The original puzzle may be found here.
A themed offering from relative newbie Dice. It took me ages to see the parsing of NOTE, and some of the charade clues took some untangling, but the theme of EDUCATION helped. You could possibly argue for ANGLE, ELEMENT and FAIL to be theme words, but that may be a bit of a stretch.
Thanks Dice
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SUBJECT |
Take flight, carrying Charlie, following sea transportation issue (7)
|
| JET (“take flight”), carrying C (Charlie in the NATO phonetic alphabet) following SUB (“sea transportation”) | ||
| 5 | HONOURS |
Recognises love shared by you and me? (7)
|
| HON (term of endearment, so “love”) + OURS (“shared by you and me”) | ||
| 9 | HEADS |
Oversees advancement of ecstasy in hell (5)
|
| HAD(e)S (“hell”) with E (ecstasy) advanced becomes H(E)ADS | ||
| 10 | TIMETABLE |
Schedule board to pursue Master embroiled in relationship (9)
|
| TABLE (“board”) to pursue M (master) embroiled in TIE (“relationship”) | ||
| 11 | ORDINARILY |
Normally, on the other hand, start off cautiously after loud noise (10)
|
| OR (“on the other hand”) + [start off] (w)ARILY (“cautiously”) after DIN (“loud noise”) | ||
| 12 | FACT |
Reality show tailing female (4)
|
| ACT (“show”) tailing F (female) | ||
| 14 | DISPLACEMENT |
Being out of order, criticise and put down setter, heartless nut! (12)
|
| DIS (“criticise”) + PLACE (“put down”) + ME (“setter”) + [heartless] N(u)T | ||
| 18 | INTELLIGENCE |
Another order for gilt Nile scene excluding special information (12)
|
| *(gilt nile cene) [anag:another order for] where CENE is (s)CENE excluding S (special) | ||
| 21 | GRID |
Giganet’s first free network (4)
|
| G(iganet) [‘s first] + RID (“free”) | ||
| 22 | BATTALIONS |
Flying creature with claws circling international groups of soldiers (10)
|
| BAT (“flying creature”) with TALONS (“claws”) circling I (international) | ||
| 25 | EDUCATION |
Teaching can die out if it’s disordered (9)
|
| *((can die out) [anag:if it’s disorganised] | ||
| 26 | ANGLE |
Swing headless fish (5)
|
| [headless] (d)ANGLE (“swing”) | ||
| 27 | TREBLES |
Wood surrounding the outskirts of Blackpool gets three times bigger (7)
|
| TREES (“wood”) surrounding [the outskirts of] B(lackpoo)L | ||
| 28 | ELEMENT |
Part company in English hamlet, half-cut (7)
|
| MEN (“company”) in E (English) + (ham)LET [half-cut] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SCHOOL |
Principally, social categorisation has one overwhelming limitation – it’s divided by class (6)
|
| [principally] S(ocial) C(ategorisation) H(as) O(ne) O(verwhelming) L(iimitation) | ||
| 2 | BOARDS |
Chief briefly interrupted by a doctor turning tables (6)
|
| BOS(s) (“chief”, briefly) interrupted by A + <=Dr. (doctor, turning) | ||
| 3 | ESSENTIALS |
French milk served up in German city’s just what we need (10)
|
| <=LAIT (“French” for “milk”, as in cafe au lait, served up) in ESSEN”S (“German city’s”) | ||
| 4 | TUTOR |
Instructor’s express disapproval with soldiers (5)
|
| TUT (“express disapproval”) with OR (other ranks, so “soldiers”)
The surface doesn’t read well here, maybe “expression of” would have been better? |
||
| 5 | HUMILIATE |
Smell I left before I ate is cause to feel bad (9)
|
| HUM (“smell”) + I + L (left) before I ATE | ||
| 6 | NOTE |
N American, African, Asian, Oceanian or even from the Antarctic! (4)
|
| NOT E (European) (all the other continents seem to be covered) | ||
| 7 | UNBIASED |
Open-minded nude American Bishop is sacked (8)
|
| *(nude a bis) [anag:is sacked] where Bis. = bishop) | ||
| 8 | SPECTATE |
Watch Spooner’s electronics series? (8)
|
| TECH SPATE (“electronics series”) if it had been uttered by Spooner may have been SPEC-TATE | ||
| 13 | PENCIL-CASE |
Nice places being arranged – somewhere to accommodate writers (6-4)
|
| *(nice places) [anag:being arranged] | ||
| 15 | PRIMARIES |
1Ds for young, strait-laced group of stars (9)
|
| PRIM (“strait-laced”) + ARIES (“group of stars”) | ||
| 16 | DINGIEST |
Gin diet’s crazy – and most dull! (8)
