of Two Cities, of course.
Very good Tim.
Cellomaniac @47 I was quite surprised to get such distinguished support for once. I am usually a minority of one but I do not mind, I am used to other people being wrong.
Dickens wrote a profound critique of school education and its relationship to capitalism in “Hard Times”, in particular Chapter 2 “Murdering the Innocents”.
To Roz @ 50:
You can please some of the people all of the time.
You can please all of the people some of the time.
But you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
I think Bob Dylan said that.
I’ll let you get up my nose if I can get up yours.
I said that.
BG @ 51
Nice one! Thanks (and for all your puzzles as well(.
Agree with all those who flagged the issues with Emily. Ridiculously unfair and you know it’s a bad clue when you write it in as ‘it must be’ and spend a week waiting for the penny to drop only to find it was never going to!! Grrr
Two more reactions to Brendan’s brilliant puzzle and his testy/humorous response to Roz@50:
(1) B(r)endan, you are a RARE BEING, and (2) B(r)ian, BE ANGRIER. I’ll get my coat.
Brian Greer @51: John Lydgate (1370 – 1450) was an English poet who is believed to have penned the quote, “You can please some of the people all of the time …” Bob Dylan may have said it but it predates him by centuries.
I read David Copperfield years ago and remember many characters, but haven’t the slightest recollection of Little Em’ly.
Brian@51 and Tony@55 It was President Lincoln who made your quotation famous, though it was John Lydgate in the 14th Century who said it first.
I loved the interwoven themes of this one. Thanks to Brendan and mhl for an entertaining time.
Valentine @56: Lincoln paraphrased the quote — he changed “please” to “fool.”
[For those who didn’t get Brendan’s reference @51, see the final lines of Talkin’ World War III Blues:
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
I said that
As Simon said @52, nice one 🙂 ]
Dr. WhatsOn@23: Thanks for pointing out BELL in emBELLished. Wish I’d noticed that.
Julie @19, surgeons can be women!? You’ll be telling me women can be Prime Ministers next!
Cellomaniac @47, sorry but I think the opposite is true, regarding Dickens/TV adaptations. Maybe some people should give up crosswords for a month or two and read some Dickens!
I thought from the crossers that 11ac must be EMILY, but don’t know David Copperfield so had no chance of solving the clue. It was only confirmed I saw the hidden ELLIS in 16dn, as I knew EMILY’s Brontë’s pen name. See poc@17, paddymelon@27, Chris Baum@30, bodycheetah@40 etc., etc.
Also had to confirm 19ac, AMY with search.
27dn was LOI. Obviously ANNE, to go with EMILY and CHARLOTTE, but took me ages to see why.
It’s only a quibble, but I would have put CAN = “allowed to” in 6d (allowed to go/can go).
Stone Rose@39, please do explain the chestnut for the slow and ignorant, if you’re still around.
Tim@48, haha!
Aunt Ruth@60, current female ‘surgeon’ looks like she might be going to spill a lot of blood.
Joke relying on possibly unfair stereotype about the first of a certain unmentionable-but-possibly-guessable-class-of-human on the Moon:
Houston, we have a problem
We read you Moonbase. What is the problem?
(Long silence)
Come in, Moonbase, what is the problem?
(Long silence)
Moonbase, please tell us the problem.
Houston, you know very well what the problem is!
Tony @62. In the absence of StoneRose to explain her joke, it’s a heavily accented “you ripped these, you mend these”. I was going to say it’s a pretty awful joke, but you’ve just provided an even worse one yourself!
Probably nobody will see this, but — Tony @62, what was the problem?
SH@63, thanks. I can imagine the Eumenides homophone causing a lot of complaints here if used in a clue.
Valentine@64, it’s between Moonbase and Houston, and certainly none of our business, I’m sure!
Valentine, bearing in mind what I’ve already said, I wonder if it could be Houston’s continual attempts to control Moonbase?
Choldunk @10: You are not alone! I spent a few moments contemplating DERVIF.
paddymelon @29: You are not alone! I was momentarily set back by the failure of the M5 to go all the way to Leeds.