Guardian 26,791 / Bonxie

58 comments on “Guardian 26,791 / Bonxie”

1. Thanks Bonxie and Gaufrid

   Very pleasanr surprise, both to have a Bonxie and a science based crossword. I didn’t parse REPRO, but it’s a cracker; STARSHIP, ALLOTROPE, RINGTONE and ASTATINE also great. Also LEAD twice, neither referring to the element! Despite my science background, I didn’t know the astronomical use of SECULAR.

   I don’t see why FLAT = FIRM in 6d, unless they both refer to types of refusal?

   Two minor science quibbles: I accepted the AIR/HEIR homophone, but “oxygen” makes up only 1/5th of air – NITROGEN (again) would have been more accurate (4/5ths).

   Although some RESINs (epoxy, for example) are synthetic, the majority are natural plant products.

2. Hi Muffin
   “I don’t see why FLAT = FIRM in 6d,…”

   I wondered about that as well but Chambers gives ‘fixed’ as one of the definitions for both ‘flat’ and ‘firm’.

3. Excellent clueing led this non-chemist to a pleasant solve, except for 17d, so thanks to Gaufrid for the blog. Presumably At is the periodic table symbol. A challenging puzzle, thank you Bonxie.

4. Mmmm………. I suppose if it’s in Chambers it’s valid, but I’m far from convinced! Flat rate = fixed rate, but that’s an entirely different context; I don’t think there’s a “firm rate”.

   It opens up a bigger question – if two words are both possible synonyms of a third word, does that mean that they must be synonyms of each other? I think not.

5. maysie @3
   Yes it is. I’ve seen similar clues before. (Possibly a Paul one from 2012, but the blog then didn’t give the actual clue.)

6. Thanks for the blog, Gaufrid.

   Well, I would never have believed I could enjoy [or even solve] a crossword containing so much science!
   Over the years, I have slowly become accustomed to – but still occasionally caught out by As = arsenic, for instance, so was on the look-out for such ploys today, and was chuffed to work out 17dn [almost] unaided.

   I did get BORON all by myself and it was my favourite: I have commented several times lately how I’ve been less than complimentary about Bonxie’s surfaces and how, increasingly, I have to eat my words. This one was superb, as was ENTERPRISE, and I liked 9 and 18, too.

   There was other stuff to keep me happy – Platonic relationship, tessellated, Latin [and through that I know that meaning of SECULAR, too!] and I smiled at the neon light.

   In 7dn, surely the definition is ‘grant entry to’ with M = mass, as usual?

   Many thanks to Bonxie – I enjoyed it immensely.

7. Thanks Gaufrid and Bonxie.

   Some excellent clues here. I thought the chemists would enjoy this offering.

   Maybe one of them could explain to me why RESIN is a synthetic compound (23dn)? I thought it was natural stuff that oozed out of trees. If it’s man-made, then surely it needs to be called synthetic resin? Always grateful for any enlightenment.

8. Hi Eileen @6
   “In 7dn, surely the definition is ‘grant entry to’ with M = mass, as usual?”

   Yes, that’s how I saw it whilst solving. As has been said before, odd things can happen between solving and blogging. 🙁

9. Only last week, in fact – I knew that’s what had happened. 😉

10. cholecyst @7
    I agree about “resin” – see mine @1

11. Hi muffin and cholecyst – I thought that, too, but thought it must be right. Sometimes it helps NOT to know too much about the theme. 😉

12. Thanks Bonxie & Gaufrid.

    Yes, refreshing to see some science for a change, but enough other stuff to keep Eileen happy. 🙂

    I got caught again for a while by At=Astatine. I must be more vigilant in future. For those what don’t know, BORON has atomic number of five (I had to look it up.)

    Thanks Gaufrid for the ‘inclined neon light,’ which I didn’t see – nice! Yes, as muffin @1 said, it’s a pity that RESIN is a natural compound as well as a synthetic one. ‘Plant compound’ might have been preferred. I’m not sure what the surface of 3d is referring to. Are we talking about grenades here or something I’m not thinking of?

    I think my favourite must be REPRO now I understand the parsing.

13. Thanks Bonxie and Gaufrid.

    Wow, that was quite hard going, nearly 60 years since I did A-level chemistry and I had forgotten Astatine (on googling saw that much less than one gram is present at any given time in the earth’s crust). Anyway, let alone the chemistry, what about the football – BORO? (Middlesbrough football team it seems).

    Among many super clues REPRO stood out, I could not parse it.

    muffin @1, when being crushed in a crowd one might say “Give me some air!” meaning “I need oxygen!”.

