Times 27709 – Neque non solo nec sed etiam

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A lot of anagrams and subtraction clues balanced out by a left-field clue (11a) – if I have parsecked it right, which is no given. All in all, an entertaining start to the week, which I think the SNITCH will prove to be slightly tougher than one’s (your? my?) average Monday.

My favourite was 1d (can’t beat a bit of Yiddish, my [ones’s?] son) and my time 25’30”.

ACROSS

1 Cut round page in part (5)
SPLIT – P in SLIT
4 Restaurant with fish — about right by lake above Niagara (9)
BRASSERIE – R in BASS ERIE
9 Manage with fur in very warm mobile home (9)
HOUSEBOAT – USE BOA in HOT
10 Gold-plated cube is so long (5)
ADIEU – DIE in AU
11 Fix a sort of gate outside church (6)
ANCHOR – CH in A NOR; as for NOR, I will let Lexico (Oxford Dictionaries Online in old money) sort this out: ‘A circuit which produces an output signal only when there are no signals on any of the input connections; [example] “It is quite common to recognize two others as well: the NAND and the NOR gate”.’
12 Incline to admit having to go inside (8)
GRADIENT – DIE in GRANT
14 Game with prize — hard nut to crack? (8,4)
TREASURE HUNT – TREASURE (prize) H anagram* of NUT
17 Lively girl accepting offer dispensing with old perfume (12)
EFFERVESCENT – [o]FFER in EVE SCENT
20 Damaging fall in account I empty (4,4)
ACID RAIN – AC I DRAIN
21 Team making comeback in Nagasaki or Tokyo (6)
TROIKA – pretty simple reverse hidden in the Japanese stuff; TROIKA in the sense of ‘three horses harnessed abreast’, rather than what they pull
23 Daughter dismissed from post by small English faculty (5)
SENSE – SEN[d] S E
24 Return motel menu that’s dreadful (9)
EMOLUMENT – MOTEL MENU*
25 Saddle decorator over chasing source of plaster in tin (9)
CAPARISON – PARIS (as in plaster of Paris, geddit?) O (over) in CAN; a lovely word evoking all those wonderful jousty books, such as Faerie Queene, which Clive James eventually grew to love. Not a NOR in sight…
26 Party craving most respected leader (5)
DOYEN – DO YEN

DOWN

1 Whisky smuggled into school with unknown sloppiness (8)
SCHMALTZ -MALT in SCH Z; sloppiness as in something really sentimental, bordering on fake, like much of the modern mediatised world…
2 Diner wolfing last of rucola? Never bolt down rocket here (8)
LAUNCHER – [rucol]A in LUNCHER; rucola is the name for various types of vegetable rocket
3 Energy goes in running water for shower in poor repair (3,5,3,4)
THE WORSE FOR WEAR – E in WATER FOR SHOWER* (I guess/hope)
4 Volume runs from stream (4)
BOOK – B[r]OOK
5 Pudding to contain aromatic alcohol (10)
AFTERSHAVE – AFTERS HAVE
6 Maintain a position in base where my team play? (5,4,6)
STAND ONES GROUND – STAND (base) ONES GROUND (where my team play); a bit contrived, methinks. A question mark often signals as much…
7 Attacker’s comparatively quick removing pawn (6)
RAIDER – RA[p]IDER
8 What actors make up in what’s only fair play (6)
EQUITY – EQUITY is the actor’s union (‘Oh, yes it is, luvvie!’) and ‘fair play’ or EQUITY is what one can expect in a court…in heaven, perhaps
13 Shaking, seeing red over son’s insatiability (10)
GREEDINESS – SEEING RED* S
15 What may restock food shop excessively (8)
DELIVERY – DELI VERY
16 Restrict movement of nitrates (8)
STRAITEN – NITRATES*
18 To work out sentence, convict’s beginning a long stretch? (6)
PARSEC – PARSE C[onvict]; ‘a unit of astronomical distance equal to the distance from earth at which stellar parallax would be 1 second of arc; equivalent to 3.0857 × 1016 m or 3.262 light years’; longer than the Epsom Derby, in other words
19 Fuzz getting to the bottom of hoax abduction (6)
KIDNAP – KID (hoax) NAP (fuzz – as on a billiard table)
22 Fallen wicket breaks Bradman, perhaps (4)
DOWN – W in DON; the world’s third most famous Don after POTUS and Manley