|
| *(gin diets) [anag:crazy] | ||
| 17 | ATTITUDE |
Mood elevation when drinking Tango, putting away litres! (8)
|
| A(l)TITUDE (“elevation”) putting away L (litres) and drinking T (Tango, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) | ||
| 19 | DONGLE |
It may be carrying files from the French supporting Eastern currency (6)
|
| LE (“the” in “French”) supporting DONG (unit of currency in Vietnam, so “Eastern currency”) | ||
| 20 | ASCENT |
State agreement for rise (6)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [state] of ASSENT (“agreement”) | ||
| 23 | TENSE |
Disorganised teens stressed (5)
|
| *(teens) [anag:disorganised] | ||
| 24 | FAIL |
Antifa illegally concealing collapse (4)
|
| Hidden in [concealing] “antiFA ILlegally” |
loonapic re 7 down, I think it is nude a b is, where b is the chess notation for bishop and ‘sacked’ as the anag.
Two days left here until school returns and I haven’t lost too many braincells because this was a rare time I noticed the theme.
Like the blogger the last one in NOTE took a little bit of thinking.
A few trickier parsings than I would usually expect from Dice but the theme helped a lot.
Liked HONOURS, DISPLACEMENT and BATTALIONS.
Thanks Dice and Loonapick
Same issue with NOTE. I don’t like calling America a continent. North America is a continent, as is South America. I just went with American, African, Asian, Oceania and the even letters of Antarctic all contain NO TE. Personally, I just think it’s a bad clue. Otherwise, I found the puzzle pretty straightforward and fun. Thanks Dice and thank you to Loonapick.
Easy and not too taxing. Very precise clueing except for 6d which had me wondering where South America had got to. I wrote in NOTE as the only possibility. I understand it now but agree with Jay@3.
As always I failed to spot the theme until far too late but that didn’t slow me down.
Thanks Dice and loonapick
It is a point of debate whether North and South America should be regarded as one continent or two. It used to be normal practice to regard it as one. The reason why the Olympic flag consists of 5 interlocked rings is to represent the ‘5 continents’ – Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania (Antarctica of course has no population so wouldn’t be competing). North and South America was regarded as a single continent when the flag was devised. Personally I thought it was the COTD.
I wasn’t keen when doing this but it seems to have improved on reading your blog.
I noticed TABLE and BOARD in 10ac and 2d
Thanks loonapick and Dice
Good fun. NOTE was my Waterloo (and I groaned when I read it here). Took me a while to remember that you Brits call a smell a hum. I initially had HADES for 9a — is the clue ambiguous?
Didn’t detect a theme.
I wondered if the placing of 25 and 27 across, was a reference to Blair’s slogan, “Education, education, education” but perhaps just co-incidence. Found some clues a bit clunky, such as 18a – a surface that feels a bit contrived. But a mostly enjoyable, and not overly taxing romp.
Thanks to S&B.
I also started with Hades Geoff @7, but we had the right idea!
I didn’t have a problem with NOTE, I liked it. I didn’t notice the minor theme.
I liked PRIMARIES as linked with SCHOOLS.
Thanks Dice and loonapick.
Thanks Dice and loonapick
DNF – revealed NOTE and didn’t understand it even then.
Not very impressed – some ridiculous surfaces. 18a takes the prize for this.
A curates egg for me. Some of the anagrams were a bit like getting slapped round the head with a wet fish but other clues witty and enjoyable. NOTE left me stumped too.
Thanks Dice and Loonapick
Not ideal to have two table/board clues (10ac and 2d) but otherwise lots to like. I scribbled in NATO for 6d, only found and corrected it when I didn’t get my app congratulations on completion, so a LOIDNF. Thanks both.
Thanks Dice and loonapick! Needed enlightenment as to NOTE which is a clever clue, perhaps too clever; obviously too clever for me, who didn’t even spot the unmissable theme.
