Guardian Cryptic 28,652 by Crucible

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28652.

Lots of geographical geological (and physiographical) references and some tricky and inventive clues, but there is the common deer/antelope confusion in 15D, and I am not happy with 13A.

ACROSS
1 ALASKA
Girl briefly also called when touring state (6)
An envelope (‘when touring’) of LAS[s] (‘girl’) minus the last letter (‘briefly’) in AKA (Also Known As, ‘also called’).
5 TOULOUSE
French city cut employment for another one (8)
TOULO[n] (‘French city’ on the Riviera) minus the last letter (‘cut’) plus USE (’employment’), for ‘another one’, a French city a ways to the west of Toulon.
9 LAKE ERIE
Story about a stink over North American water (4,4)
An envelope (‘about’) of ‘a’ plus KEER, a reversal (‘over’) of REEK (‘stink’) in LIE (‘story’).
10 ROAD UP
Troops set back a party sign blocking way (4,2)
A charade of RO, a reversal (‘set back’) of OR (‘troops’) plus ‘a’ plus DUP (Democratic Unionist ‘Party’ in Northern Ireland).
11 PHYSIOGRAPHY
His happy orgy disrupted study of 5 down (12)
An anagram (‘disrupted’) of ‘his happy orgy’. And if you did not know what physiography is, look at 5D taken literally.
13 MESA
Occasionally meet star climbing this? (4)
Alternate letters (‘occasionally’) of ‘MeEt StAr’). Am I missing something, or is the definition scarcely adequate?
14 OUTLIERS
Isolated younger rocks form our islet (8)
An anagram (‘form’) of ‘our islet’, with a very adequate definition of the geological term.
17 LILLIPUT
Posh tablet rejected in reading Little Women here? (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of LLIPU, a reversal (‘rejected’) of U (‘posh’) plus PILL (‘tablet’) in LIT (literature, ‘reading’).
18 EDEN
Adversaries at table abandon country garden (4)
[sw]EDEN (‘country’) minus S W (‘adversaries at table’ – bridge).
20 SIERRA NEVADA
Ford a channel going west, following new range (6,6)
A charade of SIERRA (‘Ford’ car) plus N (‘new’) plus EVADA, a reversal (‘going west’) of ‘a’ plus DAVE (television ‘channel’).
23 CITRON
Car dumps English fruit (6)
CITRO[e]N (French ‘car’) minus E (‘dumps English’).
24 ABERDEEN
Northern city‘s deer dispersed in a local peak (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of ERDE, an anagram (‘dispersed’) of ‘deer’ in ‘a’ plus BEN (‘peak’ – ‘local’ because it is a Scottish word, and Aberdeen is in Scotland)
25 INFLAMED
Enraged Indiana bank crushes strike (8)
An envelope (‘crushes’) of LAM (‘strike’) in IN (‘Indiana’) plus FED (‘the Federal Reserve System, US ‘bank’).
26 STRATA
Plan to get shot of rose beds (6)
STRATA[gem] (‘plan’) minus GEM (‘rose’ – a cut of a precious stone, so perhaps an unannounced indication by example; but there is the out that either word may have the sense of paragon).
DOWN
2 LOAM
Luscious oranges and melons primarily growing in this? (4)
Here’s a good reason to do Everyman crosswords. First letters (‘primarily’) of ‘Luscious Oranges And Melons’, with an extended definition.
3 SEED PEARL
Player who’s fancied fruit left item in ring? (4,5)
A charade of SEED (‘player who’s fancied’ – tennis) plus PEAR (‘fruit’) plus L (‘left’).
4 ARROYO
Cowboy or ranger’s helping on way up ravine (6)
A hidden (‘helping’) reversed (‘on way up’) answer in ‘cowbOY OR RAnger’.
5 THE LIE OF THE LAND
Fine old athlete ruined with heroin? It’s how things are (3,3,2,3,4)
An anagram (‘ruined’) of ‘fine old athlete’ plus H (‘heroin’).
6 UPRIGHTS
Posts at university linked to entitlements (8)
A charade of UP (‘at university’) plus RIGHTS (‘entitlements’).
7 OMAHA
Tyrone town evicts German with a place in Nebraska (5)
A charade of OMA[g]H (‘Tyrone town’ in Northern Ireland) minus the G (‘evicts German’) plus ‘a’.
8 SOUTHERNER
Georgian perhaps runs three trips round Ohio (10)
An envelope (’round’) of O (‘Ohio’ – not a standard abbreviation, but the expression “O for Ohio” has some currency) in SUTHERNER, an anagram (‘trips’) of ‘runs three’.
12 DEFINITION
Dictionary entry that’s clearer when higher (10)
‘Higher’ DEFINITION is ‘clearer’.
15 ICELANDER
Decorator houses deer for Reykjavik resident (9)
An envelope (‘houses’) of ELAND (‘deer’ – actually an antelope) in ICER (cake ‘decorator’).
16 SPHAGNUM
School hung maps showing growth in bogs (8)
An anagram (‘school’) of ‘hung maps’.
19 LAYERS
Large rock formerly down under 26 (6)
A charade of L (‘large’) plus AYERS (‘rock formerly down under’ – now known as Uluru, in Australia)
21 RURAL
Country river, Russian one (5)
A charade of R (‘river’) plus URAL (‘Russian one’ – i.e. a river).
22 PEAT
Quietly put away accumulated 19 of 16 (4)
A charade of P (‘quietly’) plus EAT (‘put away’).

