Times 27,173: Les Fleurs (et Oiseaux) du Mal

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A tough puzzle with a raft of hard double definitions: one of which, 8dn, held me up for a good extra chunk of time at the end as I persuaded myself it couldn’t be SILLY, both of the routes from the definitions to the actual answer being rather oblique. I also got very bogged down in the SE corner with multiple clues seeming baffling until the country finally swam into view, making the state much more obvious and the rest all gettable. I must say I was very happy to know dear old Oscar’s “I can write no stately proem…” poem or else I might never have cracked 24dn. Much obliged yet again, my dear old Magdalen classicist fop alter ego.

Wavelength may have helped on this puzzle as less was definitely more in much of the cluing, requiring a flash of inspiration on the solver’s part to see what the subtle setter was getting it. The “vale to the East” (my COD I think), “young head-turner”, “billed companion” are all lots of fun, though my woeful knowledge of sports is such that I thought an albatross was comprised of successful shots rather than being one, shows what I know eh…

There’s also some really fine wordplay going on: I loved the elegant “put into use” and “its pockets black” and there are many other moments to enjoy, turning potentially chestnutty clues like 29ac, 4dn, 13dn, 15dn and 25dn into fresh- and difficult-seeming ones: quite a feat, so thanks, ingenious setter!

ACROSS
1 Power line held in that? (5)
PYLON – P [power] + L [line] held in YON [that], &lit

4 Great winger’s successful long shot? (9)
ALBATROSS – double def

9 Took off without reason, it’s decided (9)
APPOINTED – APED [took off] “without” POINT [reason]

10 Come to wreck (5)
TOTAL – double def

11 Queen and king on head of tossed coin, once (6)
TANNER – ANNE [queen] and R [king] on T{ossed}

12 Shop requiring actual consignment (8)
DELIVERY – DELI [shop] requiring VERY [actual]

14 New name in development of earliest indoor sport (4,6)
REAL TENNIS – N N [new | name] in (EARLIEST*) [“development of…”]

16 Push skiver, finally, into school (4)
PROD – {skive}R into POD [school]

19 Pull one in custody back (4)
DRAW – WARD [one in custody] reversed

20 A payment put into use, so I’m told (10)
APPARENTLY – A RENT [a | payment] put into APPLY [use]

22 Perhaps beside a river, a vale to the East (8)
SAYONARA – SAY ON A R A [perhaps | beside | a | river | a]

23 Main fix (6)
STAPLE – double def

26 Young head-turner entering hotel, woman viewed from behind (5)
OWLET – hidden reversed in {ho}TEL WO{man}

27 Socrates translated with guidance only beginning to be understood (3,6)
GET ACROSS – (SOCRATES + G{uidance}*) [“translated”]

28 After water flooded by effluent, initially put off (9)
POSTPONED – POST POND [after | water], “flooded by” E{ffluent}

29 Minions abandoning southern nation (5)
YEMEN – YE{s}-MEN [minions, “abandoning” S for southern]

DOWN
1 Drunk slept badly having quaffed a claret (9)
PLASTERED – (SLEPT*) [“badly”] having “quaffed” A, + RED [claret]

2 Stick supporting middle of blue flower (5)
LUPIN – PIN [stick], supporting {b}LU{e}

3 Feeding see, I write crosswords for chocolate! (8)
NOISETTE – “feeding” NOTE [see], I SET [I | write crosswords]

4 Drink having appeal in different forms, on reflection (4)
ASTI – IT + S.A. [appeal, in two different forms], reversed

5 One moving to invest capital has billed companion? (10)
BUDGERIGAR – BUDGER [one moving], to “invest” RIGA [capital]

6 Scrap suit in the end, its pockets black? (6)
TITBIT – {sui}T + IT IT [(two) its] “pockets” B [black]

7 Cook not happy at first with cake knocked over in a row (2,3,4)
ON THE TROT – (NOT H{appy}*) [“cook…”] + TORTE [cake] reversed

