Times 28053 – pas mal, pas exceptionnel.

As you read this (unless you’re time zones ahead) I am on my way to a foreign land, as Scotland seems to be becoming these days. So anything that needs a response will have to wait, at least until bedtime. I didn’t like or dislike this puzzle, it just got done in about half an hour, with 15a giving me the most trouble. German is not my thing, although I’ve been obliged to try to grasp it twice and failed; and I spent too long trying to get OR into the answer, not AU.

Across
1 Like soldier from America clutching good spears (9)
ASPARAGUS – AS (like) PARA (soldier) G (good) US (from America).
6 Make a stink about showbiz magazine’s twaddle (5)
HOKUM – HUM (make a stink) about OK a weekly celeb photos mag which apparently has 30 million “readers” in 20 countries. I am not one of them.
9 Periodically parroted European writer’s style (3,4)
ART DECO – alternate letters as above, then ECO as in Umberto the writer.
10 After tax returns, collapse several times (7)
TENFOLD – NET (after tax) returned, then FOLD = collapse.
11 The Spanish drinking your old kind of alcohol (5)
ETHYL – EL (the in Spanish) has THY (your) inside. The quaffable sort of alcohol, when diluted.
12 Two different gulls or a woodpecker (9)
SAPSUCKER – SAP and SUCKER both meaning gull, con, deceive.
13 Musing male in area covered by tiny bit of litter? (8)
RUMINANT – M IN A (male in area) inside RUNT = tiny bit of litter. So that’s what those ruminant cows are doing all day, musing?
14 Opposing appeal North America backs (4)
ANTI – All reversed, IT (appeal) NA (North America).
17 Part of foot to squeeze, but not softly! (4)
INCH – PINCH loses P (softly).
18 Travelling requirement in France not fun (8)
PASSPORT – Well, a French person might say “pas sport” meaning “not fun”. More likely he’d say “pas sportif”, methinks. But we see what is intended.
21 Speed of ships west of promontory (9)
FLEETNESS – FLEET (ships) NESS (promontory).
22 Truly wanting both hands to fix paper in bunches (5)
TUFTY – Take TRULY and remove L and R, (both hands) to get TUY, then insert FT the pink paper.
24 Observe phantom, about to move forwards (7)
RESPECT – SPECTRE our phantom, has RE moved forwards.
25 Model car running around rubbish pile (7)
REPLICA – this seems to be an anagram of PILE inside an anagram of CAR. Unusual, but clearly clued.
26 Dropping back, strayed around Irish town (5)
ENNIS – SINNED (strayed) loses its back D, then is reversed. Ennis in County Clare is a pleasant town, noteworthy in 1997 for being the first “Information Age” town, whereby every resident and classroom was given a free computer and access to a (then!) fast ISDN internet connection. I remember the fuss in Ireland at the time.
27 Taste endless meal, but no starter, in club (9)
TRUNCHEON – TR(Y) = taste endless, (L)UNCHEON = meal but no starter. Join the bits.

Down
1 A revolutionary green energy that’s switched-on (5)
AWARE – A, RAW (green) reversed, E. Not WOKE just aware.
2 Curse those doing satire in the middle of stage (3,3,7,2)
PUT THE MOCKERS ON – Double definition, one prosaic.
3 White queen that is given support (8)
RIESLING – R (queen, regina), I.E. (that is), SLING (support). White as in Alsace wine.
4 Bringing up a beef gravy initially in need of stirring (8)
GROUSING – G(ravy), ROUSING = stirring.
5 Way to get a six-pack of drinks with vermouth in (3-3)
SIT-UPS – IT (Italian vermouth) inside SUPS (drinks).
6 Complex way to end a call (4-2)
HANG-UP – double definition, the second without a hyphen.
7 What convicts do after stealing, when job’s done (8-3,4)
KNOCKING-OFF TIME – stealing = knocking off, TIME is what convicts do.
8 Person in movement stormed in furiously (9)
MODERNIST – (STORMED IN)*.
13 Troops operational? Send in more of them (9)
REINFORCE – RE (Royal Engineers) IN FORCE = operational.
15 Homemaker has fur tailored with lining of gold (8)
HAUSFRAU – (HAS FUR)* with AU either inside or at the end. I think inside best matches the wordplay.
16 One’s issue about oxygen, or about its forms? (8)
ISOTOPIC – I’S (one’s) TOPIC (issue), insert O(xygen). Oxygen is indeed an element with allotropes, probably six of them, of which O2 and O3 (ozone) are the prevalent ones.
19 Tension from opening of secure lock (6)
STRESS – S(ecure) TRESS = lock of hair.
20 Get lost with PC’s routine using computers (4,2)
BEAT IT – Bobby on the BEAT, IT = computers.
23 Long period before November (5)
YEARN – year (period) before N for November.