picture of the completed grid

110 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,652 by Crucible”

  1. MESA It’s a bit vague, ut could it be referring to this: Steve Backshall was part of the first expedition to successfully climb Mount Upuigma, which is a mesa. Or to The Lost World?

    I found the answers shooting in initially, but slowed down for the second half.

    Thanks PeterO and Crucible

  2. All fell into place very quickly. Guessed10ac because I have never ever seen a “Road Up” sign, not a Canadian usage. But being from Canada, found the north american references dead simple. Helps to have lived in the south of France too, so Toulouse and Toulon were dead easy. Likewise Lake Erie, where I have spent many a day fishing. Too fast, what do I do with the rest of my evening?
    Thanks Crucible and PeterO

  3. I found this to be a more than adequate challenge which took up about the right amount of time for my day. I had the same uncertainty about MESA, but Dave Ellison @1’s explanation sounds plausible. I also found the O by itself, rather than OH, for ‘Ohio’ at 8d a bit off-putting, but the rest of the wordplay made the answer clear. Good old DAVE (not of the Ellison variety) is quickly turning in to a crossword chestnut.

    I had no hope in parsing STRATA which only went in, at the very end, courtesy of the theme.

    Thanks to Crucible and PeterO

  4. this was tricky in places. Dave is a very local reference. 13A was helped along by 4D for a very non-local reference.

    Thanks Crucible, and PeterO

  5. Thanks Crucible for a most enjoyable crossword. The North American references lessened the difficulty for me and I liked the clue for LAKE ERIE. My favourites were the wonderful anagrams for PHYSIOGRAPHY and THE LIE OF THE LAND. I never got LILLIPUT and I didn’t understand STRATA and DEFINITION so thanks PeterO for parsing.

  6. This was a pleasant if relatively brief trip around the world. Nho of ARROYO or SPHAGNUM but not difficult to solve. I liked LILLIPUT and the anagrams mentioned by Tony @5.

    Ta Crucible & PeterO

  7. I thought for a bit the theme was going to be US geography, but it ended up being not so narrow. However, it should be said that terms like ARROYO and MESA are commonly used in parts of the US, maybe less so in other parts of the English-speaking world; similarly FED for bank, and maybe also Georgian=SOUTHERNER. Talking of which, I thought O for Ohio a bit dubious.

    I’m sure I wouldn’t have got DAVE if I hadn’t heard it ridiculed by British comedians, since I don’t believe I’ve ever watched it.

    I took “school” to imply anagram in 16d, but I can’t really justify it – what’s the logic here? Seems like it might be a synonym of a synonym … of something that might mean move. Thanks.