8 Funny spin (5)
SALLY – double def

13 Fury after game, seeing bloomer (10)
SNAPDRAGON – DRAGON [fury] after SNAP [game]

15 Flower a daft male pulled up (9)
AMARYLLIS – A + SILLY RAM [daft | male] reversed

17 Doctor says one needs treatment for a period in the tropics (3,6)
DRY SEASON – DR [Doctor] + (SAYS ONE*) [“…needs treatment”]

18 Northern stuff embraced by central US state (8)
KENTUCKY – N TUCK [northern | stuff] “embraced” by KEY [central]

21 Favourite partners, one doing a backflip, dancing together? (2,4)
IN STEP – PET (S N) I [favourite | (bridge) partners | one] reversed

22 Funds raised for boat (5)
SLOOP – POOLS [funds] reversed

24 Introduction to record in creative work — here? (5)
PROEM – R{ecord} in POEM [creative work], semi-&lit

25 Look at contracts for boss (4)
STUD – STUD{y} [look at, needs to “contract”]

46 comments on “Times 27,173: Les Fleurs (et Oiseaux) du Mal”

  1. Sadly, I went for “silly”. I imagined it might have something to do with spin bowling and silly-mid-off. Oh well. Enjoyed the rest of my 45 minutes, loved 1a PYLON, 26a OWLET and the nice surface of 2d LUPIN.
  2. My 23 minutes looks quite good at the moment, though I initially thought it was going to be quicker when the top left fell easily.
    I went back to my unconvincing SILLY at 8d much as V did, and decided SALLY was marginally better: I can get back to spin via going for a pleasant drive in the country, sallying forth, but not easily. At least SILKY was even less plausible.
    We had ALBATROSS a few days ago: since it’s 3 under par it could still be two shots on a long hole, but at least one of them would have to be “successful long”
    AMARYLLIS sort of helped with 8d, since no setter would allow SILLY twice in the same puzzle, dear me no.
    I’d have spelt TITBIT with a D. Titbits is (was) an early “saucy” magazine, I think.
    Thanks V for explanations, erudition and taking more than half my time.
    1. TITBITS was always in the Barber’s I went to as a lad, along with Reveille. Products for use at the weekend were also discreetly sold.
  3. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, blueberry compote, etc.
    Brilliant crossword with clever wordplay and some very witty definitions, as have been cited above: vale, head-turner, etc.
    Mostly I liked these plus: Pylon, Apparently, Yemen, Titbit, Amaryllis and Albatross.
    But COD to the delightful “Plastered”.
    Thanks setter and V.
      1. I wish.

        No time to delay May’s last foray (5)

        Edited at 2018-10-19 08:04 am (UTC)

  4. I opted for silly theorising that the fielding positions were linked to a “silly” type of spin in bowling. Great story! Sadly… wrong!
  5. ‘Taking a sally/spin in the Capri’ seemed a bit of a stretch, as did ‘he made a blistering sally/funny to my riposte’, but it seemed more likely – less silly, if you like, than ‘silly’. That clue alone took me over the hour (up to 69 minutes), and it’s bit of shame really that it was included – in my opinion – as the rest was a good challenge.
  6. Wrote the NW corner straight in but then normal service was resumed. Only SALLY troubled me. Liked the “young head turner” and “vale to the east”. It has been a good week (i.e. I finished most of them in half an hour). Thanks editor, setters and bloggers.
  7. Really enjoyed this.. excellent crossword. Hard to pick a COD but I did like 4dn for the way it incorporated no less than three cruciverbal chestnuts in one four-letter word.. liked the billed companion, too.
    Got sally right but poor clue. DNK proem.. what with foreword, introduction, preface etc, this area of a book seems somewhat overworded
  8. …the Private Eye headline I was most proud of in my days as CFO of National Grid. Earlier in my career, I’d enjoyed the CEGB being described as the KGB without the glasnost in that esteemed organ. 51 minutes on this with LOI the unknown SAYONARA, constructed from cryptic and crossers. Eventually I decided it couldn’t be SILLY with AMARYLLIS having used it backwards, so did plump for SALLY. PROEM more constructed than known. Toughish puzzle. Thank you V and setter

    Edited at 2018-10-19 08:44 am (UTC)

  9. ….to reject SALLY and totally ruin an otherwise satisfying 14:25 !

