Guardian Cryptic 29,012 by Brendan

136 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,012 by Brendan”

1. Loved most of this, which was almost a write-in. SCIMITARS and ACCUSTOMS held me up a bit.

   I agree that NON-RESISTANCE is dodgy scientifically. I had LOW RESISTANCE for a bit, which is better electrically. However neither one is a real opposite of belligerence, is it?

   The given explanation of CALIF is a definition, some wordplay, then a third derivation. No problem with that. There is a second way to parse the answer which includes the ‘start of another’ as part of the wordplay, namely: C + AL + I + ‘start of Francium’.

   Thanks B and P

2. I parsed 21 as C, Al, I, F (F = start of Fe, Iron), making CALIF.

3. I also had LOW-RESISTANCE like Dr. WhatsOn @1 which fits copper better, and I parsed CALIF as C(Carbon) AL(Aluminium) I(Iodine) and F(start of FE) like Willbar @2
   CELLINI was a dnk but the wordplay made it gettable.
   Some lovely clues including PTOTE (a CD clue that I only dream about writing), VERBS (similar) and LIANA for the ‘quick’ deception.

4. I am with Willbar and Tim C on CALIF. But I still don’t understand the DUDS bit of DUDES. Ah! Just googled DUDS and it means clothes, in Australian, apparently.

   The last few Brendan’s I have struggled to finish, but this, with the exception of LIANA, was much easier. Thanks, Brendan for an enjoyable Xword.

   Thanks, PeterO, too, especially for the explanation of SCIMITAR.

5. Thanks Brendan. It took a nano-second to get 1,26 so much of this was a write-in, a rarity for a Brendan crossword. I did miss 8d, having “low” instead of NON and it took me awhile to get ACCUSTOMS. I liked STING, NARCOTISE, and METAL among others. Thanks PeterO for the blog.

6. ROCKS
   def: is unstable

   Dave E@4
   We come across ‘x on board’ in a clue to indicate ‘sxs’ as the solution/a part of the solution.
   ‘in duds’ for ‘clothed’ is clever. I liked it.
   CALIF: I am with Dr. Whatson, Willbar, et al.

   Many faves. PERIODIC TABLE…, VERBS, IRONS, DUDES and ALUMINIUM are among them.

   Thanks, Brendan and PeterO!

7. I quite enjoyed this. Unlike for some others, this was not quite a walk in the park for me, but still easier than Brendan can be. I generally start with shorter entries, so the PERIODIC TABLE didn’t come until I noticed how many elements there were in the clues.

   Apparently Humphrey Davy spelled the name of his discovery, ALUMIN(I)UM, both ways, and for the first century thereafter so did everyone else. It took that long before it sorted into -um in North America and -ium in Europe. (We pronounce it the way we spell it, by the way: four syllables, stress on the second one.)

8. Took me a while yo get 1,26 but I could see the theme emerging. Then I had E_E_E_ _ _ in the SW corner and it clicked. After that life got easier. An enjoyable puzzle, I certaily did not find it a write-in, but I managed quite a few quickly and laboured a little over the rest.
   I liked CHEMISTRY for the relevance to the theme, I smiled when I got it. Similarly METAL which helped me get ALUMINIUM almost simultaneously, caused me to chuckle anyway.
   Thankyou both

9. Thank you PeterO for your blog and the parsing of ACCUSTOMS. Still not clear about the second def of IRONS.

10. echo nicbach@8

11. Performers of awful acts (criminals) may be clapped in irons!

12. clap (one) in irons
    To put one in jail, often abruptly. “Irons” refers to shackles or handcuffs.

13. I also started with 8D as Low RESISTANCE and parsed CALIF as many others, when I read the blog I realised that using Californium was clever.

    Californium isn’t found in the wild because it’s a synthetic element, only found in the lab. (A puzzle I’m struggling with, set over a decade ago, uses atomic weights of synthetic elements, which have been recorded at different values over that time, I checked the recommended site on the Wayback Machine.)

    I enjoyed this, thank you Brendan and PeterO.

14. It helped a lot that the “element-disguised as-word” trick has been used quite recently and extensively discussed here afterwards, so I got the theme clue almost immediately. For once, Brendan’s clever theming wasn’t too intrusive, though my lack of scientific knowledge tripped me up on _O_ RESISTANCE (I eventually revealed what kind: I had no idea, and I see the scientists here think Brendan has it wrong anyway.) CALIF was altogether too elemental for me and I haven’t seen that alternative spelling before. Didn’t know GOLDSMITH was Irish, either.

    I preferred the clues with not as much wordplay as you thought there was: IRONS, VERBS and ALUMINIUM provided some nice penny drops. The two tins and the drink for 007 were fun. Have we got all the metals present in either clues or answers?

15. We’re up to 118 elements if we count all the synthetic ones, so no, lots of elements missing.

16. Thank you KVa @11, 12 for IRONS. I knew that! 🙂

17. I got stuck on LLAMA as the climber (since they live in the Andes), and ended up having to reveal LIANA.

    Is OLD GOLD really a “dark colour”? Not according to Pantone, as far as I can judge.