So far I have usually failed to be on Dice’s wavelength, and today was no exception. I eventually guessed what the parsing of NOTE must have meant to do (after wondering about NATO), but it doesn’t really work for me. However, in Back To School week in the UK, NOTE backwards does give you ETON. Intentional?
I didn’t know you could have files on a DONGLE, but I see it can also describe what I know as a data stick.
Thanks Dice and loonapick.
Didn’t spot the theme. Didn’t understand how NOTE worked but have read here and it now makes sense, but I had crossers so was able to make the proper guess. Liked lots of other things. Agree with RussThree#1 about the parsing of 7d. Thanks Dice, and loonapick.
I also parsed UNBIASED as RussThree @1 and agree with others about the woeful surface insulting our INTELLIGENCE. Apart from that, the theme was enjoyable, but like others I guessed NOTE, but had no idea with the parsing. I liked ESSENTIALS and ATTITUDE best.
Ta Dice & loonapick.
7D – I think :
b (not bis) = bishop
Is = is
Just noticed comment from Russthree – I agree
I had a really enjoyable first three quarters of this one, then really struggled placing the last 4 or 5 clues. And even upon reading here, some of the fodder meanings feel tenuous
But overall really enjoyable, especially as someone just starting to get the hang of full cryptics
22a, 19d and 3d particular favourites
Didn’t get NOTE, nor understand it when revealed.
In what sense does a dongle hold files? Dongles are adaptors used for connecting devices to computers, but the dongle itself is not a storage device and something like a USB stick or thumb drive would not called a dongle.
Having seen Dice only as a setter of QCs before, I expected this to be a write-in, which it wasn’t for me. Couldn’t parse NOTE and struggled with a few others – strangely HUM as smell was new to me. Thanks Dice and loonapick.
Nothing to trouble the fertile mind too much, apart from the dastardly NOTE. Oh, and having HADES rather than HEADS, and so spending several minutes trying to find a word to fit B_D_D_ . So maybe not that fertile.
Another here who put in HADES first. Clue a little too ambiguous… I appreciated the theme — though my school days are far behind me — but found it was not necessary for solving. Thanks Dice and Loonapick for the parsing of NOTE esp.
I liked NOTE a lot. I’m not sure even Jay @3 has fully explained it.
It parses as ‘No te’ – ie there is no letter ‘t’.
That is true of American, African, Asian and Oceanian.
Finally for ‘the Antarctic’, there are letter ‘t’s, but only in position 1 of ‘the’, and positions 3 and 7 of ‘Antarctic’ – hence ‘even from the antarctic’ – the even letters have ‘no te’.
It doesn’t need anything to do with continents for it to parse, so the question of whether America is a continent etc is moot. Of course if you accept that they are all continents, then that also allows the parsing of Not E(uropean), which makes the clue even better imho.
I like the alternative parsing for NOTE but wonder why EUROPE wasn’t added to the list if such was Dice’s unique intention. Also wouldn’t ‘t’ normally be ‘tee’? COD for me.
Fuddleduddy @24, yes I agree with you about ‘tee’ rather than ‘te’. After I wrote it, I wondered the same thing, and can’t find any justification for ‘te’ as t. Drat!
I still like the clue. I don’t think the clue requires an exhaustive list of continents that aren’t Europe, nor does it need exclusively continents. Whether ‘American’ means someone from North America or from anywhere in North or South America, that person is still not European.
I would be interested if Dice also intended the ‘t’ parsing though, because the ‘even’ isn’t really required otherwise, and it seems like too much of a coincidence, given the ‘odd’ placing of 3 ts. Why not just have ‘or from the Antarctic’?
Straightforward with easy anagrams
poc@19: I thought exactly the same about dongles and data sticks, but according to Wikipedia the term dongle can be used for a wide variety of small plug-in devices including USB flash drives, though I’ve never heard it so used.
I remain unclear on NOTE. Is the definition just “N” and if so, is that supposed to be an abbreviation for “note”? I have seen, of course, NB (where the N stands for nota, not note), but don’t recall ever seeing N.
I suppose it is in Chambers, but as I have said before, that is true of a lot of alleged single letter abbreviations and is, in my mind, necessary but not sufficient.
And now I am noodling on ways to clue NOTA as “not A”…
gladys@27, poc@19: I recall devices back in the 1980s that plugged into the parallel port of a computer as anti-theft protection for software. If this dongle was not present, the program would not run, so the customer could only run as many copies as they had purchased dongles for. So there is precedent for calling things other than adapters “dongles”.
