Times 27879 – not the battle of Θερμοπύλες, but into power, stations.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A pleasant twenty minutes for this offering, nothing too contentious. I liked 4d, once I’d got past thinking about Ezra, and liked 6a, as a word; we have owned a few.
No politics allowed, but I hope all goes well today in DC for our American friends.

Across
1 Two items butcher supplies quickly (4-4)
CHOP-CHOP – Two chops from the butcher.
6 Corvid circling crop heap (6)
JALOPY – A jay is a member of the corvid family, along with crows and such. Into it, insert LOP = crop. Heap as in old car.
9 Efficient medical treatment out of bounds (4)
ABLE – Probably more than one option for this, I see it as TABLET without its T-T bounds.
10 Hat covering lady’s hair essential in power station? (10)
THERMOPILE – TILE (hat) covers HER MOP (lady’s hair). A thermopile is a thingy that converts heat into electricity, used for measuring temperatures, so I expect they have them in power stations.
11 Dissertation from expert, not an original member? (10)
PROSTHESIS – A thesis from a pro, a pro’s thesis.
13 Couple I ran into knocked over (4)
ITEM – I, MET reversed. Seen before I think.
14 Motor close to exit after employee pushed vehicle (8)
HANDCART – HAND (employee) CAR, T = close to exit.
16 Tried to take a catch leaning over (6)
ANGLED – double definition, fishing and leaning.
18 Wind power extremely handy, almost nothing eclipses it (6)
ZEPHYR – P (power) HY (extremely handy) eclipsed by ZER(O).
20 Man-made item contaminated tart, limiting restaurant’s turnover (8)
ARTEFACT – (TART)* has CAFE reversed inside.
22 A technique abroad (4)
AWAY – A, WAY
24 Trade union wrangling revolted flyer (10)
TURTLEDOVE – TU, (REVOLTED)*.
26 New World rodent, plain, with tail (7,3)
PRAIRIE DOG – PRAIRIE = plain, DOG = tail, follow.
28 Concerned with uneven features of ignition? (4)
INTO – alternate letters of I g N i T i O n.
29 Rogue I’ve confined to the nick (6)
THIEVE – (IVE)* inside THE.
30 Malice long disheartened editor in Times (8)
BITCHERY – BY (Times) has ITCH (long) and ER (EditoR disheartened) inside.

Down
2 Breathe in, out, sleep long and deep (9)
HIBERNATE – (BREATHE IN)*.
3 Happy prisoners, only the first let out (7)
PLEASED – P (first of prisoners) LEASED (let out).
4 Pound for one’s bucks? (5)
HUTCH – a buck is a male rabbit, so a hutch is a ‘pound’ or pen for one.
5 Author‘s online work taken up? (3)
POE – E-OP would be online work, reverse it.
6 Right adopting politician with knack for successful transfer of power? (4,5)
JUMP START – insert MP into JUST (right) then ART = knack.
7 Errant mate returned to confess (7)
LAPSING – PAL reversed, SING = confess.
8 Beat province’s top university, one in capital (5)
PULSE – P (province’s top) U, LSE (London School of Economics).
12 Table d’hote menu they say’s favourably established (3,4)
SET FAIR – sounds like SET FARE an English version of a table d’hote meal.
15 Wartime offensive a cause of radio silence? (3,6)
AIR STRIKE – double definition, one cryptic.
17 Eg archaeologist‘s short axe to carve ground (9)
EXCAVATOR – (AX TO CARVE)*, where AX = short axe.
19 Confused husband always takes Telegraph (7)
HAYWIRE – H (husband) AY (always) WIRE (telegraph).
21 Particular protein-rich food tot tucks into (7)
FADDISH – FISH (protein-rich food) has ADD (tot) inside.
23 Contents of bungalow, or their value (5)
WORTH – today’s hidden word.
25 Far from strenuous match (5)
LIGHT – double definition
27 Flipping rotten fish (3)
DAB – BAD (rotten) is flipped.

​

48 comments on “Times 27879 – not the battle of Θερμοπύλες, but into power, stations.”