  8. 5a was a memory jogger as I learnt French nearly 60 years ago and my teacher told me about two French towns that were too loose and too long. I since found the correct spelling and pronunciation. Enjoyed the geographical reference. I agree with Dave about Mesa. Thanks setter and blogger. Anna in oz

  9. Dr. WhatsOn @7. I don’t think I have previously seen ‘school’ used as an anagrind, although more attentive archivists than I am, with better memories, may be able to cite precedent. I did not, however, after an initial querying look at it, have too much of a problem, as I take ‘school’ as a verb to mean to retrain or to discipline someone. Just another circus animal to add to the exotic menagerie of anagrinds, therefore, …

  10. Most went in quickly but several unparsed like DAVE = channel, FED = bank and my French city knowledge extended only to TOULOUSE. I did like the long anagrams and had the same quibbles as others re o for ohio and mesa. Where does the phrase “O for Ohio” have currency? [I am reminded of one of our sportsmen on a game show saying “I’ll have an O for awesome please”.]
    Thanks to PeterO and Crucible

  11. Sorry to be the broken record but O for Ohio is in Chambers. Agree with it or not as you wish but that makes it fair game for cluing.

    I shrugged at MESA, as the word play was clear enough even if I found the def a little vague.

    I thought 15A and 5D were excellent.

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO.

  12. Excellent puzzle as I have finished it already! Blah, there is no 15A, what did you mean?
    My favs were the two long anagrams plus the three that held me up at the end – 22d, 19d and 26a which I got in that order. 19d was a brilliant clue!
    Thanks both

  13. Adding to my comment at 8. Our textbook in oz was” nos voisins francais. “. Hardly. Thankfully I became a Francophile and spent a lot of time there. Real nostalgia

    “

  14. Like DrW @7, I thought this was going to be US geography but suspect THE LIE OF THE LAND may well be the overall theme. A generous interpretation might include the scattering of non geological place names like ABERDEEN and the excellent TOULOUSE and that covers over three quarters of the solutions.

    It’s a sign of the times that I spent ages thinking of posts in the context of the internet before UPRIGHTS popped into mind!

    Plenty of contenders for big ticks – the alias in ALASKA, the high DEFINITION, the reverse lurker ARROYO, the construction of LILLIPUT and, given I was OK with school as an anagram indicator, the delightful SPHAGNUM.

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO

  15. Aha! The other city was Toulon, not Tours. No wonder I couldn’t parse it. Or INFLAMED or STRATA either. Loved DEFINITION.

  16. Thanks Crucible and PeterO
    Very much on Crucible’s wavelength and familar with all the geographical terms, so my most rapid Crucible solve ever. I did wonder about the missing GEM in26a, though.
    Mostly very enjoyable, but the error in 15d is unforgiveable, as there is no reason why he couldn’t have written “antelope”.

  17. Tough puzzle.

    Favourites: EDEN, RURAL, LILLIPUT, SEED PEARL.
    I could not parse 5ac, 26ac, 8d def = ‘Georgian, perhaps’ but the rest of it? I was thinking that OHio = OH.
    New for me: ARROYO, SPHAGNUM, ROAD UP (I am still unclear what this means. Does an up arrow sign = road diversion?)

    Thanks, both.

  18. Often melted down in the crucible but this one went in relatively smoothly.

    Failed to spot Dave as the TV channel or lit for reading.

    Was troubled by O=Ohio. Why not Oregon or Oklahoma?

    COD was DEFINITION, very neat.

    Many thanks, both.

  20. I think I’ve seen O for Ohio survive in previous puzzles but a few are not happy with it.
    It is OH-whereas CA could still be excused as CAL
    Otherwise a fine puzzle and gridfill
    Thanks Crucible and Peter O

  21. Nice to see Anna v.H. here again @8/13. If you haven’t already, you might like to take a look at yesterday’s Imogen blog, especially from post @31 onwards and through to the end – there’s a lot of pleasurable nostalgia for Francophiles.

    Like (most) others I found today a lot quicker going than is often the case with Crucible. Favourite LILLIPUT – I thought ‘why Little Women?’ (other than for misdirection), then realised I wouldn’t I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if it had been Little Men.

    I think I’ve come across ‘school’ as an anagrind before – but if I haven’t, I’ve certainly seen ‘train’, which amounts to the same thing. (Having said that, I don’t want to spark off an education ≠ training controversy 😉 )

    Thanks C & P

  22. Pleasant puzzle which fell out surprisingly easily. O for Ohio seemed odd (pace Chambers), the def for MESA was exiguous – and it was lax of Crucible to confuse his bovids and cervids.

    But much to enjoy, especially the long anagrams with their excellent surfaces. Ticks for ARROYO AND SPHAGNUM (lovely words). Like gladys @15, my first thought for the ‘French city cut’ was Tours, but I soon travelled south to the right one.