68 comments on “Times 27709 – Neque non solo nec sed etiam”

  1. Fairly Mondayesque, I would have thought, although I didn’t know of NOR gates, and wondered where the D had gone, or was it ‘an or gate’? DNK Bradman, although I assumed he was a cricketer. Not as famous in my world, anyway, as Giovanni or Duck. (I see that Don Manley uses both of those as noms de crossword.) (A friend of mine knew a Donald Duck; he was born before Disney’s was.) Biffed THE WORSE FOR WEAR & TREASURE HUNT, parsed post-submission. Liked PARSEC; lovely surface.

    Edited at 2020-07-06 01:09 am (UTC)

  2. I work in semiconductors, so no problem with the NOR gate (there are indeed AND, OR, and NAND, plus there is an XOR gate too, maybe we’ll get that one day). No problem with PARSEC, a term I know (although I use nanometers rather more often in my line of work).

    I nearly fell into a trap with RESTRAIN as a (non) anagram of NITRATES. But noticed there were two Ts as I started to type it. I realized 1D was probably Yiddish, but was trying for something starting SCHW for some time. I’d heard of Don Bradman even though I have no interest in cricket.

  3. Never heard of Bradman (got it anyway).
    Couldn’t see SCHMALTZ till I stopped trying to put in W for Whiskey.
    Liked ANCHOR, because I knew why NOR is a gate.
    EMOLUMENT is a word the US Congress should have taken more seriously lately.

    Edited at 2020-07-06 01:21 am (UTC)

  4. 49 minutes, mainly delayed in the NW corner where I had nothing for ages. ANCHOR was eventually biffed, then I saw A and CH and had to assume that NOR was some sort of gate I never heard of. I then checked it in two on-line dictionaries without finding the required meaning and now regret not looking at Lexico.

    LOI was SCHMALTZ whose definition didn’t appear to relate in any way to my understanding of the word but I now see there’s a meaning of ‘sloppiness’ I wasn’t aware of that accounted for this apparent disparity.

    Edited at 2020-07-06 04:47 am (UTC)

  5. One thinks one’s blog is up to one’s usual informative and tongue-in-cheek standard. So one thanks one for one’s effort. And thanks for the link between rucola and rocket, which had otherwise passed me (sorry, one) by.

    As for the crossword, I enjoyed it. Not just for the science references (NOR, PARSEC, etc) but for the nice balance of effort required vs gettability. SCHMALTZ, HOUSEBOAT, ACID RAIN and DELIVERY were favourites, and I was glad to know both EMOLUMENT and CAPARISON.

  6. I got stuck in the top half for a fair while today until TREASURE HUNT went in and the rest fell from there. For my LOI the unknown CAPARISON, having deduced Paris was in the middle I spent some time deciding which way round the A and O went. In retrospect I’m not sure why because ‘chasing’ suggests the O coming behind Paris.
  7. Rucola passed me by also, have learned something.

    Knew PARSEC correctly, reminds me of the completely wrong use of the word in the (first and best) Star Wars film, where it is a unit of time, Han Solo trying to get a hirer for the Millennium Falcon.

    Learned about NOR gates etc. in A level physics, not used the knowledge since until now.

    Staggered that some have not heard of Bradman.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    1. I am staggered also ; like saying ” I’ve never heard of Mozart ; not interested in classical music”.
      1. I’m staggered by the staggeredness! It’s not remotely surprising to me that a couple of Americans haven’t heard of a cricketer.