18. KVa @ Thanks, makes sense now

19. Well that was an interesting challenge: the 1a/26a combo was a write in but the rest certainly wasn’t. I seem to have made it a long way through my allotted span without encountering CELLINI so that and GOLDSMITH held out til the end. I also found the longer clues to be harder work, inevitably. More moving parts.

    Lots to like, though. I do enjoy a Brendan and, with Boatman yesterday, that’s been two of my favourite B’s in a row. Favourites include EDUCATE, STING, NUTRITION (no probs with the two tins), DUDES, INTERDICT and SHAKE which made me smile. Another LOW RESISTANCE here – and it’s the only clue in which I’m disappointed insofar as there is nothing to distinguish between LOW and NON other than the incorrect solution appearing to be a more accurate fit with the definition.

    Thanks Brendan and Peter O

20. For Calif, just to be different, I got the F from Fire, as in Earth, Air, Fire and Water – the four ‘elements’. Found this taxing, and had to reveal the non on non-resistance. Thanks to Brendan and PeterO.

21. Very enjoyable. I failed to parse OLD GOLD & LIANA (learnt a new meaning for “quick”), and I was unaware of Bond’s cocktail preferences.

    Thanks, Brendan & PeterO.

22. Always a good sign that the answer I was querying in my head also proved to be the most contentious with others. Non beat low purely because of the hyphen.

23. Deegee@22 Similar reasoning, but it also seemed a better antonym.
    Elementary Drwhatson

24. Loved this. Brilliant Brendan at his most fun. IRONS and SHAKE were my favourites. My poor knowledge of chemistry meant I had no problem with 8d. My knowledge of literature is a little better. I read the Vicar of Wakefield a few years ago. Found it very dull, as I recall.

    Today’s earworm – Tin Soldier

    Thanks, Brendan and PeterO.

25. There were elements of this I found uncharacteristically straightforward for Brendan. As Gladys says, a coincidence after our recent discussion.

26. Sheer joy on a cold, dark morning, with many smiles and loud laughs. Thanks Brendan! It took me far too long to get 1,26 given all the elements.

27. I came here thinking that I’d failed to parse ALUMINIUM – surely there must be something fiendish going on in the wordplay? ‘Mine’, ‘light’ of one letter = MIN? Something to do with lumen/lumina? Not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

    Very enjoyable otherwise, certainly not a write-in for me despite all those rounds of Pointless. Shanne @13, I was reminded of this Pasquale from 2020, but it uses atomic numbers, not weights.

    My one query is with ACCUSTOMS – if you adjust (intransitive) to something, surely you get accustomED to it? I don’t think you can adjust (transitive) a person to something.

    Many thanks B & P (and Widdersbel @24 for the Small Faces – one of my favourites).

28. Thanks Brendan and PeterO
    This should have been right up my street, but too many elements grated for it to be completely enjoyable. A DNF, in fact, as I stuck with LOW in 8d (non is just wrong).
    Several false starts too. I had BUCKY (as in “buckyballs”) at 12, and LATIN at 23a (the symbols for iron and lead derive from Latin words, the ones for cobalt and tungsten don’t).
    Also a little unfortunate, though I suppose unavoidable, that components of answers appear in nearby clues – TIN in 14a and the clue for 15a, for instance.
    Very clever puzzle, and to be commended, but didn’t quite work for me.

29. This was great fun. I especially enjoyed the misdirection in 23a, but there were so many cracking clues. A very nice mixture of traditional crossword wordplay and requirement of General Knowledge without anything being too obscure.

30. Oh, and I had KALIF first, rather than CALIF (K being potassium, of course, Al, I, and F(e) – though F for fluorine would have been more obvious)) – Wiki tells me the C spelling is CALIPH

31. I was helped by the theme but I also solved/guessed a few and parsed them later.

    Liked STING, CELLINI, PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS, SHAKE.

    I could not parse:
    11ac
    6d
    8d characteristic of copper = non-resistance

    New for me: Irish writer Oliver GOLDSMITH but the clue was easilly solvable as I already had CELLINI and three crossers.

    Thanks, both.

32. I actually went to the Guardian interactive crossword (I’m one who prints out the pdf to solve – yes I know…) to see what the ‘accepted’ answer was for 8 down, and was disappointed to find that I apparently had the ‘wrong’ answer given my comment @3. I’m with PostMark @19 in noting that there’s nothing to distinguish NON and LOW given the lack of crossers.
    Maybe Brendan was thinking of the theoretical property of materials at Absolute Zero (0 Kelvin) but even then it would apply to more than copper.
    A very small disappointment in an otherwise fine crossword.

33. I know GK is inherently subjective but if you don’t know CELLINI then you may not consider the ‘famous’ part to be much help. ENDOCRINE was another new-to-me; I had to resort to a few targeted bung-and-checks before everything fell into place. ACCUSTOMS was my last one in, when I finally identified which end of the clue was the definition, but I’m not sure I’d have parsed it in the proverbial month of Sundays. I was another LOW-RESISTANCE and the lack of confirmatory crossers made that a tad unsatisfactory for me.

    One tiny thing that will probably only bother a minority (of one?) but I can’t help but spot repetition of words in clues and the word ‘prepare’ was at the start of, and in the definition of, two intersecting clues, ARRAIGN and SHAKE. Like I say, probably just me…

    But overall I found it enjoyable. Brendan knows how to work a theme, and even the ‘obscurities’ are educational.