    Thanks to S&B

  24. michelle @17: ROAD UP is a sign which used to be employed in the UK – I haven’t seen it for a long time. It signified that the road ahead was impassible because the surface had been taken ‘up’ prior to being reasphalted (is that a real word?).

  25. Some very enjoyable stuff here.
    I’ve learned something about OUTLIERS (having initially supposed the “younger” to be redundant).
    Very clever constructions in PHYSIOGRAPHY, LILLIPUT, THE LIE OF THE LAND, SPHAGNUM.
    I’m relieved it isn’t just me with MESA, but the clarity of the wordplay meant it wasn’t a problem. Similarly, Ohio = O is a bit iffy, but the intention is clear enough.
    Thanks both.

  26. I too liked the eclectic geographical theme. However there were several solutions I got but couldn’t parse fully, so I really appreciated the blog even more on this occasion. Thanks to PeterO, and to Crucible for a worthy challenge. I really liked 23a CITRON. [Yes Anna@13 I well remember sweating over/swatting from “Nos Voisons Français”. Both my high school French teachers in my small country high school were Aussies, so my French accent est trés terrible!]

  27. This quickly got tough for me. A number of words/phrases which were new or obscure. Like some it took me a while to sort out the interconnected SE clues. Overall enjoyable though. Thanks to Crucible and PeterO for the blog.

  28. I liked 7, as both place names popped into my mind together, being similarly pronounced despite the silent G.

    An easy start with some write-ins and the nice but not too challenging anagrams, and steady progress thereafter but with plenty of puzzling to do, particularly over parsing. The SE corner with its cross references was entertaining.

  29. I enjoyed this, despite the O=Ohio, MESA definition and deer/antelope blemishes. The loose theme worked well, I thought, being engaging but not too restrictive. ‘School’ (verb) as an anagrind seems quite acceptable to me. LILLIPUT was a favourite clue for its tight construction and neat surface. I biffed STRATA, my LOI, from the theme but was unable to parse it. ‘Gem’=rose was completely beyond my ken.

  30. Thanks Crucible & PeterO, that was a good yomp.
    Pleased to discover that there is a (small) glacier in the Sierra Nevada called LILLIPUT.

  32. I like the play possible with the last few words of JinA’s post @26, bearing in mind that the accent in ‘très ‘ should be grave rather than acute, and that ‘terrible’ can mean very good as well as very bad. Chapeau Julie.

  33. I’m with NeilH @25 on this.

    I’m surprised at the querying of ‘school’ as an anagram indicator; it’s my impression that we see it quite often.

    I came across SPHAGNUM (moss), somehow, as a child – probably reading it aloud from a bag in a hardware shop. I was quite fascinated by it and enjoyed practising pronouncing it, as one does at that stage. I think it must have been even before I’d met ‘sphinx’. I’d never heard of ARROYO, though.

    Many thanks to Crucible for an enjoyable puzzle and to peterO for the blog.

  35. Thanks for the blog , a theme that seemed to flow nicely today , even obvious to me. ARROYO is new to me but very fairly and neatly clued. SIERRA NEVADA was good and was also on Pointless yesterday.
    AnnavH @ 8 a good way to remember the towns and both in the same clue. As EB@21 notes, a lot for Francophiles in the blog yesterday.

  37. [Eileen @33: The sph- initial combination is pleasing, as you found, and rare in English. There are many technical words which start with this, but the only common ones are sphere (and its derivatives), Sphinx and sphincter.

    The corresponding sf- in Italian is much commoner, as the initial s is often a reduction of the negative prefix dis-. So there are plenty of Italian words starting with combinations alien to English: sb-, sd-, sg-, sr-]

  38. paddymelon @34: unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to get away with “Occasionally meet star with big butte” which appeals to my schoolboy SOH. What about “Occasionally meet star like Cliff supporting hard rock”?

  39. {Regarding French lessons and accents, JiA and Anna van Hoof. When I lived in London in the mid 70s and was looking for work as a qualified teacher of French and German , I quickly learned, why would they employ an Aussie when they had native speakers. Then when I tried to get a job teaching English to non native speakers, same, who wants an Aussie when they have native English speakers? But I eventually got there, and it changed the trajectory of the rest of my working life when I came back to Oz. Now Aussies go to Noumea for an immersion experience with Nos Voisons Français.]