        Edited at 2020-07-06 12:43 pm (UTC)

        1. You tell ’em, K! I do know Grace, although I’m not sure of her last name.
  8. 17:07 finishing with SCHMALTZ in NW corner after spotting the NOR gate in 11A, One for us scientific types there along with PARSEC, I guess. I learnt rucola is the name for rocket like leaves today.
  9. Defeated again because I opted for the lesser known Coparisan – lesser known because I seem to have invented it. Hey ho! Last week I made a mess of things so why change now?
  10. Whereas I learned today that rucola is the name for arugula, which I learned in a Sydney restaurant years ago was called rocket.
  11. Well, ok, I’ll vote for a bit harder even if the SNITCH doesn’t, because this took me nearly 25 minutes. I wasn’t helped by assuming 2d was LAUNCHPAD and failing to notice that it was a bit cramped at the bottom. Trying to find a reverse decorator to make up my saddle at 25 slowed things rather more. Source of plaster? That’s P then, and tin is SN umm…
    Something other than sago (which obviously wouldn’t work) for the pudding in 5 added to some sort of aromatic: smellomina perhaps.
    Even the innocent and easy BOOK suffered from imagining some volume akin to pint or litre.
    For the play at 8 I tried to justify and stretch EQUUS to fit, since there was obviously a Q (at least I got that right).
    And I was utterly sure i didn’t know the lake above Niagara which was obviously the answer once I’d worked out what sort of greasy spoon was involved. Lake Caffsorle, perhaps.
    I knew The Don. Whoop de doo!
  12. 31 minutes. LOI KIDNAP. BRASSERIE was a write-in after our trip to Niagara a couple of years ago. This puzzle had too many anagrams or the threat of them for my comfort. I know other solvers like them, but I prefer the cryptics, preferably with a need to parse fully afterwards. COD must therefore go to PARSEC. It was as well that LAUNCHER didn’t need a knowledge of RUCOLA, as I didn’t even know rocket was a salad leaf until they started bagging it in supermarkets. And I was too young to see Bradman bat. I did see Lindwall and Miller bowl in 1953 though. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2020-07-06 07:09 am (UTC)

    1. You and me both. My father took me to the Oval in 1953 to see the final test when in their second innings Lock and Laker spun out the Aussies. On the last day Edrich and Compton saw us home (the winning runs coming from the famous sweep) and the crowd invaded the pitch! Great memories.
  13. For me, the unknown cricketer, rucola, CAPARISONs, TROIKAs and EMOLUMENTs are all significantly obscurer than the NOR gate, but nevertheless I managed to arrive at the finishing line in 43 minutes.

    Found this quite hard to get started with, and I can’t actually remember my FOI now, but it was somewhere in the bottom half. LOI SCHMALTZ where, like Guy, it took me a lot of time to abandon the “W” idea. (And indeed to stop thinking that the “unknown” was indicating a Y at the end…)

  15. Thanks, ulaca, especially for ANCHOR and CAPARISON. I’ve seen the latter in a cryptic before but I couldn’t parse the clue today. I did like PARSEC though and that’s my COD.
  16. To me sloppiness is not the same as soppiness, which is how I would define “schmaltzy”
    1. I’d also have thought it more soppy than sloppy but Chambers does have over-sentimental among the definitions for sloppy.
      1. Thanks. But I think I would have got ‘schmaltzy’ if the clue had been ‘soppiness’, so I am aggrieved. Got all the rest!
        Richard
        1. Sorry Rich but Collins (‘mawkishly sentimental’) and Lexico (‘weakly or foolishly sentimental’) also support the setter here.
  17. Enjoyable puzzle, particularly the logic gate and PARSEC. Nothing controversial.
  18. 15:28. My problems with this were all in the NE corner, where I was completely stuck for several minutes.
    I remembered NOR gates from school, and as others have noted PARSEC is familiar from Star Wars. The recent film Solo: A Star Wars Story features Han doing the Kessel Run and demonstrating that he knew it was a measure of distance all along.
    I was confused by 4ac because the lake above Niagara is Ontario. Oh right, that kind of above.
  19. Thought that was harder than an average Monday puzzle but made solid progress after a couple of minutes of not settling anywhere. I was hoping that a certain three-letter word would appear here having been in the concise and QC for a rare triple, but it was not to be. I would say TROIKA is any team of three, not just three horses. Nice use of NOR as in a logic gate, can we expect XOR soon?