    Thanks both.

34. [I used to own a splendid old book called “Meet The Film Stars 1934” which featured reviews of the new movies of that year. I suspect this one (which I have never seen) was very far from historically accurate, but it’s where I first found out what CELLINI did for a living…]

35. A great puzzle.
    For non-resistance, the hyphen prevented it from being LOW, surely, and the question mark suggests that copper is not entirely NON-RESISTANT.
    LOI were NARCOTISED, a horrible word, and ACCUSTOMS for similar reasons as others have already mentioned. But I loved the theme.
    Thanks Brendan and PeterO.

36. [Berlioz wrote an opera based on Benvenuto Cellini, which is where I heard the name. It was unsuccessful, so he recycled some of the music in his Roman Carnival overture.]

37. Having just scraped Chemistry O level, I feared a tough challenge, but this turned out to be user-friendly and I only failed on LIANA (quick – TILT). I had NON-RESISTANCE but only by luck. Guessed CELLINI from the wordplay and parsed CALIF as Willbar@2. My favourites were ALUMINIUM and GOLDSMITH. I liked your link @24, Widdersbel, but it made me think of this https://youtu.be/Pl5V26oXHUI

    Ta Brendan & PeterO.

38. essexboy@27 If I’ve grown accustomed to her face, could it be that someone has accustomed me to it?

39. Professor Higgins @38 – indeed so, but has someone adjusted you?

40. Great fun, and my fastest ever solve for a Brendan puzzle – as gladys @14 notes, our recent discussion about the deceptive use of chemical symbols made 1,28 an instantaneous write-in for me, and the rest flowed more or less smoothly. Personally, I don’t think there are any particularly unusual words here.

    I agree with SinCam @35 that the hyphen leads unequivocally to NON-RESISTANCE, dubious though the definition may be, even with the question mark. And I’m sure CALIF(ornium) is what Brendan intended.

    My favourites were some of the smaller words: METAL, VERBS, IRONS, DUDES. I spent a while trying to make more of the clue for ALUMINIUM, but eventually decided, like PeterO, that it was just a deceptively long cryptic def.

    Thanks to S&B

41. I agree entirely with George @29 – super puzzle..

    I thought it was rather a pity that we’d had the detailed discussion just the other day. ‘He’ in 1,26 might have taken me just a little bit longer to see, although it was one of the symbols highlighted then – and there was enough chemistry elsewhere in the puzzle to set us on the right track. I would never even have thought of low resistance – as Deegee @ 22 points out, there was a hyphen in the clue, anyway.

    I enjoyed the clever interlinking of clues in 10/11 and 24/15.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Brendan, for a great start to the day and to PeterO for the blog.

42. Essexboy@39 I see what you mean. Eliza has adjusted my way of thinking, but maybe not me.

43. Excellent, great fun!

44. [Re muffin’s post @36 about Berlioz’s opera ‘Benvenuto Cellini’, the libretto was based on Cellini’s self-adulatory autobiography. In one incident, the sculptor recounts not having enough tin with the copper to get the bronze mixture to melt for his casting, and solving the problem by throwing in a few pewter (usually a Pb/Sn alloy) plates]

45. Liked this one very much. Indeed, FrankieG posted a link to Tom Lehrer’s elements to the tune of “I am the very model of a modern major-general” the other day ( Vlad 29008 ).

    So, let’s have another earworm in contrast to T.L. This time Offenbach”s CAN CAN ( or should it be TIN TIN ) provides the setting. AS
    quality control would dictate, it balances to 118.

    https://youtu.be/rz4Dd1I_fX0

    Thank you Brendan and PeterO.

46. Beautifully constructed by Brendan and right up my street.
    I think ALUMINIUM is supposed to regularise the -ium ending for metals, although platinum remains (characteristically) unaffected.
    Thanks to Brendan and PeterO

47. Very much enjoyed today’s crossword and agree with most of the comments.

    Regarding 8D, I put in low resistance. Non-resistance seems strange; wouldn’t one normally say something is non-resistant?

    I take the point regarding the hyphen and question mark which I had overlooked.

48. Not sure that the hyphen in 8D (@various) rules out LOW. After all, the clue has “characteristic” which may be an adjective, and LOW-RESISTANCE seems to me a perfectly reasonable adjectival expression.

49. Late to the party here (late starter today as this was probably the fastest I’ve ever solved a Brendan by a country mile) but I just had to weigh in on 8d. Tim C @32 mentions the “theoretical property” which is actually a firmly established reality of superconductivity – the problem is copper does not superconduct at any temperature. So non-resistance is just plain wrong. I’m going to chalk this one up as an erroneous clue with an incorrect answer rather than try some sophistry to justify “non” over “low”.

    I found the whole puzzle rather odd – if you had the GK it was trivially easy but I’d struggle to see how someone who did not know Cellini (and his utterly hilarious autobiography) would have completed it,

50. I thought this puzzle was our brilliant Brendan at his best. No quibbles from me, though I still enjoyed reading the blog discussion. Many thanks to Brendan for his clever setting and to PeterO for the thorough explanations, including heroing my favourite solution which summed it all up 1,26a PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS!