  41. [paddymelon @39
    French teachers and accents: as boys in North Devon, we were taught French by a little woman from Glasgow, called Miss Hamilton. We couldn’t understand what she was saying when she was supposedly speaking English!]

  42. Thx to Crucible for a themed puzzle that was tough in places. Thx also to PeterO for help with parsing a number of the tricky clues. Favourites were LIE OF THE LAND SPHAGNUM and LILLIPUT.

  43. [paddymelon and muffin passim: Your description of teachers’ accents reminds me of Chaucer’s Prioress:

    And Frensh she spak full faire and fetisly
    After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe
    For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe]

  44. Given that the original meaning of deer was just animal (like German Tier) Crucible has a get-out. I have no real problem with MESA, so, overall I enjoyed this. Sphagnum and Peat reminded me that the body preserved in a bog found near here was called Pete Moss.

  45. Thanks both and I enjoyed without knowing MESA, OUTLIERS or ARROYO, and PHYSIOGRAPHY is not a word I could readily pull from the ether.

    [PeterO – for the purposes of completion you might excuse my pointing out the absence of the ‘a’ in the parsing of LAKE ERIE.]

  46. I had a fellow-student who spak Englisshe after the scole of Newcastle-atte-Tyneside. His French was probably fine, but during his spell as an Assistant in French school, they didn’t let him teach the students English.

  47. Gervase@42 lovely aint it
    atte Bower reminds me of a line by the great Micky Jupp

    “Long distance information get me Ashby de la Zouch
    I’m stuck inside a phone booth down here in Shepherds Boosh”

    Aythangyou

  48. [Thanks muffin @41. Made me laugh. Just what the doctor ordered. Think I have the dreaded omicron. Now there’s another immersion experience. Taught Greek by stewards on the ship over a 1 month voyage to the UK in the 70s. No other onboard entertainment in those days 🙂 ]

  49. [And thank you too to Gervase and Gladys and Copmus @ 43, 46, and 47. Old and Mediaeval English and German a passion of mine. Always wanted to spend some time in Iceland as my lecturer lived there, to immerse himself in the closest living language. Funny it should come up today. ]

  50. [And thank you too to Gervase and Gladys and Copmus @ 43, 46, and 47. Old English a passion of mine. Always wanted to spend some time in Iceland as my lecturer lived there, to immerse himself in the closest living language. Funny it should come up today. ]

  52. Starting at 1 across firstly, as one does, I thought that could be anything, a girl’s name or an abbreviation for a U.S. state somewhere involved, so had to come back later when I had some helpful crossers in. Realised there was something geographical going on, but wasn’t entirely clear if there was a definite theme. Last two in were the (can it possibly be this, and why?) MESA, and then DEFINITION. SPHAGNUM moss brought back many happy memories of botany field trips in the distant past, and being amazed at how much water you could squeeze out of the stuff…

  53. Yes, eland is the largest antelope, and doesn’t have antlers like a deer. Whenever I moan about errors in biological nomenclature, I get the “it’s acceptable in a crossword” fob-off. Annoying. Quite a north American puzzle – presumably the “northern city” is Aberdeen, Washington state.

  54. [This seems to be the day for Americana. Nearly defeated by today’s Wordle which turned out to be in US spelling. Oh well, it was created by an American: just something to bear in mind in future.]

  56. I’m a little surprised that no one seems to know ARROYO. I picked it up from my first viewing of The Magnificent Seven, probably when I was about 10. (It’s my most watched film. The three boys putting flowers on Charles Bronson’s grave always brings a tear to my eye.)

    I allowed myself to be misled by ‘Russian one’, sidetracking into thinking whether I know any Russian numbers (answer: no) and in fact what Russian words do I know? Probably just yes, no, truth, union and committee. Oh, and Ural. 😉

    Far from my usual “There was a theme?”, I spotted several in this one. As well as the 11a megatheme, there were American states in 1a, the second half of 20a and the clues for 25a, 7d and notoriously 8d. Also fruit in 23a and 3d and the clue for 2d. And another minitheme of cities in 5a, 24a and 7d.

    Thanks to Crucible for a fun puzzle, and to PeterO for the usual very clear blog.