    COD: PARSEC almost doing the Star Wars confusion of time for distance.

    Friday’s answer: no, Melania Trump is not the first First Lady born outside the US, Louisa Adams, wife of John Q, was born in London.

    Today’s question: near which town was the golden hare in the book Masquerade buried?

    1. And, as I said, Martha Washington (Custis), and no doubt the next couple of first ladies, was not born in the United States either. Martha, I imagine, was born in the colony of Virginia, not that it matters, as there was no United States when she was born. Martin P gave your answer: do you bother to read responses to your questions?

      Edited at 2020-07-06 11:43 am (UTC)

  20. I thought this harder than average, a little.
    Also I thought it was AN OR gate not A NOR gate .. both work of course but AND/OR gates far more common ..
  21. Not your average Monday offering. I found this a toughie and finished after two bites in 23.50. Very slow going to begin with adieu being my FOI. Got better in the SE corner and gradually filled it in. LOI kidnap . Some great clues I thought with parsec surely the solvers’ most popular.

    Just realised I had one mistake put schwartz rather than schmaltz, too keen to get a w in the answer and thought my answer was just another new word to assimilate. Never mind.

    Otherwise liked caparison, treasure hunt and houseboat.

  22. ….and the only “gates” I know in that field is Bill (but not personally).

    Not my cup of tea, glad to finish. Parsed EFFERVESCENT afterwards.

    FOI ADIEU
    LOI ANCHOR
    COD KIDNAP
    TIME 13:24

  23. Biggest hold-up was 1d. No excuse really, should have clocked that it was whisky and not whiskey so couldn’t be W.

    I’m mildly surprised that Bradman is unknown to quite a few. I’d say he was the cricket equivalent of Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Ayrton Senna, Roger Federer, William “the refrigerator” Perry and Chiyonofuji.

    1. Bradman’s test average of 99.94 was more than half as much again as the next best test batsmen, who are grouped in the low 60’s! This indicates he was not merely better than the rest, but at a completely different level. Your other named sportsmen, though arguably the best in their fields, only edge out others of similar ability. They are not in a different class entirely.
      1. I wasn’t measuring any of them on some kind of greatnessometer, just making the point that there are sports stars with whom most people are familiar, even if they have no interest in, or even knowledge of, their sport.

        And that I’d have expected the Don to be one such

  24. 25’25. Enjoyable middle-of-the-road exercise. Had to assume Nor. I’m also surprised by a number not knowing of the Don, and a little by a need to split hairs between soppy and sloppy in this instance. Liked aftershave simply because it was my last in and there it was staring me in the face so to speak. Nothing like being trumped by simplicity.
  25. I struggled to get a foothold and didn’t solve a clue until 23a, SENSE. This was however, quickly followed by 22 DOWN, TROIKA, and STAND ONES GROUND. I still made heavy weather from then on, but managed to remember CAPARISON. A biffed RESTRAIN made a mess of TROIKA and EMOLUMENT, so was changed to STRAITEN reasonably quickly, making EFFERVESCENT a lot easier to solve. Then it was back to the sparsely populated NW to finish off. THE WORSE FOR WEAR, was a help here, and ANCHOR(saw the gate ok) allowed me to get LAUNCHER(also didn’t know rucola) and HOUSEBOAT, leaving me with 1d as my LOI. It took a while to shake off W and Y, but I eventually spotted MALT and the job was done. 34:23. Thanks setter and U.