83 comments on “Times 28053 – pas mal, pas exceptionnel.”

  1. 29 minutes. PASSPORT was my LOI. I had considered it much earlier but I didn’t see the wordplay. The French person only has to say PAS (not) then SPORT (fun) is English.

    The jury seems still to be out on the origin of PUT THE MOCKERS ON. Some say it’s an Australian saying possible adapted from ‘put a mock on’. Others suggest it’s from the Yiddish ‘makkes’ and ultimately the Hebrew ‘makot’ meaning ‘plagues’ as adapted by English market traders.

    Edited at 2021-08-11 05:10 am (UTC)

      1. I knew that, but can it also mean ‘fun’ in French? It may well do, but I don’t know, so treating the two words in the clue separately meant I didn’t have to concern myself about that when parsing.
        1. Of course. The French cousin may not cover all the possible senses of the English (for example—maybe—”in fun”/“in sport” for “kidding around”), and—though in French sport does mean a (physical) game or such games in general, and a game is by definition supposed or intended to be fun (for someone… les sportifs et sportives, ha)— it’s not a French word that’s called for here.

          The French word sport is said to come from the English… who took it from the French.
          https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/sport/74327
          anglais sport, de l’ancien français desport, amusement

          Edited at 2021-08-11 06:56 am (UTC)

          1. I appreciate your comments and research, Guy, and it’s interesting, but for crossword purposes it seems far easier to treat ‘not fun’ separately (lift and separate being a standard solving ploy) and parse it my way.
            1. Certainly, Jackkt. I was only offering supplemental information in the first place and did not mean to leave any impression (let alone one that would persist even after my next reply) that I disagreed with you about that.
  2. Yet again, didn’t know the MOCKERS expression. In retrospect it was gettable, I suppose. A real bummer of a performance from me in the last days. Hope to get back to completions soon.
    1. It seemed I didn’t know it but I probably just don’t clearly remember its showing up here before…

      Reporter to Ringo: Are you a mod or a rocker?
      Ringo: Um, no, I’m a MOCKER.

      Edited at 2021-08-11 05:39 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, the irony has not been lost on me. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but as an American with only so much UK knowledge, I have to accept that I will go on downswings from time to time.
  3. Really enjoyed that, mostly because I was off the wavelength and had so many pleasant PDMs when I finally saw the answers: put on for stage, that sort of white, after part of the wordplay with tax not positional, 1ac I’d started writing asseggis intending to parse as I went but it ended up second LOI, neither gull being a bird (Hooray!, as Astronowt would say), and COD to art deco where the other alternate letters of parrot can make phrases: PRO whatever. Either a great spot by the setter, or pleasing serendipity.
    Mockers reminds me of about 1980s cricket, commentator saying “Well I’ve really put the mockers on him” after a batsman was caught the ball after being praised. Played over and over 100s of times over summer: the catch featured in the ‘Classic catches’ competition.
  4. Two Ns, Pip (you can count on me). ;-D
    But it’s just as you say… I worked this in a desultory fashion while watching Stephen Colbert.

    I have had personal experience with TRUNCHEONs, as it’s what the cops in trenchcoats were wielding when they threw me and my pals out of the Philly squat in the early ’80s. Nevertheless, 27 was my POI, and following it, appropriately enough, was BEAT IT. PASSPORT would be my COD… partly for sentimental reasons…

    Edited at 2021-08-11 05:42 am (UTC)

  5. I’ve continued with my new approach to getting started by looking at the multiple word answers first and SIT UPS was my first in today. Everything flowed quite nicely from there, finishing with TRUNCHEON. I particularly enjoyed ASPARAGUS for the sly definition — took some time to see that one.
  6. I started off badly enough trying to whatever the reverse of shoehorn ASSEGAIS is at 1ac. Gave up, of course, but I still thought 2d might be SET THE something. Thought of ART DECO early on, took forever for the duh moment to come and show me how it worked. Like isla, I had a pleasant PDM at RIESLING. 2d my LOI, of course; NHO it, but ‘satire’ indicated mockers more than mickeys. DNK OK, DNK that a SAPSUCKER was a woodpecker; but then I suppose that’s how they get the sap.
        1. I’m sure I remember a Python sketch that listed “Assegai up the jacksy” in the credits.
          Alternatively, as this thread began with Kevin G, “Assegai that started it”!
      1. Having found ASSEGAAIS as an alternative (Afrikaans) spelling, I ran with that, in spite of not being able to parse it properly. Hence finished with that corner all wrong — SET in 2dn, Arousing (unparsed) at 4dn, and GREYLAND for 3dn, with vague memory of ‘the white queen’ as an epithet for Jane Grey.
        1. I’m glad I didn’t come across that Afrikaans spelling otherwise I would have used it. White Queen made me think of Lewis Carroll.
  7. Pleased to get through this, though it felt like a bit of a slog. Saw but couldn’t parse PASSPORT pretty early. I think I know PUT THE MOCKERS ON from the innumerable dodgy-geezer London-based crime dramas (The Sweeney etc.) I watched in the late 70s and 80s. LOI ENNIS which I’d sort-of-possibly heard of (or maybe not).