  57. Yes, watchers and readers of westerns ought to know arroyo. And “school” as an anagram indicator has been used by Vlad.

  58. [As PeterO indicates, the definition for OUTLIERS was satisfactorily accurate. There are also “inliers” – outcrops of rocks surrounded by younger ones. One such in England is the Charnwood Forest, where the rocks are very much older than surrounding ones. Some very significant fossils have been found there.]

  59. [I learned French in a small, London prep school. When I was 10 or 11, went to France on holiday for the first time but couldn’t make myself understood. The next year went to Belgium and had no problem. It might have been me, but have always suspected it was the instruction.]

  61. [Wordle seems to be a reincarnation of a very old game. A few decades ago it was sold in toyshops as a something called Mastermind, with colored plastic pegs, and earlier than that it was a pen and paper game called Moo.]

  62. A DNF for me today. Perhaps as a result of having dropped Geography at 14, there were too many words/phrases I didn’t know: ROAD UP, SEED PEARL, ARROYO, SPHAGNUM. Also not aware of the GEM/ROSE connection or FED/BANK.

    Oh well, there’s always tomorrow…

  65. Delightful theme which helped speed matters along nicely.

    LOI was MESA which though obvious from the wordplay I’d nho.

    I also learned about solitary juvenile rocks.

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO (needed the explanation for gem/rose)

  66. Thanks both. I incorrectly parsed 5a as cutting use from Toulouse which Google told me (Toulo) is a city in/on the Ivory Coast: with that vague French connection (although the way it then parses is not strictly necessary if not somewhat obscure) was good enough for me, but as parsed above is much better.

  67. Good puzzle with a few iffy things here and there, but not too bad! I’m going to add another, for me anyway, as I thought it a bit of a shame to drag back old AYERS to remind us of all the ignorance that we can probably put down to colonialism.

  68. [Tyngewick@64 I don’t know about that. JHC was one of my mathematics professors, and that was about the time (or just after) he invented Life (the automata thing, not the board game). There was no discussion of Mastermind/Moo in the department, which doesn’t prove anything of course but might be significant.]

  69. [Gladys @ 54 and copland+smith @55 – re. Wordle, there is, I see a piece in the Indy this afternoon about UK players being flummoxed/outraged by the use of a US spelling. I had the second, fourth and fifth letters pinned down on my second guess, but after 2 failed attempts to accommodate this to words which work in both orthographies, I considered the available options and concluded reluctantly that it must be a US spelling and so got it on my fifth guess. US setter, US spellings, I suppose, as in UK crossword, UK general knowledge required…]

  70. [Referring back to a fairly recent puzzle – I won’t be specific – the first episode of David Attenborough’s Green planet featured kinkajous as pollinators.]

  71. I don’t think I’ve encountered PHYSIOGRAPHY and certainly didn’t know what it meant. The anagram fodder didn’t have an L, so the “study” coulen’t be an “-ology,” so I took out the letters of “-ography” and assembled what was left into “phys-“. I assumed at first that it was some study of human or animal bodily attributes, but 5d corrected me.

    What does paragon have to do with anything in the clue for STRATA?

    O actually was the abbreviation for Ohio in the days before the standard two-letter abbreviation for every state. Where states with long names like Massachusetts had four-letter abbreviations like Mass, the four-letter state had to be abbreviated too so it became O. I don’t know what they did with Utah.

    First encounter with DAVE.

    LILLIPUT got a star. What a great clue!

    Deer belong to the deer family and antelope to the cow family, though many of them look more like deer than like cows. Deer have antlers, which fall and regrow annually and which appear only on males (except for caribou and presumably reindeer); antelope have horns on both sexes, which don’t fall off.

    [I watched The Magnificent Seven in college, and there was something wrong with the equipment that stretched out vertically and compressed horizontally, I still have a mental picture of (I think) Yul Brynner sitting on the ground leaning against the corral fencing, with his stuck-out legs looking about half their natural length.]

    [muffin@60’s distinction between Roman and Florentine Italian reminds me of an episode in the Mapp and Lucia novels, in which Lucia and her friend Georgie, who have been claiming to speak fluent Italian, meet some actual Italian that they can’t understand. (Spoken or written, I don’t recall.) Their alibi is that the Italian they encountered was the dialect of Region A (don’t remember) while what they know is from Region B, by implication far superior.]