14. Excellent puzzle and blog.Thanks Gaufrid. Resin can be natural but can also be synthetic. Bonxie is faultless here. His only fault is the infrequency of his appearances

15. Thanks Bonxie and Gaufrid.

    Tough but fair, I thought.

    muffin @ 5 – It was Pasquale in 2013 (no, my memory isn’t that good, but I remembered the answer and the same way of clueing it, so used the site search).

16. [Simon @15
    I did in fact find that one, but, although the clue contains “At”, this doesn’t seemed to be used as the definition; scchua underlined “that is highly unstable”, referring to the radioactive nature of Astatine. It could be a triple if “home” rather than “At home” gives the “in”?

    At home in a country that is highly unstable (8)]

17. [This was in fact discussed later in the blog. I seemed to have missed this one, as I don’t seemed to have commented.]

18. One of those days in which an opening twenty minutes produced almost nothing, so time to go away and do something completely different for a while. Returning, SECULAR was the way in – didn’t know this meaning, but reasoned that it might spring from the French siècle for century. COTTER was a problem – love it now, but thought it might be CUTTER.

    I’m another with very ancient A level Chemistry, so I was in my element (ho ho!) with ALLOTROPE, ASTATINE and BORON. STARSHIP was an absolute hoot too. The NE corner was tougher, largely as it took me ages to think beyond ‘anthem’ as a synonym for ‘hymn’, but got there in the end.

19. copmus @14
    As I said, resins can be synthetic, but surely we should respect the majority? As an example, if the clue was “swan” (5,4), you would choose “white bird” rather than “black bird”, I would think.

20. Thank you, Gaufrid, fine blog.

    Phew! That was tough going for me with plenty to enjoy including BORON, LANDLUBBER, ASTATINE & ALLOTROPE, although…

    …my mum used to say that the only crime in English for which one should surely burn in hell was ‘inaccurate pedantry’ but here goes anyway…I think I once read that there is actually only one rope on a ship and that is the one attached to the bell clapper. Anyone confirm this, or shall I get my coat?

21. As one who didn’t even do “O” Level Chemistry I found this quite difficult, but the very fair wordplay made it doable. 26a came easily to me as my husband was a Boron (or “boring” according to our daughters) chemist for many years!

    Of the non-scientific clues I liked secular, landlubber, spunky & starship particularly. Many thanks to Bonxie & Gaufrid.

22. As a scientist, I loved this one even if I had the same reservations about RESIN and HEIRLOOM and if you want to be really picky, graphite is an ALLOTROPE of carbon, but it’s a bit meaningless to call it an allotrope on its own, in much the same way that you can’t say “Spaghetti is a kind” – you have to say “Spaghetti is a kind of pasta”. Of course, in a crossword clue I’m pretty sure it’s acceptable (just as you could probably get away with “collie, perhaps” to define BREED).

    Some (PROLACTIN, close to perfection; prolactin is actually associated with just about every sort of love except the platonic kind) struck me as a bit obscure for the non-sciency crowd, but INTROMIT was at least as obscure for the non-humanities crowd, so I hope everyone learned something today!

23. Thanks Bonxie and Gaufrid. I’m another one who’s glad to see some science. I liked how the name-dropped chemicals gave a hint on how to interpret seemingly non-chemical clues – “fifth in table”, “a way the state changes”, and of course “At”.

24. Wow – this was a real struggle but I got there in the end. LOI was ASTATINE – I’m not a chemist so had to look it up. Liked HEIRLOOMS, ELECTRODES, LATIN and FLATFOOT. Had SALVER rather than SILVER, but on reflection the latter seems right. Many thanks to Bonxie and and Gaufrid.

25. This was the most difficult Bonxie since his return, but a very impressive crossword. No problems with the chemistry but FLATFOOT, PROLACTIN and INTROMIT were all unfamiliar. Favourite probably LANDLUBBER

    Thanks to Bonxie and Gaufrid

26. William @ 20: e-Chambers has “A rope for fastening a boat” for PAINTER.

27. This, I’m afraid, was the least interesting and least enjoyable Guardian crossword I have ever solved. (Gaufrid, you rightly suspected that opinions would be polarised today!) In spite of that there were some excellent clues, which I’m only too happy to list (all Down clues):

    3 (LENGTHENED), 5 (POOPED OUT), 7 (INTROMIT), 13 (LANDLUBBER), 16 (STARSHIP), 20 (SPUNKY)

    These were the only ones that I could admire and were the only ones that gave me any enjoyment. Others were satisfactory (no complaints) but routine. I stopped with 4 still to do – I don’t think they were the hardest, but I had lost my appetite.

    I was most unimpressed with some of the definitions and indications in the clues, for example, cover (pave), iron (stirrup), oxygen (air), wither (dry), even more flamboyantly (otter), firm (flat), synthetic compound (resin). Others caught me out purely through my own ignorance (again, no complaints – I managed to force most of them out), but I couldn’t get in the mood today to want to learn new stuff. I enjoyed some of the sciency bits today, but I think I could have improved upon some of the clues.