    Stuff I learned today:
    GULL can mean “deceive”
    “vermouth” can decode as IT due to its Italian origins

    Anyway, despite the not-so-brilliant ET, happy with a solid completion for this – thanks to Pip and setter

      1. You prompted me to Google Gin & It, which tells me it’s a Sweet Martini. Sounds a bit, er, sweet for my taste. I do like a Dry Martini though, which I’d most definitely call a Martini.
      2. Hmmmm – despite a more than passing acquaintance with the demon drink, “gin and it” hasn’t passed my lips anytime recently. I have heard the expression, though I think it’s archaic, possibly upper-class – a bit PG Wodehouse, if you get my drift. “Martini” is now a pretty universal term as far as I know – we’ve all seen enough US TV and movies.

        “The Americans have colonized our subconscious” – Wim Wenders

      3. As an avid cocktail lover I would advise that a Martini must NEVER be made with Italian vermouth! Only French vermouth will do, specifically Noilly Prat. Others may feel free to disagree.
          1. Well I generally mix 9 parts Tanqueray to one part Noilly Prat. But I am with you on your sentiment!
            1. I’m only joking really: I don’t often make martinis at home but if I do I use Noilly Prat. And the jokes about telling the gin a story about vermouth are very amusing but I do actually like to taste it. Your recipe seems about right.
              The choice of gin is of course absolutely paramount.

              Edited at 2021-08-11 10:29 am (UTC)

      4. ‘The perfect martini should be made by filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy.’ Noel Coward

        ‘I would like to observe the vermouth from across the room, while I drink my martini.’ Winston Churchill

        You guys!

        I like to have a Martini, t-two at the very most; three, I’m under the table, four I’m under my host! Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin

        ‘Take one bottle of gin and one of Martini: remove the corks from both. Then wave the Martini cork over the open gin bottle. Discard Martini bottle and cork; drink said bottle of gin.’

        ”Twas a woman who drove me to drink; much remiss of me I never wrote to thank her’ — W.C. Fields (with variations)

        Edited at 2021-08-11 09:14 am (UTC)

        1. Who was it who said of Martinis: ‘one is perfect, two is too many, three is not enough’?
          Supposedly the best Martinis in London are served at Duke’s hotel where they actually pour vermouth (their own recipe) directly into the glass and then top up with frozen gin. No ice, stirring or shaking involved.

          Edited at 2021-08-11 10:21 am (UTC)

        2. I am just too old.

          I only drink Loire white wine every day and Gin Martinis if I am allowed out in public.

          The rest …

      5. Gin & It (which you don’t really see any more) is much heavier on the vermouth, which is sweet. A Martini is almost entirely made of gin, and the vermouth (such as it is) is dry.
  8. His friend said “It’s a rum-looking plant,…

    25 mins pre-brekker with the last five spent getting to Faushrau. I’m not kidding. So I showed it to Mrs M and she put me right.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    1. Ernst Wolfgang Faushrau – German 110 meter hurdler 1936 Berlin – failed to reach final.
  9. I’m AWARE I’m a GROUSING old git
    But birds PUT THE MOCKERS ON wit
    I’m ANTI-SAPSUCKERs
    And all quackers and cluckers
    Might the setter today BE A TIT?
  10. Fun today, with no huge holdups. RIESLING took a while. PUT THE MOCKERS ON pretty quickly in, as noted one hears a commentators curse quite often.

    Pip, I think you have possibly confused isotopes and allotropes. Oxygen does have three stable isotopes (16O, 17O, 18O) — these are the forms of the element.

    I seem to have a memory of being in the TUFTY club, this is my COD.

    15′ 56″ thanks pip and setter.