Having said that, I don’t think I can recall anybody calling a memory stick a dongle.
As others have said, an easy start but then a few chewy ones. I liked Charlie’s SUBJECT after taking flight, the DISPLACEMENT being out of order but not an anagram, the BATTALIONS of flying creatures, the ELEMENT being to part company, and the PENCIL CASE place for writers. I failed to parse NOTE, which was also a good clue IMHO.
Thanks Dice and loonapick.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only person utterly baffled by NOTE.
I think NOTE is fine even though “America” isn’t the name of a continent[1]. Saying that someone is from America, Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Antarctic is the same (it seems to me) as saying that they’re from North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Antarctic. (Throw Central America in there by all means if it feels not sufficiently covered by North and South.)
[1] Not yet, any way. Perhaps next week Mr Trump will be annoyed at someone in Australia and declare that official US nomenclature will henceforth be to call that continent “America”.
Nice crossword. Foxed by parse of note and ugly clue for 18ac. Re DONGLE – Frequently used for memory stick when they first came out.
Re the comment in the blog that “The surface doesn’t read well” for 4D, it may help to think of something like “I expressly told you that it was unacceptable”, which could be considered as stating “express disapproval”.
NOTE is indeed the clue of the day. I think it is very clever.
While I agree with Jacob @28 that Chambers is necessary but not sufficient, the definition N is an abbreviation for a musical note. Chambers 578 (4th ed 2000). Bruce @23 is right: American, African, Asian, Oceanian or even [letters] from the Antarctic! contain no t. And Te, as well as Ti, is part of the sol-fa scale. Chambers 579. The sol-fa scale is relevant because the clue pertains to a musical note.
I whipped through this, then got stuck with a few to do. I then realised I’d put ‘hades’ for 9a not ‘heads’ so that helped! Couldn’t parse ‘note’ at all.
I think 4d works if you use “tut” as a verb
Was fortunate that the parsing of NOTE jumped out at me once I had the crossers – and think it’s perfectly fine for the reasons g @32 has given. ‘Twas ELEMENT held out longest.
I suspect I’m just the right age to recall DONGLE being used for USB drives – though mainly it referred to a portable broadband modem.
Agree with EdK @37 that ‘tut’ was to be read as a verb.
Thanks to Dice and loonapick
aemmmnostt@35 Those words also contain no B,D,G,H,J,K,L,P,Q,U,V,W,X,Y or Z. Don’t you feel it was a bit random to pick one letter to single out when more than half of the rest of the alphabet were also not present? The fact that all the words selected were continents should have provided a bit of a clue to the solution.
Thanks for the blog , pretty good overall , ANGLE was deceptive if you spent too long thinking of six letter fish . TUTOR , good to see OR for soldiers instead of men .
Agree with G @32 for note . I think – or even from the Antarctic – is just there because we do not have a word like Antarctican .
A letter in the paper on Saturday complaining about the caught/court soundalike .
Perfect timing , I hope not too many people have been waiting for me to claim my spot .
Andy@39, good point and really just going into the realms of pedantry for interest and fun, not really out of genuine conviction here, but: of the odd letters of ‘the Antarctic’, (t,e,a,t,r,t,c), only ‘t’ doesn’t appear in any of the other continents listed. So there is a case for privileging ‘t’ over your other non-appearing letters, because the clue could be read along the lines of ‘There’s one letter that doesn’t appear in American, African, Asian, Oceanian and also not in the even letters of ‘the Antarctic’ (though it does appear in the odd letters). And that letter is t’
Enjoyed this overall. A couple of strained surfaces (e.g. 18a as mentioned elsewhere), but also some I thought were delightful. 1d is for me a fantastically descriptive surface reading for what is actually a pretty straightforward clue.
Seems pretty plain that the blog is right about NOT E. If you’re not European, you must be American, African, Asian or Oceanian, or else a penguin or walrus or some lichen or something. It was the last clue I got but once I worked it out I thought it was one of the better ones.
Nice to see the dong getting an outing.
[Digger @45
Didn’t the Dong have a luminous nose?]
Loved NOTE, was a write-in on first pass. But I struggled with some others find easy. People eh? Anyway that makes two in a row completed this week (major achievement for me) so it will probably be Paul tomorrow…
Thanks Dice and loonapick.