    FOI ALBATROSS (well, it was a Number 1 for Fleetwood Mac).

    Thanks, V, for parsing ON THE TROT and IN STEP.

    LOI PROEM

    COD SAYONARA – also enjoyed BUDGERIGAR, but the answer to “Who’s a pretty boy ?” is unfortunately “not me !”

    1. IN STEP took me ages to parse properly post-submission; for the longest while I thought IN was “favourite”…

      Edited at 2018-10-19 09:20 am (UTC)

  10. Still don’t understand ALBATROSS although I know it as score in golf, nor the double definitions of SALLY. My only reason for opting for the latter rather than SILLY was because we’d had SILLY in the wordplay at 15dn – not that one can rely on that sort of thing really as setters do repeat themselves often enough. When the explanations are identified as ‘oblique’ it might be useful to have them set out for those of us who sometimes have trouble keeping up.
    1. Just a DD Jack .. great winger = big bird; successful long shot, which a three under par hole would have to include, an albatross being a 2 on a par 5. The second def. a trifle flaky perhaps, hence the ?
    2. And for the SALLY it’s two three-point-turns-in-the-thesaurus time:

      a SALLY is a witty retort or crack, and so is a FUNNY (here a noun, not an adjective)

      a SALLY is a jaunt or excursion, and so is a SPIN (again here a noun)

  11. 24:47, but with SILLY, having mistakenly rejected SALLY. Grr. But what a great puzzle! I loved SAYONARA, OWLET, YEMEN, NOISETTE and TITBIT but BUDGERIGAR my favourite. Thanks V and setter.
  12. I was less happy with this than some others. Young head-turner = owlet seems rather loose at the very least. As does billed companion? = budgerigar. And an albatross isn’t a successful long shot; it’s a successful pair of shots.
      1. Indeed, and since the question mark indicates a definition by example I thought this must be what the setter intended.
  13. 31 minutes, half of which on the SE corner where I put in my LOI PROEM purely from wordplay without an idea what a PROEM was. No issue with SALLY as a d.d. Or allbatross.
    Many years ago the golf correspondent of this paper reported that a father and son pair in a foursome comp at Gleneagles had scored a 2 on the downhill par 5, a hole on which they received a ‘shot’ in handicap, making it a 4 under par net, one better than an albatross. Mr Hopkins offered a couple of bottles of champers to the proposer of the best ‘name’ for this feat; I was delighted to enjoy the bubbly for coming up with ‘condor’, still I believe the accepted if unofficial name for this rara avis.
    What a good puzzle, and a good week we’ve had!
    1. Fame indeed.

      I remember well those Condor adverts.

      I like the idea of 4 under par on a par 5 as ‘close, but no cigar’.

  14. I have to give this a thumbs down as I put SILLY at 8d having tossed a coin between that and SALLY. Grrh. No trouble with ALBATROSS, but the NE took me as long as the rest of the puzzle. 50:31 with a very unsatisfactory feeling of being bamboozled out of a finish by an ambiguous clue. Thanks setter and V.
  16. Great puzzle, even though I ended up being defeated by ALBATROSS and SALLY after over an hour and a half of slogging away. I’d circled the defs. mentioned by our blogger and as a fan of a good &lit, PYLON was another highlight. ASTI was also very originally clued. Getting the three horticultural refs. was a bonus which almost compensated for the DNF.

    A big thanks to setter and blogger.