  1. I raced through most of this but had problems getting going in the NE segment. Needless to say it was THERMOPILE that gave most trouble here. Completed eventually in 36 minutes but until I hit the wall I had been on target for around 20.
  2. My first error free solve of the week! I was ready to see more pink squares when I submitted with slight doubts over ANGLED, where I hadn’t got the fishing bit, and BITCHERY, which I’ve never seen as a word which made me wonder if I’d missed something and it should have been butchery. I do like a sly definition so I was particularly keen on JUMP START and PROSTHESIS.
  3. No unknowns in this for a change. Should I be disappointed at not learning something new? (I have been practicing rug-cutting on old carpet squares since yesterday).
    Got hung up for a while on various Tupolevs as flyers starting with TU at 24a, though reason cautioned it as unlikely. And POUND looked good for ‘beat’ in 8d, having the required P & U and being capital, though parsing remained a problem. PULSE caused a brief tachycardia when it occurred as LOI. Thanks Pip and setter
    26’36”
  4. I found this tough, especially the NE quadrant (I’ve got the worst SNITCH numbers so far). For the longest time, the only corvid I could think of was the crow, and the only T hat the trilby. PULSE finally got me a toehold, and the rest followed fairly quickly, but I thought for a while that I’d never get there. DNK THERMOPILE, and wasn’t familiar with the ‘particular’ meaning of FADDISH. I liked THIEVE & HUTCH.
    2. Yes that quadrant was tough for me too, and I also wondered if I’d finish it. For me, JUMP START was what broke it open. I hadn’t guessed ‘knack’ = ART and I’ll have to read the dictionary closely again to see why it is.

      Edited at 2021-01-20 02:11 pm (UTC)

  5. 44 minutes with a break for oranges at half time. ‘Er indoors is back from the dentist. Smiley Face!

    FOI 1ac CHOP-CHOP – lovely clue!

    LOI 13ac ITEM- as I originally had PAIR which appeared to be OK. Kevin?

    WOD 18ac ZEPHYR In 1960 my father wanted a Zephyr VI, but he settled for a ‘Consul I’.

    A very decent puzzle ending with the feminine BITCHERY! ( Mr. Pootle – I imagine the masculine would be butchery.)

    Can anyone identify ‘Loomis’?

    Edited at 2021-01-20 07:43 am (UTC)

  6. Slow but steady until I got to H-T-H, used to keep bunnies too

    Liked PROSTHESIS, and JALOPY – always pleased to see the jays in the garden.

    24′ 14″, thanks pip and setter.

  7. …ZEPHYR
    Fragrant air! Delicious light!

    20 mins pre-brekker. No ticks, no crosses, no marks at all and only the (Tu)rtledove anagram in the margin. Very neat and tidy crossword and nicely clued.
    The Thermopylae pronunciation of Thermopile reminded me of a friend who said he would meet me at ‘Albarone’. He pronounced it in an Italian accent like Amarone. After some confusion it turned out that he meant All Bar One.
    Thanks setter and Pip.

    1. I’m afraid I do that as well, but then I always pronounce the Radio Times as if it’s the obscure Greek philosopher, Radiotimes.
  8. 21:21. All but NE corner down in half this time, then the rest was quite a struggle. LOI HUTCH after THERMOPILE. COD to JALOPY for taking me so long and giving me a nice PDM eventually.
  9. … well nearly. 41 minutes with LOI THERMOPILE, somewhat shamefaced after a career with the CEGB. Penultimate was HUTCH. COD to PROSTHESIS. An excellent puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 02:57 pm (UTC)

  10. They’re often a symbol of love
    But that’s not how i view TURTLEDOVE
    i’m prepared to excuse
    The jay in the clues
    No more birds please. Heavens above!
    1. At least it was less obscure than the bird which caused grief to so many solvers in today’s QC !