    I can’t remember having tried a Bonxie puzzle before. His style strikes me as being markedly different from any other setter. As some-one said yesterday, à chacun son goût. When I see Bonxie’s name again I will definitely give it a go – I would love to see if I can appreciate his efforts another time.

    Thanks Gaufrid and Bonxie

28. Simon S @26, William @20 is referring to a ship, not a mere boat, but the clue is fine.

29. Well, what a coincidence! Only yesterday I mentioned (in response to Wagonman’s complaint about Puck’s puzzle) that chemical symbols (a loose term, I accept) often cropped up in cryptics and fell into the category of general knowledge, and, lo and behold, today we have a fistful of them. Chemistry was a weak subject for me at school, so I never learned the periodic table. As a result this one was tough for me but ultimately gettable, albeit with a couple of look-ups to check that I was on the right lines. Not the most enjoyable of solves for me, but there were some fine clues in there to keep me amused and tempt me onwards to completion. Thanks to Bonxie, and to Gaufrid for some ex post facto help with parsing a couple of clues.

30. Simon S @26 What a pity…I’ll get my coat.

31. William @20
    The [i]Cutty Sark[/i] only had a bell rope and a tow rope; on the other hand it was moored with something more substantial than a painter!

32. Cookie @ 28: Sure, but the clue didn’t make any mention of the size of vessel [and yes, the clue is fine]. 😉

    William @ 30: Please don’t!

33. Simon S and William, but the “boatman” calls it a “painter”, not a “rope”, so William is right.

    “ROPE. In general cordage as it is purchased at the store. When it comes aboard a vessel and is put to use it becomes line.” From Nautical Know How .

34. ‘secular’ in the sense required by 1ac. comes from the Latin ‘saeculum’ meaning ‘a life-time’ or ‘ ‘an indefinitely long period’.

35. Thanks to Bonxie and Gaufrid. As another weak in science, I struggled here, though I did manage to piece out BORON, PROLOACTIN, and ALLOTROPE from the clues. I could not parse REPRO and needed all the crossers to get FLATFOOT, but ASTATINE defeated me (I missed the AT). For me an uphill climb.

36. [William, here is a reference for bell rope.]

37. Oh Blimey! Chemistry and football- my cup runneth over! I found this very difficult and had to resort to various aids to complete it. I probably learned something so I suppose that’s something. I wasn’t aware of the meaning of SECULAR but it was an obvious anagram. LOI was BORON which I will now always remember as 15 on the periodic table but I refuse to remember the football team!
    Anyway,a tough workout for me but–
    Thanks Bonxie.

38. Cookie @33 Bless you, you have saved me from eternal damnation. (See @20)

39. Hopefully 26 is not a prediction for the end of season Championship table..

40. Although I loved the science theme, I struggled with this. I got the bottom half fairly quickly, but for a long time I couldn’t get a foothold in the upper section. Eventually I got them all but SECULAR was ‘guess the most plausible anagram, use the Check button, then google to see why’, and I couldn’t parse the -PRO in REPRO.

    My favourite among many good clues was the unassuming CLUE – simple, elegant. STARSHIP brought the biggest smile, though.

    Thanks, Bonxie and Gaufrid.

41. Unfortunately, I put CALTROPIN in at 10, making a tough puzzle much tougher. Good ideas here in general, but too good for me to finish today.

    Thanks anyway, Bonxie and thanks to Gaufrid for the blog.

42. I enjoyed this. Nice cluing and very challenging.

    Thanks to Gaufrid and Bonxie

    muffin @19

    When was this “majority” rule introduced? I fear that this will invalidate many thousands of what were perfectly acceptable clues. 🙂

    I would have thought that a simpler rule would be that if it’s defined in a dictiobary then it’s OK. (Of course we’ll have to ignore those on here who always cry out that the dictionaries are wrong) 😉

    So here’s the SOED entry (condensed)

    resin ?r?zin ? noun & verb. lME.
    A noun.

    …….

    3 Any synthetic material resembling a natural resin; now usu., any of a large and varied class of synthetic organic polymers (solid or liquid) that are thermosetting or thermoplastic and are used esp. as the chief ingredients of plastics (more fully synthetic resin). Freq. with other specifying words. l19.

43. Glad you enjoyed it, Brendan (@42). There was very little for me to enjoy this time.

    I’m not one who always bleats that dictionaries are wrong (ok, I know Brendan never said I was), but dictionaries are sometimes wrong. Collins have accepted 6 corrections from me to date, and they will get a 7th soon when I’ve done a bit more careful research.

    It was instructive to see all the mariners’ contributions today. I now know the ropes! (Sorry.)