    1. Indeed. Allotropes are different forms of the same element, ie, diamond and graphite are different forms of carbon.
      Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei.
      End of the chemistry lesson.
  11. I don’t think PUT THE MOCKERS ON is a double definition – I parsed it as ‘the mockers’ (those doing satire) inside (in the middle of) ‘put on’ (stage).

    Didn’t know SAPSUCKER and wasn’t sure about the ‘it’ in SIT-UPS, but otherwise this wasn’t too tricky.

    FOI Tufty
    LOI Riesling
    COD Grousing

  12. 38 minutes with LOI HAUSFRAU. I didn’t parse PASSPORT either so my language skills were found wanting today. DNK the SAPSUCKER but it figures. COD to KNOCKING-OFF TIME, a phrase you don’t hear so much nowadays. I also knew well PUT THE MOCKERS ON, and hadn’t associated it with The Sweeney particularly, unlike my Lancastrian confrère Denise. Or should that be consoeur? Raz Berry, my languages teacher, will be turning in his grave. Un bon puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
  13. A real cock-up at 1ac as noted above!

    FOI 6dn HANG-UP – I have a few – too few to mention

    LOI RIESLING! White Queen to 3dn checkmate!

    COD 26ac ENNIS – (9ac ART DECO was too cunning!)

    WOD 2dn PUT THE MOCKERS ON – ‘Well that’s well and truly put the mockers on it, Sid! Miss Pew! Where’s Bill?’ Hancock’s Half-Hour, 1954-1961 The Lad Himself.

    Edited at 2021-08-11 12:10 pm (UTC)

  14. All but 3 clues inserted in about 52 mins, then 16 mins for the last three: ASPARAGUS, GROUSING and RIESLING. Grousing being only a few kilometres down the Moselle from Riesling, of course….😉
    Thanks for the decode for ART DECO and PASSPORT, Pip.
    FOI: ETHYL
    COD: HAUSFRAU because it reminded me of my Austrian mother who was one.
  15. PASSPORT a decidedly dodgy clue IMHO, and HAUSFRAU eluded me for a long time (I was also trying too hard to include OR). RIESLING was COD.
    1. What’s dodgy about it?
      Travelling requirement = PASSPORT
      In France not = PAS
      fun = SPORT
      1. ‘Sport’ does not have the sense of ‘fun’ in French that it does in English. (“Who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?”). Not confusing or misleading if you’re not a francophone, perhaps.
        1. It’s not French! The only French bit is not = PAS. Fun = SPORT is separate and 100% English.
          (And incidentally I am very much a francophone – I went to a French Lycee in France and did a French baccalaureat so that is not the issue!)

          Edited at 2021-08-11 02:14 pm (UTC)

      2. Well it would help if the setters could learn the difference between ‘non’ and ‘pas’. A few weeks ago there was a clue which asked us to believe that ‘pas’ = ‘no’, which is manifestly incorrect. While the usage is correct here, and a decent enough clue, they do seem to take a few liberties.

        Not sure clueing a foreign word Hausfrau as an anagram is entirely fair either. It’s obviously a word that has passed into English, but it’s still foreign. My dictionary states ‘German for housewife’. In which case we may as well conduct the whole crossword in German, since by that logic every German word should have an entry in the English dictionary. A bit like Schnell appearing as 1a in the championships a few years ago. (Mr Grumpy)

        1. I don’t remember that one, and I agree it doesn’t work. ‘Pas’ usually takes ‘ne’, but not always: for instance ‘pas drôle’ can be translated directly as ‘not funny’. ‘No X’ would always be ‘pas de X’.

          Edited at 2021-08-11 10:48 pm (UTC)

  16. I enjoyed this despite taking 55mins to get to the finishing line. Another who spent ages tying to shoehorn OL into 15d. So simple when the penny dropped. RIESLING also held me up. I don’t know why . When I see red, I immediately think of wine but white always throws me, as it did here. Even rosé beat me once!

    Liked PASSPORT ASPARAGUS (another who was convinced assegai was in there somewhere) and HAUSFRAU again, once I’d finally seen it.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  17. 11:11. I messed myself up today by missing the second ‘about’ in 16dn and putting in ISOTOPES, which I then didn’t question for ages.
    I was tempted by ASSEGAIS but fortunately didn’t put it in. If I had I’d probably have added an extra G like horryd. I’d like to say I hesitated on the basis that it can also be ASSAGAI so I’d have needed the wordplay, but my thought process didn’t go that far.
    SAPSUCKER rang a vague bell, but I might have been thinking of seersucker, which is rather different.
    I had PUT THE ??????? ON for a while, I couldn’t remember the expression.