      Edited at 2021-01-20 04:32 pm (UTC)

  12. 13:48. No major problems today, but the NE corner took me a lot longer than the rest, and it took a couple of minutes before the penny dropped on my last in, HUTCH. Nice puzzle.
  13. As others, got held up by NE corner, esp JALOPY and then biffed HATCH for HUTCH. Doh! My own dumbness displayed. Enjoyed PROSTHESIS and thought TURTLEDOVE neat. AWAY seemed a bit facile.
  14. 30m today, like others a good chunk of that on the NE segment, though once the pleasing JALOPY went in, the others soon followed. Thank you to setter and blogger.
  15. 11:19. I felt I was going quickly on a not-so-easy puzzle and the NITCH bears that out so far. Wavelength, innit. I was a bit worried about some gaps I’d left at the top but bottom filled itself in nicely and when I returned to the top half the pennies all dropped.

    I’m a bit disappointed that boltonwanderer hasn’t got a few funny stories about thermopiles.

  16. LOI HUTCH, except I put in HITCH, on the (very tenuous) basis that you can tie your horses (bucks) to a hitch, maybe even with a hitch; and ‘pound’ produces ‘hit’…

    Didn’t even think of rabbits, and clearly didn’t think my answer through. Curses.

  17. 27.20. Really enjoyed this . Chop chop came speedily but more hard work thereafter. LOI zephyr, closely preceded by angled.

    Jay not my first thought for a corvid but liked jalopy as a solution. Other honourable mentions for jump start, prosthesis and bitchery.

    Nice not to be berating myself for a schoolboy error today.

  18. 21.24. I remain to be convinced that a HUTCH and a pound are the same thing, the latter surely having rather more room to move around and not necessarily having a roof. I did keep rabbits and such in a pound, but they had a hutch in the corner for shelter.

    Slowed in the NE like everyone else, partly because my immediate corvid (once I saw that it wasn’t a virus) was a jackdaw, which can’t be made to fit.

    Mrs Z, who is an amputee, might be amused by “not an original member”. I’ll find out.

  19. Oh dear! The boltonwanderer confided that he had tried to put in the name of an ancient Greco/Spartan battle 480 BC, but was unsure of the spelling. He’ll certainly deny it!

    Edited at 2021-01-20 11:00 am (UTC)

  20. Another DNF. Having a bad week. As others, completely bogged down in the NE with THERMOPILE (NHO), HUTCH, LAPSING and ANGLED just not showing themselves. I had JUMP START, the only way to get a 6ac going, but did not enter it. Don’t ask me why. Thanks Pip and setter.
  21. Breezy and entertaining solve with a brief pause for the penny to drop on HUTCH. I was originally trying to remember whether bucks were shoes or trousers, then realised that I was thinking of ducks, so the answer was “trousers”, but to a slightly different question.
  22. Only hold-up was the unlikely -sounding BITCHERY, which happily became obvious once the right definition of match fell into place with LIGHT. Mid-16C word, according to the Shorter Oxford, with “bitchiness” being a twentieth century coinage. I felt this was interesting but now am not so sure. 14m
  23. Got started in a hurry with CHOP-CHOP, and kept going! Liked JUMP START which happened quickly, together with JALOPY as I swapped my crow for a jay. That enabled THERMOPILE and I proceeded clockwise with no particular holdups until I arrived back at the sparsely populated NW corner. A sudden inspiration provided PROSTHESIS, and HIBERNATE, ABLE and finally HUTCH soon followed. 17:19. Thanks setter and Pip.
  24. By my standards, I have been pretty quick this week. I finished, as many have also reported, in the NE. I was not helped by having initially put in “pair” instead of ITEM with my rationale being ‘I’ is inserted into ‘RAP’ [knocked – I know, wrong tense] reversed [over]. PULSE was my LOI. Thanks to setter and blogger.
  25. Having read the clue earlier in the solve, I assumed 16 Across had something to do with the law. Later, when I had all the crossing letters, I put in ARGUED without a moment’s thought and, somewhat embarrassingly, without even reading the clue! Too bad — a good time on a good puzzle.
  26. 1 wrong with a biffed ARTIFACT. After all the huffing and puffing over the last 3 in the NE I finished with a pink square. Such is life!
  27. This time of year I’m definitely a THERMOP[H]ILE. Nice puzzle. Leisurely 19.18
  28. Only failed to parse JUMP START – thanks to the blogger for setting me straight.