51. Another treat from Brendan. Lots to enjoy but I particularly liked 6d

    Many thanks to him and PeterO

52. KVa @6
    The slip of the mouse in 12A ROCKS has been corrected.
    muffin @30
    Wikipedia lists CALIF as an alternative to caliph, as does Wictionary.

53. Very much enjoyed this. I agree with the consensus that LOW- rather than NON-RESISTANCE would been better, but otherwise great fun, I thought.
    @Ken J I think CELLINI was clued clearly enough to send anyone who didn’t know of him to a dictionary to check, and personally I have no objection to that. Every cryptic requires some general knowledge. One would have struggled with this if one didn’t know anything about helium, for example.

54. Mmm. Could you post the link to CALIF please, PeterO. It’s not here. Kalif and caliph both fredirect to this page.

55. As Julie said, Brendan at his best. It was all over rather quickly, but there was so much to enjoy in the ingenious and (if I may say so in a complimentary way) economical clueing.

    I take Dr. Whatson’s point, and similar points made subsequently, about 8d NON-RESISTANCE (which was my answer) and can see why the given solution should be queried.

    Thanks to Brendan and PeterO.

56. I agree with the objections to NON- in 8d. The hyphen does not rule out LOW (low-cost, low-impact, low-…) and the physics is clearly wrong.

    The rest was good fun however, so thanks to Brendan.

57. Long answer straight away? Tick. LOW RESISTANCE? Tick. C + Al + I + F? Tick. GOLDSMITH solely from “Irish author”? Tick. CELLINI solely from wordplay and crossers? Tick. Enjoyable? Double tick. Thanks, PeterO and Brendan.

58. No doubt LOW RESISTANCE would have been a better fit for the second half of the clue, but the first half, “Opposite of belligerence” clearly points to NON-RESISTANCE as in Gandhi’s policy.

59. muffin @54
    Try Calif.

60. [Re 14a STING and the TIN soldier – I really enjoyed the link you provided, Widdershel@24 – one of my all-time favourite songs from The Small Faces (cf essexboy@27) – not so sure about the Stiff Little Fingers, AlanC@37.]

61. An entertaining solve from Brendan.

    I have found some examples of the alternative to 8D, viz: low-resistance tires (sic). As others have pointed out NON-RESISTANCE for copper is incorrect (maybe the QM was meant to suggest it was dodgy?). Despite the discussion a few days ago, I took far too long to spot the significance of He, doh! I rather liked some of the shorter answers: VERBS, LIANA and SHAKE. I also enjoyed INTERDICT.

    I parsed CALIF as C/AL/I/F(e); if it’s meant to be CALIF(ornium) that gives two definitions as well as wordplay. I also parsed the ‘minimal amounts of elements’ in ACCUSTOMS as C/C/S. If the parsing is as PeterO gives, I’m not sure why the word elements is there, but I guess either is possible.

    Thanks Brendan and PeterO.

62. Thanks PeterO
    But that gives “refers to caliph”, and if you click on that you go to the page I linked to.
    Chambers also gives “see caliph”, but there it does give calif as an alternative.

63. Really enjoyed that today. Like others I had LOW RESISTANCE and failed to parse CALIF. CELLINI was new to me, and my LOI, but very gettable from the wordplay. Meanwhile the word LIANA always reminds me of first coming across it in my youth, when reading “Biggles in the Jungle”… those were the days!

64. [Julie @60: SLF are an iconic Belfast band who in the 70s challenged the paramilitaries in NI. This song is about the futility of 17 year-olds being dragged into the fray. I loved head-banging to them as a callow youth but I do accept the music might not be to everyone’s taste 🙂 ]

65. muffin@30 – I’m with you on the spelling of kalif (or caliph as version I’ve seen most) and was also thinking of K rather than C…
    [Interesting nugget re Berlioz – and follow-up from Gervase re Cellini]
    I shall be looking out to see if PeterO gives you another name check when he next parses a puzzle with an “epicentre” mentioned! ?

    A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle; and so very well constructed…… Huge thanks to Brendan

66. Thanks for the blog, I liked the VERBS idea , and CHEMISTRY is nicely constructed. NUTRITION was neat with tin as a bonus element in the clue.
    LOW-RESISTANCE is in my grid, copper is never a super-conductor , many metals are but I suppose the copper has the policeman allusion.
    Minor quibble for ACCUSTOMS , a nucleus is the minimal amount for an element , they are defined by their proton number. In the universe , nearly all hadronic/leptonic matter is in a plasma state.

67. [AlanC @ 64 good point about the bravery of SLF . I did note your Number 1 yesterday , it is now 15-11 . Be careful , three in a row returns your score to zero ]

68. Tassie Tim@57 – In full agreement!

69. As is so often the case I found relatively easy the ones many found hard, and struggled with ones others found easy. It helped to know Cellini and thereby get Goldsmith, opening up the SW corner.

    Several remained unparsed until I read the blog, so thank you PeterO.

70. Lord Jim @58 gives the best answer to the quibbles about cuprous conductivity 🙂

71. TassieTim @57 oops…except I had NON-RESISTANCE and Ca + Li + F. I was stressing my concord with the rest of your post and its absence of quibbles and presence of deserved fulsomeness!