44. Way too late I know, but I was v. pleased with myself for finally solving this after struggling for many hours. Lots of good clues, but liked the chemistry ones, especially BORON, my LOI. ASTATINE has become a bit of a cryptic regular – never heard of it otherwise. Quite a few bunged in from word play including ALLOTROPE and INTROMIT. Couldn’t parse RETRO – but I agree probably the best of all now it’s explained. I think FLAT = firm in the sense of to ‘flatly refuse’ as suggested by muffin (way back) @1.

    V. good once it all (more or less) came together.

    A belated thanks to Gaufrid and Bonxie.

45. BNTO @42
    Even your disctionary definition defines synthetic resin with reference to the natural products!

46. Muffin @42

    Well it would wouldn’t it as that’s how one defines a synthetic resin, a copy of a natural one.

    Surely the point is that the entry validates the use of the word “resin” to define a “synthetic resin”. (i.e. the dictionary compilers have concluded that this is usage is common enough to be included in the dictionary.)

    Therefore if the clue is wrong the dictionary is wrong!

47. Astatine is my son’s (aged 11) favorite element, so I got that one right away! See here for a nice song about the rarest naturally-occurring element:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0KPMel2MGc

48. BNTO @46
    I still think the definition is pretty loose whichever was you take it – most resins aren’t synthetic; most synthetic chemicals aren’t resins. I don’t see why Bonxie chose to define it like this (unless he was unaware of the first point!)

49. It’s probably too late for anybody to read this, but I’ve only just truly dived into the blog.

    I don’t know why “know the ropes” isn’t “know the lines” unless it was a phrase popular with landlubbers. Certainly learning which line on which pin was connected with which sail was a task sailors had to master in the days of sail. On the other hand, Richard Dana (Two Years before the Mast), who would certainly have had to learn all that as a novice ordinary seaman, gave the phrase its first recorded use in 1840 but said “The captain, who had been on the coast before and ‘knew the ropes'”, implying that he was familiar with a particular situation.

    Silver/salver was one of those frustrating clues where I couldn’t tell which of the two answers was the definition and which the worldplay, and the relevant letter had no checker. The elemental theme (see below) eventually gave it away — long after I’d looked it up in the blog.

    Rog @29 — there is actually only one chemical symbol in this puzzle that I could find, not a fistful, but there’s a good fistful of names of elements. Astatine, silver and boron are in the answers, and platinum, oxygen, lead (twice), neon, copper, and carbon are in the clues. And then resin and prolactin are also chemicals.

    As to surfaces — a platonic relationship would certainly not lead to the production of prolactin! (Yes, I had to look it up. It’s the hormone for breast milk production.)

50. Valentine, I think that there are two chemical symbols – AT and NE, neither of which I knew so by my definition they can’t be general knowledge.
    I’m with Muffin when it comes to RESIN. The clue would have been valid without the “synthetic” and we would have been spared the argument.
    I read INTROIT as “entry to Mass” as it comes at the beginning of the Mass and means “he goes in”. As a result I parsed it wrongly initially – but heigh-ho.
    I seem to remember reading that, pace Alan Browne, in racing circles “irons” is a common synonym for “stirrups”.

51. I must have missed NE. Where is it?

52. Valentine @51
    4d REPRO. As Gaufrid blogged, the -PRO is “PRO[ne] (inclined neon light)”, Ne being the symbol for neon..

53. Right you are. So neon occurs both as a name and as a symbol.

54. Am I alone in objecting to the form of the clue for 9a? It’s the platinum that is being “pierced”, not the tongue. Okay, so let’s ignore the hyphen: but then the “answer” is in the middle of the clue rather than at one end or the other. “Platinum-piercing tongue” or “Tongue piercing platinum” would have been fairer clues (though vastly inferior as surfaces, obviously).

    Perhaps I’m just grumpy because I missed this one?

55. You are not alone 😀

56. Harrumph.

    Completely failed in the NE and was never going to get 7dn being an unknown (to me) word within another unknown (to me) word.

    Thanks all the same.

57. I had BARON instead of BORON. BAR is the TV 3 Letter Abreviation for Barcalona and ON ends season. BARON is 5th in the Perrage Table!

58. Thanks Bonxie and Gaufrid

    Found this pretty tough going as I normally do with this setter – regardless if I’ve wait 6 months to do it or not !! Found it a lot of fun though with the chemical elements adding to the experience along the way. Like a few of the harder puzzles that I’ve taken on from the backlog pile these days, this one spanned over a couple of days.

    Wasn’t able to parse the second bit of REPRO so was good to see how that worked from here. Only a couple of new terms in BORO’ (for the football team – shouldn’t have been because I grew up in a small city in Victoria called Maryborough and we had a similar nickname) and INTROMIT (which was my last one in).

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