    Couldn’t have told you what a ZEPHYR is before today, apart from being a Ford.

    No major problems otherwise.

    FOI Poe
    LOI Thermopile
    CODs Jump start (had to be today, didn’t it!) and Haywire (always makes me think of Wallace and Gromit, and also for cocking a snook at a rival newspaper)

  29. A 38 minute DNF. A ‘hitch’ for HUTCH and ‘artifact’ for ARTEFACT. Very annoying, the only slight consolation (and it’s not much) being that I wasn’t the first to make either mistake. Grr!

  30. As with others, the NE corner held me up a bit. Almost everything required care and thought – and occasionally some rabbity lateral thinking – but never became frustrating. Good stuff. LOI was PROSTHESIS for me.
  31. Could do better is written on my examiner’s report for that one. No mistakes, but slow – especially in the northeast. Stupidly, I had jalopy early on – reasoning there is only one three-letter corvid — but I couldn’t equate crop with lop. Hutch was very clever. Q. Who is a monkey friend of Arthur, and Rupert’s baby wind? A. Zephyr.
  32. Finally one all correct and without a careless typo to spoil it. CHOP CHOP went straight in and a couple of the intersecting downs, so I thought it might be easy. But like everyone else, the NE corner took some sorting out. with LAPSING and ANGLED holding out for a bit. But I knew THERMOPILE as a way to measure temperature so I didn’t have that holdup. I wasn’t entirely sure BITCHERY was really a word, but the wordplay said it was…and BUTCHERY didn’t work.
  33. Nothing else to do with the weather outside, so put some time into this.
    Got stuck in the NE and didn’t find Hutch or Jalopy which I was close to, to unlock it. I forgot about jays, very handsome birds which appear in the garden occasionally.
    Was nowhere near Thermopile.
    Good puzzle though. David
  34. Well I got there OK but only after a couple of big PDMs .. oh, THAT sort of buck .. Oh, THAT sort of angle etc etc
  35. 44.48. This was another tough one for me. I found myself floundering all over the place before I even got to the fiendish NE where a confidently entered “pair” and the NHO thermopile held me up greatly.
  36. ….with half a dozen COD candidates. I was another to terminate in the NE, my only holdup on the way being an attempt to justify “butchery”.

    FOI CHOP-CHOP
    LOI PULSE
    COD JUMP START (Jethro Tull, album “Lap of Luxury”)
    TIME 8:33

  37. Trouble in the NE corner – another new word for me in THERMOPILE with poor clueing.

    Wasn’t sure about ANGLED.

  38. Did anyone go for Palma (8dn) thinking alma as in alma mater , duh. Made 13ac a DNF.
    Yes 6 ac, got mired in rooks and ricks until I got 6 dn.
    COD 10ac . Wanted to fit in perm or tress. But loved 4 dn . ‘Bucks’ can get you down lots of rabbit holes..
    Really enjoyed today . As always, if stuck, go away and have a break . New eyes can be revealing. A glass can even do it.
    Thank you to informative and gracious blogger and setter as always.
  40. Wow, that took a lot of working out, in between watching events from across the pond, but a really satisfying solve. The NE corner was the main problem, with a confidently biffed Prop Shaft causing all sorts of problems even after an adjustment to Jack Shaft to accommodate Jalopy. Fortunately Jump Start eventually came to the rescue and allowed loi Thermopile. Would never have got that, even 6 months ago, without having come across tile/hat through these blogs. A really good puzzle, and much enjoyed. Thank you setter and of course Pip. Invariant
  41. 43 minutes, the last few used for a leisurely review just to be sure. Nothing very difficult, but a few clever clues (PULSE, JUMP START, PROSTHESIS). LOI of course was HUTCH (and I needed the final minutes to settle on that rather than HATCH and HITCH which tried to elbow their way in). Just from the clue alone I would have had SET FARE rather than SET FAIR for 12dn, but of course the crossing letters made it clear which was wanted.
  42. 50.17 with just one error. I know it’s late, but I’m just really pleased with myself for this achievement. And of course dismayed to have written in ARTIFACT, especially when I had built it up with a CAFE back inside.

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