72. Gervase@70 (and Lord Jim@58) – I have to disagree with you. Maybe it’s a scientist thing but there’s no “better fit” here, it is out and out wrong. Would a clue like “looking at a flower inspires poem by Byron?” with the answer “On Westminster Bridge” be OK because the question mark means a near miss of one poet for another is fine?

    Having the correct GK here means you cannot write in what the setter expects. We’ve called out plenty of errors in puzzles on this blog before, so I am amazed that people are defending this. It’s a slip, nothing more. It wasn’t a prize so nothing was lost, and these errors happen so it’s no big deal. Was it still an enjoyable puzzle? Undoubtedly.

73. Thanks PeterO, and commentators above for discussion of the problematic 8d (agree LOW and (3,11) would be better) and essexboy on 20a, though this rankled somewhat less as I was just delighted to finally get it after thinking the definition was at the end. I was happy with CELLINI from wordplay and nearly all crossers and then remembered the Rolex Cellini (from seeing it in shop windows rather than on my wrist, sadly) so knowledge of renaissance stars not strictly necessary.

    GregfromOz@17, maybe this one is more suited to the clue:
    https://www.sheffield-pottery.com/Mason-Stain-6471-Old-Gold-One-Pound-p/m6471.htm

    Thanks for the fun Brendan.

74. KenJ @72: I am a scientist myself, and I acknowledge the error of the clue. What Lord Jim and I are pointing out is that Brendan’s intention is clear from the wording, irrespective of the scientific inaccuracy.

75. Ken J @72 – but as Lord Jim @58 points out, there are two definitions to consider here, and the first one unequivocally points at NON-RESISTANCE. So if you insist on entering LOW RESISTANCE to tally with the second definition, you’re then at odds with the first.

    Personally, I’m happy that NON-RESISTANCE is near enough equivalent to EXTREMELY LOW RESISTANCE in everyday usage, where superconductivity is not a pressing concern. And yah boo sucks to all you pernickety scientists.

76. Sorry that should be (3,10) of course. And Greg@17 maybe “Dull” would work better than “Dark” in 10a?

77. [Roz @67: thanks, they still play with great energy. Your warning about the hat-trick is noted].

78. Robi @61
    8D NON-RESISTANCE: As pointed out by Lord Jim @58 the fit of LOW-RESISTANCE (hyphen or space) to ‘opposite of belligerence’ is poor to non-existent (shall we say low-existent? No, we shan’t). Also, there is the little matter of the solution given by the Guardian, which (more often than not) reflects the setter’s intention. As you say, I think we will have to live with the all-purpose justification by question mark.
    21D CALIF I would describe it as a definition and two wordplays, and would be flabbergasted if that were not the intended parsing. After all, why ‘start of another’, whether the ‘another’ is Fe or Francium or Fire (or Fermium or whatever), when F is another element symbol in its own rite?
    20A ACCUSTOMS: ‘Element’ is there because an atom is the minimal amount of an element, as a molecule is the minimal amount of a compound.

79. Silver has a lower resistance than copper, so “extremely low” doesn’t get round the problem.
    However, as a scientist I did welcome a science-based puzzle.

80. When I read the clue for 1, 26 across I thought – however am I going to solve that? Then I unwrapped EDUCATE to reveal the OLD GOLD, and I was away. I imagine this will be classed a Brendan tour de force. Oliver Sacks (“Uncle Tungsten”) would have loved this. For a while wasn’t sure about NON-RESISTANCE for the copper. Happy memories of smelly chemilabs at school…

81. The minimal amount of an element is a nucleus, as in virtually all of the universe , no atoms just plasma. The proton number defines an element.
    The difference between very low resistance and no resistance is huge, it is a quantum phase change, they are not called super-conductors for nothing.

82. And if we want to be scientifically hypercritical, ALUMINIUM is not a ‘product of mine’ – being far too reactive to be found naturally on the Earth in its native metallic state, its ores (principally the oxide, bauxite) require much processing and a lot of energy to yield the element itself. But do we quibble at this? No, we don’t 🙂

83. I was off to a flying start but then failed to think of ARRAIGNS, ACCUSTOMS or CHEMISTRY even with all the crossers and couldn’t work out what came before GOLD or RESISTANCE, so both a deeply enjoyable and well-constructed but also frustrating crossword. ‘Duds’ isn’t just Australian btw, the lyrics to the Geordie folk song ‘blackleg miner’, famously sung by Steeleye Span, are ‘Well he grabs his duds and down he goes to hew the coal that lies below. There’s not a woman in this town row will look at the blackleg miner.’