Tricky puzzle in places. Lots of lateral thinking required. Took a bit of doing to complete it, but certainly worth the trouble. Like many, 6d NOTE took a while and was one of my last ones in. I liked it, though, because it had a great pdm. Missed the theme despite looking for it
Lots of great clues, and a lot of enjoyable humour in the surfaces. Despite 18a, I thought there were some really excellent surfaces, especially 9a HEADS, 10a TIMETABLE, 25a EDUCATION, 26a ANGLE, 1d SCHOOL, 7d UNBIASED. I also liked the misdirecting word pairs in 12a FACT (“Reality show”), 28a ELEMENT (“Part company”), 2d BOARDS (“turning tables”)
Roz42@40 I thought of you with 4d TUTOR, and figured you’d be happy with it! Yes, I took my time with the puzzle so you could claim your spot
Round number today. Really 100 puzzles since the big 30,000? Time flies!
Thanks both
Re: the blog, the surface of 4D reads fine if you take ‘express’ as an adjective.
The only problem I have with NOTE is how long it took me to get it after everything else. Eventually parsed it as in the blog, and hit myself over the head
I really liked this, continents are arbitrary so for many people the given list of non European continents would be exhaustive and they’re no more right or wrong than anyone else. My annoyance with the clue was not knowing note could be abbreviated to n. Sure. I also am baffled every time I see hum for smell. Thanks
I enjoyed the crossword, but in 5d, is it a bit unambitious that the wordplay leading us to “IATE” is “I ate”?
Really enjoyed this one – a few of us did it together.
For NOTE, my thinking went … this looks like NATO … but it should have Europe too – oh it has everywhere but Europe! Oh!
I don’t agree with the no te idea – there’s also no pe (and an N for no or nope would work fine).
We parsed 26A as headless ‘wangle’ – to swing = to wangle? But dangle is better.
Thanks Dice (again) and loonapick
I also came here for the parsing for NOTE – worth doubling the site’s membership fees! Thanks Dice and loonapick.
I flip-flopped a bit between HEADS and HADES too, though also between (w)ANGLE and (d)ANGLE, but came out right in both cases.
Yes, if you try hard enough then you can make 6d work, but I think that it has defects nonetheless.
Cheers everyone.
I liked this one overall, but I’m another who things 6d NOTE has defects. The PDM was nice, but there’s no justification in the clue for European being abbreviated to E in the cryptic reading.
Anyhow, thanks both!
Although your parsing seems correct, the clueing of 6D NOTE is just too tenuous to be a good clue. N = note? FO = ?
I hadn’t seen HUM with that meaning. Somewhat less noisome than a pong, perhaps?
In defence of 6D NOTE, I now think it’s a superb clue – it actually has two alternative cryptic explanations that both work IMHO.
First, the European one that has been much discussed (and I think the ! gives a bit of licence eg to abbreviate European to E – it’s a warning that there’s a bit of unorthodoxy going on).
Second, and something I only realised this morning when I woke up: the parsing of ‘No’ + ‘te’, with the ‘te’ literally meaning the string of letters ‘te’ (not the letter t). With that interpretation, the clue works as follows:
N American, African, Asian, Oceanian or even [letters] from [the] Antarctic!
If you take the even letters of ‘the’, you get only h. But if you take the odd letters of ‘the’, you get ‘te’. So the cryptic part is a list of places, none of which contain the string ‘te’ provided you only take the even letters of ‘the’ as instructed.
I’m not sure if the setter intended it (and perhaps it is a little recherché) , but it does parse cleanly both ways imho.
Bruce, 59,
As I said, if you try hard enough 🙂
Good challenge, tricky in parts.
I could not parse 8d and I did not notice the theme!
I could not get 28A and had to hit reveal, then could not parse it. Now I know why. To me ‘company’ – as a business, group of actors or unit of soldiers – is not ‘men’, it is ‘people’. As far as I’m concerned describing any group which could be comprised of men or women as ‘men’ is very out of date and should be now be clued as a historic reference in the same way that ‘thee’ is clued as ‘old you’. Please can it go on the ‘over due for retirement’ pile along with ‘pi’ for good and ‘u’ for posh?
I also was baffled by NOTE, put HADES first and would not store files on a DONGLE.