  26. Rucola is one of the many incarnations of green stuff with which restaurants insist on polluting what would otherwise be a perfectly acceptable meal. I am slowly learning their names.

    Angus’s question brought back fond memories of Kit Williams’ Masquerade – I spent many a happy hour puzzling over that – got close, but no big cigar…….

    I understand that the bejewelled hare was finally dug up in a park in or near Bedford.

    35.32 with LOI SCHMALTZ.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

    1. My breakfast order in Wetherspoon’s :
      Eggs Benedict please, hold the rocket”.
  27. I found this fairly tough but also enjoyable. Got through it safely in the end. No pink slip on show today.

    COD:PARSEC.

  28. harder than the usual Monday. Took ages to get started, but pleased to finish in 31:36 without pinks. Spending the last minute or so checking for typos is paying off. Biffing EFFLORESCENT for 17a didn’t help. Indeed, can one ‘ bung in from definition’ without a definition? Or should this be a ‘biflaca’- bung in from length and checkers alone? Had to be amended when sense prevailed.
  29. I wasn’t measuring any of them on some kind of greatnessometer, just making the point that there are sports stars with whom most people are familiar, even if they have no interest in, or even knowledge of, their sport.

    And that I’d have expected the Don to be one such.

    1. I was not surprised, since cricket is just entirely absent from American cultural life. How many ice hockey players can you name?
  30. Bum, I was about to delete this having put it in its right place as a reply to corymbia, then you come along and mess it up *shakes fist*
      1. Babe Ruth were a moderately successful prog rock band. Apparently they were named after some random baseball player. I’m guessing the NHO last guy must be a sumo wrestler (I vaguely remember “The Dump Truck” when Channel 4 used to cover it).

        Edited at 2020-07-06 02:05 pm (UTC)

        1. I’m not a great sports follower but even I’ve heard of Babe Ruth! I suspect baseball has more international salience than cricket because of movies and the general ubiquity of American culture. In my experience, outside the countries that play the game people know absolutely nothing about cricket other than the fact that games last five days, which is generally taken as conclusive proof that we are completely insane.

          Edited at 2020-07-06 02:22 pm (UTC)

            1. Yes I realised that. I think Babe Ruth is the wrong comparison here. Bradman to an American is more like an ice hockey or American football player to a Brit.
      2. If the Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot count as three then three.
        1. Ha! I am married to a Canadian and spend a lot of time in Canada and even I have only heard of two:
          1. Wayne Gretsky. Literally known as ‘The Great One’. As you spend time with Canadians the probability that they will not mention Gretsky at some point tends rapidly to zero.
          2. Tim Horton. Has a massive chain of doughnut shops named after him.

          Edited at 2020-07-06 02:25 pm (UTC)

          1. I’ll see your Wayne Gretzky, and raise you a Vince Lombardi.
                1. Only counts if you can spell his last name. I can’t.
            1. No, never heard of him.
              I had been going to Canada regularly for years before I even realised that Tim Horton was a hockey player.
  31. Very late solve and a very slow time. Our 5 mile rule has just been rescinded in Wales The beach is so bracing!
  32. Disappointingly just over an hour. Felt like a real slog of a puzzle for me. No anagrams clicked, and I had to work hard on the upper-left corner. I was pleased to finish!
  33. Late to the party again. I had all the GK, and only lost a second or two trying to figure out how to jam another W into Hogwarts and make it mean something. A nice Monday trot.
    And for the record, Ruth set records that were in no danger of being broken for pushing 70 years (when the rabbit ball, lower pitchers mound, steroids, and extended seasons put paid to the past)
  34. 32:43. Bracing for a Monday. The gate thing in anchor was the only unknown.
  35. Like many others, 1d was my LOI. Unlike any others, I invented a new word – Schwantz.
    1. Round as in “around” – i.e. Slit (cut) around P (page) = Split
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