84. Thanks PeterO @78; 8D, nevertheless as others have pointed out it is incorrect. Thanks for your explanation of CALIF, and, yes, there would be no need for the start of an element when F is one anyway, so you’re probably right. BTW, the spelling of CALIF is in Chambers: caliph /kal?if or k??lif/
    noun
    Esp formerly (the title given to) a spiritual leader of Islam regarded as a successor of Mohammed (also calif, kalif or khalif) I see now the purpose of elements to define atoms, so again you’re probably correct. I arrived at the answer by thinking that minimal amounts of elements meant elemental abbreviations and ‘small quantities’ meant atoms. That sort of works also. 😉

85. Thanks PeterO for the excellent blog, especially the explanation of CALIF which was easy enough to get right but much more satisfying now that you mention the role of Californium. Like many I had ‘low’ rather than ‘non’. I don’t think either gives a very good opposite to belligerence, and both give a fair one, so lean toward the scientifically correct answer rather than the incorrect one. Thanks Brendan for a whole lot of fun, and only a few days after a discussion on here about the periodic table. If Brendan constructed this in response to the chat I am utterly gobsmacked. Most likely a coincidence I suppose, but maybe the puzzle was sitting waiting to be used and someone at the G moved it up the line in response to 15 squared?

86. Without doing the 8D thing to death, I think if the clue had read:
    Opposite of belligerence and characteristic of superconductor then everyone would presumably have been happy. 🙂

87. I have to leave, haven’t read beyond 66, but here’s my two coppers so far.

    Never twigged to ducats.

    TimC@3 PTOTE???

    I hadn’t known that a caliph was a religious as well as political figure. It reminds me of a poem telling the story of Bluebeard, which begins
    A maiden from the Bosphorus
    With eyes as bright as phosphorus
    Once wed the wealthy bailiff of the Caliph of Kelat.

    essexboy@39 Whether or not the good Professor is adjusted, the point he’s making asthat
    Though diligent and zealous, he
    Became a slave to jealousy.
    (Considering her beauty, ’twas his duty to be that.)

    The elements that appear in the grid (as opposed to in the clues) are metals (19ac), including GOLD twice.

    essexboy@39 I think the good Professor, adjusted or not, is making the point that “accustom” can be transitive, no?

    Thanks ever so to Brendan and PeterO.

88. Widdersbel@75, PeterO@78: In the logic of your argument the poor fit to the antonym cannot be justified so the answer has to be “non-resistant”. But why then is the utterly erroneous fit to the other definition acceptable? Either one or the other is poor/wrong so you cannot logically say it has to be this answer, not that one. As I said, the clue is wrong because there is no good answer which fits both halves.

    Gervase @74: As for “the setter’s intention is clear” – well clearly it ain’t judging by the huge number of posters here and on the Grauniad site who put the “wrong” answer. Even if it were clear, this still does not make the clue correct. What’s the problem with just acknowledging that the setter made a scientific boo-boo here, in the midst of an otherwise splendid puzzle? I just don’t get it.

89. Gervase@82: I think this clue is fine. Aluminium ore contains lots of aluminium oxide which has to be processed into the final product. I agree that, if the clue said “content of mine” then it would be dodgy as the chances of finding pure aluminium anywhere oxygen has ever been are pretty much zero as you say. But I think the word “product” here requires that something has been done to it. Think of the difference between “meat” and “meat products”. So even the super-autistic hyper-critical me is happy to let that one pass.

90. KenJ @89: By that logic sulfuric acid could equally well be ‘product of mine’ – a material manufactured from something that came out of the ground 🙂

91. Ken J @88 – You are entitled to your opinion but I disagree with your assertion that it is “utterly erroneous”.

    The clue offers two definitions. The first “straight” definition is “opposite of belligerence”. The second half of the clue is whimsically suggesting an alternative definition that uses copper to tie in with the theme of the puzzle. As PeterO says, the question mark is his way of acknowledging that it is iffy on scientific grounds. Brendan knows what he is doing. It’s not a mistake.

    Ultimately, it’s all just an enjoyably silly bit of fun with words and their meanings. Maybe try to take it in that spirit.

92. Widdersbel@91: “Maybe try to take it in that spirit.”

    Wow that is deeply patronising. OK I no longer feel welcome here. Goodbye.

93. me@87 I seem to have stuck a draft response to essexboy in the middle of the Bluebeard rhyme. It should go

    A maiden from the Bosphorus
    With eyes as bright as phosphorus
    Once wed the wealthy bailiff of the Caliph of Kelat.
    Though diligent and zealous, he
    Became a slave to jealousy.
    (Considering her beauty, ’twas his duty to be that.)

94. Late arriving but I wanted to say that I found almost all of this enjoyable. Thanks to Brendan * PeterO.
    To me the periodic table ended when I learned about it in the 1940s These artificially generated things with “half-lifes” in the nanoseconds are fictions and annoy me as much as “flower=river” or “retiring=reversed” in crossword-speak.
    I did not like CALIF for using too many elements- set me wondering what is the longest word made up entirely of elements? Any volunteers?

95. [SinCam @35: Years ago I read The City in History by Lewis Mumford; in it he referred to the “narcotised urban masses.” The word NARCOTISE has remained in my brain ever since. While the image it creates can be horrible I find the word itself useful.]

96. Keith@94 I tend to agree on the new “elements” . Americium (95) can be produced in large amounts and has one very useful isotope used in smoke detectors. Up to Dubnium ( 105) the half lives reduce to hours so less useful and less is known. Beyond here half lives become very short. For some of the newest “elements” only a few nuclei have been created by nuclear fusion, nothing is really known about them apart from the decay of these nuclei.

    Ken@92 while I totally disagree with Widdersbel on this I do think he was being gracious and diplomatic , disputes on here are frequent but usually friendly. You will always be welcome here and it is good to have new faces with different views.