    Edited at 2021-08-11 09:28 am (UTC)

  18. I couldn’t parse my HOCUM at 6a, but left it in anyway when CLOCKING OFF TIME came along. Drat! 23:25 with 2 pink squares. Thanks setter and Pip. I’m also not one of the 30 million readers in 20 countries!

    Edited at 2021-08-11 09:30 am (UTC)

  19. Tenfold seems a little in excess of ‘several’. If I’d had several martinis, it wouldn’t be as many as 10x the one I’d started with, nor would I have been able to finish the crossword.24:22
  20. 7 mins dead with GROUSING the LOI. Spent a while trying to get AWAKE to work at 1d before reverting to a mental list of three-letter greens.
    1. That’s just about double yesterday’s time!! 200% decline? At this rate you’ll be at my level – 14:04

      Edited at 2021-08-11 11:28 am (UTC)

  21. 13d reminded me of the old game Chinese Whispers (I suppose we have to call it something else now) in which, for example, “send reinforcements we’re going to advance” becomes “send three & fourpence we’re going to a dance”. There’s a splendidly named character called TUFTY Thesiger in Le Carre’s Smiley novels. DNK OK magazine. Enjoy your time in Scotland Pip. 14.09
  22. Steady solve until TENFOLD had me at the end, MER about tax =net. LOI KNOCKING OFF TIME as I hadn’t read the clue properly, and thought it was about fencing. (No, not that kind of fencing, THAT kind of fencing).
  23. About 35 mins in several bursts which I find helps when I struggle, which is often. Enjoyed this a lot, as I found it quite hard and had several penny dropping moments along the way to finishing. Took me ages to figure out KNOCKING OFF TIME, which gave me the K for SAPSUCKER and so my LOI GROUSING.
  24. I thought this quite tricky in places. It was a while before I gave up my ASSEGAI, and I was uneasy about PASSPORT before accepting its inevitability. Truncheon is COD and a lovely word, though I hope I never come into contact with one.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter.

        1. Worked with a bloke in Italy once whose motto was “Live for lunch”. Italy is a great place to lunch, not only for the food but because the locals take a 3 or 4 hour lunch break. Every workday.
          Though that might not apply in major metropolises.
          1. Once, after some spectacularly bad service in a restaurant, a friend complained that he had been more lunched against than lunching.
  25. Felt a bit off the pace today but then was walking while solving which I havent done for a while. No idea what was going on with PASSPORT. NHO SAPSUCKER. LOI AWARE (though couldn’t get away from AWAKE for a while).
  26. … with RIESLING unaccountably accounting for about 20% of that. Otherwise straightforward and little to add to our blogger’s comments, other than the customary thanks.
  27. Solidly on the wavelength today and everything flew in for a pb of 14:43.

    NHO sapsucker but flying very generous.

    COD Riesling

    Thanks Pip and setter

  28. ….and a complete wavelength failure combined to make this extremely unenjoyable. NHO “OK”, and had to drag SAPSUCKER from somewhere in the very back of my mind. My Franglais failed me with PASSPORT, and INCH caused me a lot of grief as I was in a world of “heel and toes”. Thanks to Pip for parsing ART DECO, and TRUNCHEON.

    FOI ETHYL (actually “assega…” but then it wouldn’t fit)
    LOI YEARN (easy, but I’d lost the will to live by then)
    COD RUMINANT (no other candidate)
    TIME 14:43

  29. 20.25 a satisfying workout. Wasted time trying to anagram has fur with OL from the innards of gold before that penny dropped. Nice to see Umberto in 9ac. One of the few individuals to have appeared in daily Times puzzles both very much ante as well as post mortem.
  30. The IT man came today to update my systems. Thankfully because this morning I couldn’t get the puzzles to appear (just an odd little square icon in corner and a submit button). My monicker here – Trux – has disappeared but I’ll find a way to get it back soon… Anyhow, for the rest it looks like he’s done the job marvellously (for the moment, caveat emptor always) and I now go double speed on the site. Very nearly broke 10 min double as under 3 mins for QC (entries now going in as fast as I type them). Would love to say it will happen soon, but probably won’t as am off on hols (hoorah! at last!) tmw …. enjoyed this puzzle with some admirable clues. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
  31. Well, a completion — sort of — with just Sapsucker needing a prompt since I had no idea that gull could mean fool. Quite pleased along the way to get Hokum, Tufty, Truncheon and loi Riesling, but Asparagus was my favourite pdm. Invariant
  32. Listener solvers among us may recall Malva’s puzzle (Listener 4655 a few months ago) which played on the ‘two idiots’ parsing of SAPSUCKER. Didn’t help me much though.

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