Times 26467 – Quia viderunt oculi mei explicationem ultimi indicii!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 26 minutes

Music: Mozart, Symphony #40, Fricsay/Vienna Symphony Orchestra

I found this a bit more difficult than usual for a Monday, and was stuck on 11 down for a while, finally seeing it just as the final chords of the fourth movement sounded. Fortunately, Fricsay takes the symphony at a rather stately tempo, typical of the older school of German-influenced conductors – HIP they were not.

I was a little worried after failing to finish all five weekday puzzles from last week in a catchup solve on Thursday and Friday. I had been away cleaning out and preparing for sale an estate condo in my capacity as executor and heir, and didn’t get back until Thursday night. However, with a little effort I got over the hump on this one.

As many of you probably expect, I will conclude by congratulating Henrik Stenson on his extraordinary achievement. If you’re leading The Open going into the fourth round, and you shoot a record score, you certainly deserve to win. Here in the US, the coverage has been taken over by Golf Channel/NBC, and they showed about 12 hours of live golf for all four days.

Across
1 INAUGURATE, IN AUG + U + RATE, where ‘class’ is a verb.
6 HERB, HER + B.
9 THEATRICAL, THE ATRI(C)A + L.
10 MAIL, double definition.
12 CHEESEBURGER, CHE(anagram of SEE GRUB)ER.
15 HOMEWARDS, HO(ME + W)ARDS, where the ‘perhaps’ goes with the literal, since some workers may chose to adjourn to the pub.
17 COLON, double definition…where does that leave the semicolon?
18 PYLON, hidden in [unhap]PY LON[doners].
19 SIDE ISSUE, SIDE + IS SUE? Not at all…
20 ENTHUSIASTIC, anagram of THIS NUTCASE, I.
24 POMP, P + O + MP, not a chestnut but using every crossword cliche.
25 PAPER TRAIL, P.A. PERT + LIAR backwards.
26 RARE, the obvious answer, but I don’t understand the cryptic. It appears to be a letter-removal clue, but there is no word meaning ‘savory dish’ with an ‘I’ or ‘O’ added to ‘rare. Audience participation time!
27 PERMISSION, PER MISSION, a chestnut.
 
Down
1 INTO, I(NT)O, more cliches.
2 ADEN, [l]ADEN.
3 GET THE WIND UP, double definition. ‘Colicky’ would have been more the mot juste here.
4 RAISE, [p]RAISE.
5 TRAVERSED, TRA(VERSE)D. ‘Trad’ is definitely the most useful kind of jazz to setters.
7 EVANGELIST, anagram of LINE, TV SAGE, a bit of an &LIT.
8 BELL RINGER, BELL(RING)E + [love]R.
11 NUNC DIMITTIS, NUN + CD + I + MITT + I’S. Nothing to it, right? Well, I did need the cryptic!
13 SHOPKEEPER, [manageres]S HOP[es], so the phrase is a “‘shop’ keeper”.
14 SMALL TIMER, double definition, where the grandfather clock is presumably a ‘large timer’.
16 RUSTICATE, RUS(TACIT upside-down)E.
21 STEAM, ST[r]EAM.
22 BALI, I LAB upside-down.
23 CLAN, CL[e]AN – this setter is rather fond of letter-removal clues!.

68 comments on “Times 26467 – Quia viderunt oculi mei explicationem ultimi indicii!”

  2. put in GOT instead of GET; I’d like to blame the tiny print of the clues, but it was probably just sloppiness on my part. RARE was my LOI, exactly because I was looking for a one-letter deletion. Biffed 14d, totally missing the definition, and biffed 11d from checkers and def. 9ac was nice, misleading me into looking for CL somewhere.
  3. Took about 35 minutes. Held up by a couple at the end but quite a benign introduction to the week. Still, the parsing of a few, including SHOPKEEPER, eluded me. NUNC DIMITTIS (especially the NUN CD bit) and RUSTICATE (for the wordplay and because it sounds quaint, even if its meaning isn’t) were my favourites.

    I second your comments about Henrik Stenson, but a great effort from Phil Mickelson as well and a memorable final day.

    Hope Mozart’s 40th helped. I know it as the Symphonia De Los Rios. That version certainly wouldn’t have been conducive to quick solving!