    And thanks for the fun, Crucible and PeterO.

  72. [Valentine @71
    Of course, Italy hasn’t been a single country* all that long.
    I tried watching Montalbano (set in Sicily) to improve my Italian, but it was like an Italian watching Cracker (set in Glasgow) to improve her English!
    *As an aside, Garibaldi was able to land unopposed in Marsala, Sicily, due to the presence of British warships in the harbour, interested in defending the Marsala trade.]

  73. Paddymelon, muffin et al:
    Many moons ago I was an assistant in a French lycee in my gap year. A wave of illness struck the staff so I was asked to teach German in French. I still recall the mental gymnastics involved!

  74. [Markfieldpete
    My triumph was, on a guided tour of a garden in Bellagio, translating the Italian guide’s commentary into French for a French family on the tour. Of course, I have little idea how accurate it was!]

  75. muffin @71 – sorry to be pedantic, but, despite Robbie Coltrane being Scottish and from the Glasgow area, Cracker was set not in Glasgow, but in Manchester.

  77. Late to the party, so nothing much to add to the discussion of the crossword itself but thanks Crucible for the entertainment, and thanks PeterO for the excellent as ever blog – although I had a rare case of no parsing difficulties at all today, and no unfamiliar words (including ARROYO, sh @56).

    Thanks also PM @38 for the LOL, and Eileen @33/Gervase @37 for the SPHAGNUM aside – lovely word indeed.

    [Valentine @71 – I didn’t think it would be possible to top yesterday’s cultural digressions, but if you’re bringing Mapp & Lucia into the conversation, you’re really talking my language. I love those books so much. The episode you’re referring to is from the first book, Queen Lucia, when Lucia’s reputation for proficiency in Italian earns her an invite to a dinner party held by the opera singer Olga Braceley, where one of the other guests is an Italian composer who speaks no English… what comes next is painfully predictable but very funny.]

    [On the subject of French teachers, my first two French teachers at secondary school were from Marseille and Paris, and even they couldn’t understand each other. At least, they claimed they couldn’t understand each other. With hindsight, I wonder if there was something more personal to it.]

  80. [SC @78
    Yes indeed – I couldn’t even tell if Rab C. was using language!
    Didn’t Taggart only appear in the first series of Taggart?]

  81. [FWIW my first French teacher, the one I accused earlier of having a closer-to-Belgian accent, was Scottish. He would put the stress on the first syllable of avoir and devoir, which as far as I know (now) is wrong in every dialect]

  82. [Not quite, muffin @80 – Taggart began in the mid-80s and Mark McManus died in 1994, so he got through a number of seasons before succumbing to the drink, a not unfamiliar affliction in Glasgow culture.]

  83. Good fun – I massively overthought TOULOUSE and decided to cut the USE leaving TOULO and then lift and separate “another” to give the N leaving “other” as the definition – where’s Occam’s razor when you need it?

    Seemed to be a lot of indirect subtractions but they were all rather fab including my LOI STRATA

    Chambers has an archaic meaning of DEER as “any kind of animal” – that was gnus to me

  84. bodycheetah @83
    Someone suggested that earlier. However it doesn’t explain why he didn’t use “antelope”. I suspect a simple mistake.

  85. Pretty straightforward solve with some nice clues (13A excepted). I also found O for Ohio to be a bit off – I’ve never heard of this and as someone living under an hour from the OH border I was wondering what to do with the extra “H” here!

  88. Late to this today.

    O for Ohio is, as Valentine says, an older abbreviation; it’s just about disappeared now. In Indianapolis, when I was a kid the road signs used to tell you that I-70 East took you to “Columbus, O.” (to distinguish it from Columbus, IN, which is on I-65 South); I think that’s the only place I’ve ever seen it in the wild. (When they redid the highway when I was a teenager, the sign got changed to reflect the modern abbreviation.) In the older system, Oklahoma was Okla., and Oregon was Ore.

    As an American former geology student, this whole puzzle was right up my alley; unfortunately that meant that it took a depressingly short amount of time to finish.

    I think I learned the word ARROYO from Steinbeck (whom we read a fair bit of in school over here, since he’s unimpeachably canonical and his writing is straightforward enough for the middle grades). I liked that clue, because the phrase used to hide it was aptly Western in flavor.