97. [Tony Santucci @95
    That sounds like the “soma” in Brave New World.]

98. KT @94: To extend the solution to the clue, the RHCP’s CaLiFORnICAtION goes a long way!

99. Got but didn’t at all parse DUDES, assumed there was a word missing in the app! I parsed CALIF as CA, LI, and F for ‘fire’ (a different type of element). The master clue went in instantly, but there was enough tricky stuff at the end (the two aforementioned & ACCUSTOMS) to keep me occupied.

    NON-RESISTANCE is surely in the bounds of acceptability for a general-audience puzzle.

    Thanks Brendan & PeterO.

100. Why are Chemists good at solving problems? They have all the solutions (but perhaps not today). Thankfully I stuck to the Arts. Enjoying the discussion though everyone.

101. Ken J @92; I agree with what Roz @96 said; I doubt that W @91 was trying to be patronising, so please don’t take offence, you’re very welcome here.

102. We have GOLD (twice), TIN, STEEL, IRON, ALUMINIUM in the grid, plus two more TINs, another IRON, LEAD, COPPER, TUNGSTEN, NICKEL and SILVER in the clues. If any of the other elements are technically METALs, this chemical ignoramus doesn’t know which.

103. [gladys @102
     Sorry, STEEL isn’t an element – it’s an alloy, i.e. a mixture.]

104. Uranium Gladys

105. On 8 down: “low-resistance” is a non-dictionary word, as far as I can see, and did not occur to me. To defend the relatively non-defensible, “non-”, while predominantly used absolutely, can be used relatively. Examples from COD include:
     • Non-event: an unexpectedly insignificant or uninteresting occasion
     • Non-person: a person regarded as non-existent or unimportant
     • Non-flammable: not catching fire easily
     So I am not quite ready to channel Dr. Johnson and admit “ignorance, pure ignorance”.

106. [muffin @97: Brave New World was written 30 years before The City in History. Perhaps Mumford had read it and retained the imagery.]

107. Thanks for dropping by, Brendan, and for a great puzzle.

     Can this chemist finish his interventions with a quotation from Hilaire Belloc?:

     But scientists , who ought to know
     Assure us that they must be so….
     Oh! Let us never, never doubt
     What nobody is sure about.

108. Am I missing something? 24 across? “I” am not “in the small room” am I?

109. “I” is between the small room and the nickel, so “in”? – just about OK, I think.

110. Late to this, but worth waiting for. A really good puzzle. Happily for me, the very long clue gave in early on and so the other elements/references were a big help.

     Favourite was CHEMISTRY

     Thanks Brendan and PeterO

111. Suzydimple @108
     I might have made the structure of 24A clearer by writing something along the lines of “an envelope of I in CELLNI, which is CELL with NI”.

112. Fun puzzle, which as a chemist I enjoyed very much.
     I also had low-resistance. Non-resistance simply didn’t occur to me and I simply moved on without checking. It would have been quite nice, I think, if Brendan had made use of F = fluorine in 21 to write this as “Religious leader symbolically lists three or four elements” i.e Ca/Li/F or C/Al/I/F.
     Thanks, BP 🙂

113. Mrs Scotblok and I have been doing these puzzles for around two years now. They have become part of our evening, sitting round the fire with a coffee or a glass of wine and feeling inordinately pleased with ourselves when we get most of them! I began life as a metallurgy student before becoming a doctor, and Mrs S has a degree in music, so we cover a lot of the GK bases. FifteenSquared is our reward when we’ve done what we can, which is more and more as we get to know the cruciverbal vocabulary and syntax.
     Thanks everyone!

114. A superb puzzle. Chemistry certainly not my forte so a bit of a guess at NON rather than low RESISTANCE. Last in was OLD GOLD which needed the benefit of overnight sleep to twig ducat. Great fun & excellently clued throughout.
     Thanks to Brendan & PeterO

115. Wiiddersbel @75

     I know it has been done to death already, but I can’t agree with you on this; to us “pernickety scientists”, non-resistance is just plain wrong- non-resistance is not a characteristic of copper. You can’t put a ? on the end to justify an incorrect fact, surely? The grid was full of science stuff, so I think we are allowed to protest when it is used incorrectly.

     I look forward to when a Shakespeare quote is ascribed to Dickens or something and you “pernickety literati” types object!

     Good puzzle though, thanks Brendan and PeterO.

116. Changing the subject from chemistry to botany: isn’t a LIANA an epiphyte rather than a climbing plant?
     Changing the subject to etymology: isn’t NUTRITION an unimaginative synonym for nourishment, with the same root?
     Concerning the double use of “prepare” Rob T @33, I so admired the misdirection in the clue for ARRAIGN — not associating the “try” with the “prepare” — that all was forgiven.

117. DaveJ: Speaking as a scientist myself, I was aware of the egregious error in the clue, but I wasn’t so blinded by the science not to perceive what Brendan intended! It was very unfortunate that the crossers didn’t help. And I would be as critical as anyone about a misattributed quotation 🙂

118. [Didn’t Tarzan swing through the trees on lianas?]