    Thanks to setter and blogger – both your Latin and crossword skills are better than mine.

    1. How about this one, Geoffrey Burgon’s haunting closing credit music for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – the Alec Guinness acting masterclass. 1979. Really? That long ago?

      Edited at 2016-07-18 06:39 am (UTC)

      1. Nunc Dimittis is TTSS for me, too. I rewatched the series last year and loved it. Then I reread the book, then I watched the 2011 movie and surprised myself by loving that, too. I should probably whisper it, but I thought maybe Gary Oldman captured the nastier side of George Smiley a little better.
        1. Yes, I agree about the 2011 film. I went in expecting to walk out after finding that some idiot had just filled it with car chases and CGI explosions, and instead found a masterfully underplayed Gary Oldman performance and a very atmospheric adaptation all round.
      2. Alec Guinness as George Smiley – has to be the best bit of casting ever, closely seconded by Beryl Reid as Connie Sachs in the very same show. Marvelous.
      3. I have a couple of friends, soprano and trumpeter. There’s not much in the repertoire for voice and trumpet. This is their party piece.
      4. Yes it’s quite wonderful. I also thought Bernard Hepton was perfect as Toby. The other tv psalm adaptation that’s very successful is the Jubilate Deo that begins and ends each episode of the Barchester Series – I don’t know whose setting it is.
        1. Agree about Bernard Hepton. I also agree with therotter about Beryl Reid. Not much choral evensong where we live, I’m afraid!
      5. Clicked on your link but got a French video of just over 2mins so clicked off again!
  5. Just caught the towel on its way to the floor as NUNC DIMMITIS suddenly emerged from the cryptic.
  6. At 14 minutes I think this may be a PB for me. And that was fully parsed and marked up in the grid as I went. Without that I’m sure I could have made it in 10.

    Edited at 2016-07-18 04:40 am (UTC)

  7. Pretty Mondayish except for 11dn. And as nobody ever complains on here about the preponderance of cricketing clues, I won’t say a word about another obscure religious reference.

    Enjoyed SMALL-TIMER. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    1. As a Jewish born atheist, I think I’ve every right to complain about obscure religious references.
  8. 16 minutes, no real hold-ups, just poor morning eyesight squinting at the screen to de-blur the words. And yes, I do have it on the largest font size.
    Nunc Dimittis was a write in for me as soon as I got the ?U?C, so I missed the excellent wordplay. Sometimes it’s worth turning up to Choral Evensong.
  10. Just under 7m, and that included working out the unknown and unlikely-looking 11dn from the cryptic, so I would definitely classify this as easy.
  12. So good to me. (M&tPs, 1966)

    Only 11dn NUNC DIMITTIS held me up as I wasn’t sure of the ending -IS OR US? so LOI

    I rattled home in 14 minutes, which seems a popular time. And therefore had time for the QC before breakfast.

    FOI 1dn INTO WOD RUSTICATE COD 20ac ENTHUSIASTIC

    horryd Shanghai

  13. 9:59 … easier one, but I felt the need to stop and parse a number of clues, not least INAUGURATE.

    Liked the clue for RUSTICATE, even if the word itself now sounds hopelessly quaint.

  14. 14 mins. Very simplistic in parts but some cunning clueing in there as well.
  15. On the wavelength today, 11 minutes no hold-ups, SHOPKEEPER in without seeing the hidden SHOP part.
    Well done Stenson indeed. I pulled him in our golfers sweep so am wealthier too (sadly, not by £1,175,000 before tax, as Henrik is).
    Liked RAREbit and SMALL TIMER best.
  16. Probably quickest ever, less than 30 mins with RUSTICATE LOI. Needed the blog to fully parse SHOPKEEPER and PAPER TRAIL, so thanks blogger and thanks setter for a gentle start to the week.
  17. Such was the ambiguity of being an electricity industry CFO. Finished in under a quarter of an hour today, a record. Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.
  18. Damn! I was jolly pleased with myself for a fast time including, I thought, piecing together the completely unknown 11d. Sadly instead of “mitt” I’d thought of “fist” first for “hand”, and to me, NUNC DIFISTIS sounded like perfectly plausible unknown Latin.

    So, 41 minutes with one wrong.