  90. I enjoyed this one, particular the shenanigans in “his happy orgy”.
    There’s clearly a baseball theme going on here with Jose MESA, Bronson ARROYO, Tito Fuentes PEAT, Ruben SIERRA, Mike EDEN and Bill AYERS all being present and former major league players and the ERIE SeaWolves, the ABERDEEN IronBirds and the OMAHA Storm Chasers all being minor league teams 😉 . Who says I never spot a theme!
    Thanks, Cruc and PeterO.

  91. phitonelly @9: nine instances deserves to be a theme. Well done you. I suspect it isn’t the one Crucible had in mind but you should take a private bow!

  93. PostMark @91. Comment was entirely tongue-in-cheek. I don’t for one minute believe it was intentional!

  94. [muffin @ 89 – I saw your comment yesterday and hoped that mrpenney would reply. I think it is, as even I’ve heard of “Miami Beach, Florida”. I’ve just checked and google calls it a resort, for what that’s worth…]

  96. [Muffin @88: I guess it depends on your definitions. Can a city of a half-million people ever be a resort? Tourism isn’t Miami’s first or second most important industry. And yet, people go there to go to the beach. I’d say that Miami *Beach* is a resort–that is, that metropolitan Miami contains a resort. But maybe I’m splitting hairs.]

  98. lady gewgaw @ 67 re Ayers. Yes, the rock, formerly known as, has appeared in Guardian cryptics a couple of times recently. It shows that the reference point is still Ayers, although on both occasions the setters did acknowledge the name change. I’d imagine that a lot of people still don’t know Uluru. It would be good to see Uluru clued. I had a go, but it’s way beyond me.

  100. widdersbel@77 – I can believe your story of your two French teachers. After I’d lived in Paris as an assistant d’anglais for six months, I spoke and understood French well. However, I spent Easter weekend in Marseille and while taking a local bus, I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between the bus conductor and a passenger and I honestly hadn’t a clue what they were talking about!

    Thanks for the enjoyment, setter, blogger and contributors.

  101. [phitonelly @99: nice!
    Australian icon gets into Zulu rugby (5)
    Aussie rock – no boundaries, dark desires, shocking! (5) ]

  102. I only think of a resort as a hotel complex with plenty of bars, restaurants, pools and usually beach access. Yes you can have resort towns, but to me that would be a place with multiple resort hotels ( like Port Douglas and presumably, Miami Beach).

  103. For me this was an experience very much like that of Dave Ellison @1 (answers shooting in initially but slowing down for the second half – the left side in my case) and nothing at all like muffin’s (quickest Crucible ever). My encouraging start came from the long one going down and PHYSIOGRAPHY crossing it. Overall, I enjoyed it, especially the physiographical theme.

    Thanks to Crucibke and PeterO.

  104. [phitonelly@99 Nailed it! And essexboy@ 101 Love the misdirects!

    I went to Uluru at a time when non local people were still climbing it, but chose to walk around it alone instead, about 5 miles. It was a wonderful experience, waterholes and shady nooks, and plants and wildlife that you wouldn’t know were there otherwise.]

  105. Liked LILLIPUT especially. Most of the terms were known words with no definition in my mind.
    Thanks to Crucibke and PeterO.

  107. In hospital so this was the first time I tried the online version. Nicely discovered my prepaged subscription covers online access to the crosswords, but not other puzzles. Found the check too tempting.

  108. As GreginSyd implies but nobody has stated explicitly, Miami Beach and Miami are separate towns. I would never call a big city like Miami with all the usual components of one a resort, even if it had some pleasure spots, but Miami Beach is a resort, or a “resort city” as google calls it. It’s a barrier island across Biscayne Bay from the city and includes commercial and urban components as well as resort-ish ones. Up until a few years ago, black people couldn’t own property there. They recently relented.

  109. A DNF, I’m afraid. SEED defeated me (forced the PEARL in), and I missed EDEN. Must remember garden = Eden!
    I liked RURAL – the river was a new one to me, as I’d only heard of the mountains before, but it was a fair clue.

  110. Dr WhatsOn @58
    [He was one of my lecturers, too. I remember him taking part in general discussions of ‘Moo’ in the Pure Maths coffee room in about 1969. It was quite widely played for a while among maths students at that time.]

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