  17. Same shilly shallying as others on silly/sally. We had “pun” twice just the other day so one couldn’t rely on non-repetition. Otherwise good one. I liked TOTAL for its brevity. It reminded me of an unpopular (deservedly) person in my office years ago whose last name was “Loss” – she was known as you-know-what. 24.26
  18. I can only echo what has been said already, that this was an enormously satisfying and challenging puzzle…except for the one clue which took a long time to reveal itself as a bit of a disappointment. Rather than the satisfying sound of the penny dropping at 8dn, some time after I’d solved everything else, I had whatever noise accompanies the realisation of “Oh, I suppose that must be it, then. Really?” Too much thesaurus-based three point turning in one clue for my liking.

    Still, definitely much more to admire than not in this puzzle. I shan’t criticise any further, or I shall be one of those Yorkshire members who greet Joe Root being caught in the deep for 200 with a shake of the head, and a lament that he’s given his wicket away just when he was getting started.

      1. Coming on here has made me realise how few original thoughts I have in an average day 🙂
  19. Yes indeed of course, I was forgetting the 1 on a par 4. So disregard that one; my first two grumbles remain for the time being.
    1. ‘Young head-turner’ was one of my favourite things in the puzzle! I thought ‘billed companion’ was quite good too. A matter of taste.
        1. One arcane bird reference in the hand is worth two obscure Old Testament books in the bush. That’s just science.
  20. Went quite well till stumped by ‘sally’, putting ‘silly’: yes, the former’s indicated, but only by the rule of the less worse. And in 27 how is ‘get across’ ‘(to be) understood’? Otherwise an excellent piece; but a second error with a hasty ‘sayanara’ leaves me less than gruntled.

    Edited at 2018-10-19 11:18 am (UTC)

  21. A lovely crossword spoiled for me by 8d (yes, I was SILLY) which even now seems a stretch. The perfect clue in a cryptic crossword is one that you struggle to solve but once you “click” you know the answer can’t be anything else. With SALLY, it seems that two meanings that barely make the cut are better than one that is completely correct and one that…well, okay, there is no justification for at all.
  22. Tough stuff which took me the best part of an hour and 25 mins. I enjoyed vale to the east and its pockets black. Another where it felt like quite an achievement to finish all correct even if it did take forever. It can’t be too often that you post a time like that and are still in the top 60 on the leaderboard at lunchtime.
  23. 16:31. My original take on this one is that it was a super puzzle spoiled a bit by 8dn. ‘Double three-point turn in a thesaurus’ isn’t a clue type I’d like to see too much of. I wouldn’t have got it at all if the ‘joke’ meaning of SALLY hadn’t come up on my watch recently.
    But the rest was smashing.

    Edited at 2018-10-19 11:04 am (UTC)

  25. I share the view of almost everyone else – a tough and excellent crossword, with 8dn being the LOI and a bit of a disappointment. Had it appeared elsewhere in the grid I would probably have gone with my original thought of JOLLY, but I couldn’t see 1a ending in J.

    My bigger gripe, though, is 15d – only because I’d never heard of it and went for ANAMYLLIS as a plausible solution. I expect it’s appeared dozens of times and I’ve made the same mistake every time! 17m 24s with that error.

    22a is also my COD, with its lovely misleading definition.

  26. Another torn between SILLY/SALLY and getting it wrong, not having heard of the funny version.

    I had heard of the other via schoolboy Tennyson’s The Brook:

    I come from haunts of coot and hern,
    I make a sudden sally
    And sparkle out among the fern,
    To bicker down a valley.

    Also had incorrect DRAG at 19a – otherwise 62:37

  27. SALLY: tres critique. PLASTERED tres amuse.

    Proper done there actually, and missed the ‘clue’ at amarYLLIS to help me out. Bon sang.

  28. Getting here late, so nothing to add… Except, maybe (not that it matters), that i don’t particularly like “semi-&lit”s, which often seem a bit half-assed (not sour grapes—I got PROEM and knew what it is).
  29. Hard but fair. One of the best puzzles in a long, long time. As Mr Grumpy, I can usually find fault with anything, but even I found nothing here to complain about.

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