    1. Count me as another NUNC DIFISTIS. I’d also managed to biff RAIL instead of MAIL on the basis of the first class bit of the clue so you beat me!
      1. The Nunc Dimittis is a staple of the Anglican Evensong. Back in pre-history, when Lonnie Donegan was singing about sweet sixteen going to church just to see the boys, I’d be there in my Sunday best hoping one would pick me out.
  19. Under 10 minutes so probably a PB for a clunky iPad. (4,8) with -U-C was a write-in regardless of the clue. Agree that Alec Guiness was superb as Smiley. Apparently not only did he turn up to the first read-through knowing all his and everyone else’s lines but spent hours on little things like opening the front door of his house and dropping the keys on the hall table without looking, as you would in your own house. A pleasant start to the week so thank you setter and blogger.
    1. I just spent two minutes trying to solve “Clunky iPad (4,8)” before I spotted the stop after iPad and realised there was no hidden clue. Best I could come up with in the time was HAND COMPUTER. I’m sure someone can do better!
        1. Think “Sir Henry at Rawlinson End”. His butler was his wrinkled retainer, Old Scrotum.
  20. 10’42”, which is a PB, at least since the 70s. Excellent discussion too, can’t really think of the NUNC DIMITTIS as ‘obscure’ – it’s one of the evening canticles, along with the Magnificat, and I sang Stanford in A last night, which is sublime. The ‘Tinker, Tailor..’ one is lovely too, just cello and a treble. Loved both Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman, different interpretations, both great works of art. RAREBIT appeared a few weeks ago – it’s just a posh corruption of rabbit. RUSTICATE may be old fashioned, but still in use at Oxford, where undergraduates who are rusticated (suspended, literally ‘sent to the country’) have to leave the city. Good Monday, thanks setter and vinyl.
    1. As with everything, it’s obscure if you don’t know it. Not being religious, I’ve only ever come across “evensong” or “canticles” in crosswords or a couple of church-set detective stories, let alone specific canticles. (But it’s only particularly galling today because it added ten minutes to my time and I still didn’t get it right!)

      Edited at 2016-07-18 10:14 am (UTC)

  22. About 20mins here, so on the easy side, but without getting the why of either SHOPKEEPER or RAREBIT, so thanks to vinyl and mct for those.
  23. Well inside my 40 minute target at 27m, so definitely on the easier side, despite the unknown nunc whatsit, and slowing myself down trying to make AUDIT TRAIL work in the SE. I enjoyed this, enjoyed the golf over the weekend, and echo the plaudits for Stenson above – an outstanding achievement. I also enjoyed seeing Beef do so well, even if he did tail off at the end.
  24. I thought my 13 minutes and a bit might not cut the mustard today and so it proved. For some of us I expect 4,8 beginning -U-C didn’t really need a clue. I had the pleasure of playing for Noble in B minor over the weekend.
  25. Very close to a PB today, at 5m 32s. Growing up in the C of E (which I’ve never seen called CE outside crossword-land, by the way) I was another person who only needed _U_C to get 11d.
    Lots of write-ins today, but 1a took me a few tries, and my LOI was 22d.
  26. Hello, I’m back! Bit groggy and bone-weary from a weekend in a field (I forgot to pack a pillow, which didn’t help much) so a sluggish 4m39 from me, Much biffability, even if knowing too much Latin had me pencilling in a truly mad HUIC at the start of 11dn for a while…
  27. I think I need to go and stand in the naughty corner as I had absolutely no idea about the NUNC clue. I’ve never heard of the darned thing, failed to separate religious record and also only considered FIST for the hand bit. Presented with DIMITTIS and DIFISTIS I’d have no way of knowing which was Latin and which gobbledegook.

    Anyway, I took the coward’s way out and left it blank.

    Maybe finding a bench and solving in the sun was a bad idea.

  28. Agree with everyone about Alec Guinness as Smiley, Bernard Hepton as Toby and Beryl Reid as Connie Sachs, but I also enjoyed the 2011 film. The Nunc Dimittis was wonderful. Alas, no choral evensong near us in France, I’m afraid.

    Otherwise, my favourite was SHOPKEEPER. It had to be that but I couldn’t parse it.
    33m 12s so probably outside the time limit for me to continue on Le Tour.

  29. Quick solve; around 10 mins fully parsed. Pretty much wrote the answers in as I went along. Pleasant puzzle.

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