119. Madness reigns. An aspect of copper is that it conducts electricity whereas, say, wood does not. Wood is resistant to electricity, copper is not. Copper is non-resistant. It displays non-resistance.

     With that I’m putting my hand up for the condescension prize of the day at the very least, and as there are no other contenders I win.

     Scotblok@113: I hope you two never take disagreements about crosswords too much to heart. What a pleasant picture you paint.

     muffin@: Everyone knows that Johnny Weismuller sprang from trapeze to (quite obvious) trapeze.

120. People may be familiar with Ohms Law – I = V/R Any material that is “non-resistant “ implies a infinite current (since R is the denominator). This is physical impossibility.

121. Phil @120. Non-resistance does exist and is an amazing phenomena. It has led to a whole branch of science: I suggest you Google “superconductivity”.

     To answer your final sentence: in practice the superconductor has some inductance (and the voltage source will have a finite impedance) and so the current does not have a chance to get to infinity.

     So if the clue was something like “The opposite of belligerence shown by a super conductor?” it would have been scientifically spot on.

122. Alphalpha @19. Wood does conduct electricity. See here for the resistance of various materials including wet and kiln dried wood, and copper. The point is that resistance is not a binary property, it is a numerical value that may be larger or smaller; however it defies physics for any material to have a value of zero. So the concept of “non-resistance” doesn’t make any sense; every material is resistant to some extent. It just so happens that for some materials (such as copper) their resistance is small enough to be useful.

123. DaveJ @21, my understanding is that, since superconductors have a finite lifetime for the current, they do have resistance. The lifetime may be exceedingly long however(indeed it may exceed the lifetime of the universe) which makes the resistance extremely low. That was how it has been explained to me in the past, however I’m open to alternatives. However, as you point out, this doesn’t make the clue as written any better.

124. There are at least three domains of expertise involved here, of which physics is one. Leaving aside the art/science/folklore of cryptic crosswords there is also language. An absolutist might say that “non-flammable” logically means “incapable of catching fire”, whereas the dictionary defines it as “not catching fire easily”. And is there nothing that will stick to a non-stick frying pan? (All of the above “in my humble opinion”, as is inscribed on a pottery mug my wife made for me recently).

125. Sorry Phil, that is completely wrong. Resistance can be *zero* to a very large number.

     Zero resistance = superconductivity = “non-resistance as a cryptic definition if you like” does not defy physics, is 100% real and is used in the real world, e.g. in MRI scanners. As I said, read e.g. the wikipedia on superconductivity.

     Along with quantum mechanics, relativity etc. it might not “make any sense”, but there you go. 🙂

126. Brian @ 124

     Hmmm..bit of a stretch with your analogy their Brian- as far as I know there is no measurability/SI unit for flammability, and if there is, I doubt you could have a zero flammability super-retarder! But as I and others have pointed out, resistance is measurable and can be zero via an amazing phenomena- but this is not a characteristic of copper.

     Frying pans use Teflon which has a tiny but non-zero coefficient of friction, so again, a true non-stick = zero stickiness does not exist except in the mind of marketeers!

127. Valentine @87… sorry I’d gone to bed… PTOTE = PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS 🙂

128. Recently memorised – we’ll sort of – the said TABLE I was chuffed with this although it was over very quickly. Good things often are…
     Thanks Brendan not forgetting out blogger.

129. I’m in the US, so by the time many of you gave solved and blogged, I’m just rolling out of bed. By the time I get to this site, nearly everything that needs to be said has been said.

     This is a brilliant crossword, and not just because it’s a rare non-Everyman/Quiptic that I can solve without resorting to hints. I am surprised that no one has observed that the “ non-consuming” clue in yesterday’s Boatman, which was new to me, was “abstaining” today. Happily, I made the connecTTion.

130. Brian Greer@Brendan@124. I’m with you as a non scientist. As a linguist, descriptive not prescriptive.
     It’s interesting that people from science and technology occupations make up the ranks of the super solvers. It’s all about the code. We need the precision of scientists or spacecraft would fall out of the sky and nuclear reactors would explode. ( That happens anyway, but not for lack of trying.) Enjoyed the crossword, and contributions here. It’s been fun.

131. AndrewTyndall@116: To quote Wikipedia, “The word liana does not refer to a taxonomic grouping, but rather a habit of plant growth” – so it’s possible that some of those trailing vines may be from epiphytes, but most are from climbing plants rooted in the soil.

     DaveJ@126: I’m not a pernickety scientist, but I’d just like to point out, pedantically, that the singular noun is a “phenomenon”.

132. Now that the storm has passed (we had a lot of snow yesterday), I’ll post here now, even though only the blogger will see this. I decided to try and write an alternative, non-thematic clue for NON-RESISTANCE, purely because a promising idea for it came to me this morning. I have put that clue in a comment in General Discussion @79.

133. Gladys @131 yes, fair play, you got me

     Alan @132 – nice clue

     Everyone else- thanks for the discussion!

134. Loved this. Took a while, but still a win, which doesn’t happen often on a Wednesday!

135. (Cadburys) Old Gold is also a ‘colour’ of dark chocolate, for what it’s worth!

136. If Brendan should see this, let him be assured that the volume of comments (unusually high) reflects the standard of his work (unusually high!)
     Thanks again

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