Guardian 29,582 – Yank

84 comments on “Guardian 29,582 – Yank”

1. I was also thinking Deadhead for hippies, but have not heard the term dead on its own with that meaning. Also a bIt puzzled about fiasco = LOSER. Otherwise pretty straightforward and very enjoyable. Thanks Yank and Andrew.

2. paul @1
   I had exactly the same quibbles. But I assumed that using “Fiasco” as a derogatory term for someone who has failed may be an Americanism that equates the use of the word “Loser”. Had never heard it used in such a sense but it seemed like the sort of way Valley Girls use English.

   On the plus side, I found the UK popular culture references (Winnie and LOTR) to be centred in the reasonable realm of general knowledge.
   Like the Bible, Harry Potter and James Bond, the expectation should be that the solver knows the reference, rather than Google.

3. I suppose Dead could be referring to the band, themselves, rather than their followers but whether I would agree that they can be simply described as hippies, I’m less sure. I was also confused by ‘fiasco’ = LOSER and, tbh, by ‘shows contempt’ = SNARLS. ‘Sneers’, ‘spurns’ and ‘scorns’ all came to mind – ‘snarl’ conveys a different and more aggressive sense to me.

4. When I checked for dead meaning hippy, I got deadhead, so wasn’t convinced by DEAD DUCKS, and I had the same issues with LOSER and SNARLS as Postmark @3. Which is a shame, because many of the clues were great.

   MCourtney @2 – I quite like learning things from crosswords and don’t expect everything clued to be within my sphere of knowledge.

   Thank you to Yank and Andrew.

5. Postmark @3 I was puzzled by snarls too but reasoned that a snarl could be seen as a challenge to an opponent and therefore a claim of superiority.

   My least favourite was bier, partly because it’s one of those words I have only ever come across written down so always thought it would be pronounced “bee-er”, but also because how is “cold one” a beer?To be expected from a Yank, I suppose.

   Gay=out doesn’t work for me, though I did guess it would be an Australian phrase.

   A did-not-finish for me.

6. I struggled to finish for all the reasons already mentioned. Couldn’t see Fiasco=Loser or Snarls= Shows contempt for. The typo at 7dn also threw me. Otherwise this was enjoyable. Thanks to Yank and Andrew.

7. I found this a very mixed bag with much to love, such as pooh-bah, genitalia and eco-warrior. However, the divisions of our common language are all too plain to see. “heat” for “police” is very American, but the most egregious one was the expectation that a beer would be served cold. I was shocked. Shocked I tell you!

   Utterly unconvinced by “loser” – the definition doesn’t work, the reversal is wrong (it’s a down clue) and the word “left” is not an instruction to go left. I cannot make it work at all, sorry. Ditto for “dead” = “hippie” even with vague associations with the Grateful ones I cannot see an adequate equivalence here. I also thought the second definition of “lager” was both obscure and inaccurate (you laager the wagons, not the people, though given the etymology the people are laagered inside – both the beer and the wagon arrangement come from a Germanic root meaning a storage place).

   I realise I’ve harped on much more about problems so will end with the fact that I really enjoyed the rest of it! So thank you Yank and also Andrew for the parsings.

8. NHO laager, leaving 4D unparsed. 24D defeated me entirely, and seeing the parsing I’m still not entirely happy with “gay” for “out perhaps”. And today I learned how “bier” is supposed to be pronounced. OTH I was fine with “cold one” for “beer”, it is a common enough expression in the US.

   Other than that, I shared the quibbles already mentioned.

   Favorites were 5A, 18A, and 25A.

9. 25a “… After Garcia’s death in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as The Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and as
   The DEAD in 2003, 2004, and 2009″

10. Didn’t like LOSER and only entered it after much hesitation. The parsing of 22a DOLLAR SIGN seems problematic. Where does the ‘A’ come from? It can’t be from ‘a good-looker’ as that would involve an indirect anagram.

11. Tough puzzle. Lower half was trickier for me. I was tempted to give up as it is a rare, sunny day and I want to go for a walk along the beach but I managed to finish it 🙂

    I was surprised to see 9ac GABLE clued as 1930s actor but it makes more sense that way.

    I couldn’t parse 14ac (but guessed it was an anagram somehow), 25ac DEAD = hippies – I agree with Andrew that the only thing I could think of was a reference to the Grateful Dead; 4d I never heard of the Afrikaans word laager.

    Like others, I wondered about fisaco = LOSER.

    New for me: the fact that porcupines are rodents (for 28ac).

    Thanks, both.

12. Thanks (?) Yank and Andrew
    I’m adding Yank to my “don’t bother with list”. I have question marks of various sorts against 12 clues. Particularly irritating was 12a, where I did make the very loose connection between “cold one” and beer (Australian rather than US?), but wrote in BIER.
    Why 1930s for GABLE? It’s unnecessary, and also partly incorrect – he made films up to The misfits in 1961.
    “Hippies” = DEAD? “Fiasco” = LOSER? I could go on.
    I started quickly in the NW, and liked GABRIEL, GAGGED, and ECO-WARRIOR>

13. Nice one, with the same puzzlement as others around LOSER. I wasn’t so bothered by SNARLS, though the definition is a bit of a stretch.

    I liked the constructions for DRAMA SERIES and DINOSAUR, and UDDER and G’DAY (LOI) were LOL.

    POOH-BAH is an interesting one. Both ‘Pooh!’ and ‘Bah!’ are expressions of contempt, put together by Gilbert for his character in Mikado. I have always assumed that Milne’s Pooh Bear was a pun on the name of the Lord High Everything Else.

    Thanks to Yank and Andrew

14. I got off to a good start, thinking for 1a that “cheese” is usually BRIE, as indeed it was, and the top left corner followed smoothly. After that it became much more of a struggle. I was completely thrown by the typo in 7d, and tried googling Sluga which is apparently Serbo-Croat for a servant. The correct clue is in fact rather good!

    Some nice surfaces, such as the actor and bandleader breaking wind; others a bit weird – Claire Danes ripping off Cod War participants?

    Thanks to Yank and to Andrew.

15. … I took DEAD to be a reference to the West Coast band, who were often abbreviated thus.

16. Thanks Yank and Andrew

    poc @ 10 as per the blog, 22 is DOLL plus an anagram of IN RAGS.

17. When Gabriel blows his trumpet boys … I went Now isn’t that a bit of Oz bush poetry? [It’s by AB Patterson; not, apparently, Waltzing Matilda’s Banjo P with one t]. Anyhoo, thanks Yank and Andrew, fun puzzle.

18. Unconvinced. Reasons already rehearsed above.

    Just one too many over-stretchings.

    Some great “subtract then use as fodder” anagrams which I love when smoothly clued like Drama Series.

    Thanks Yank and Andrew

19. The Grateful Dead was a hippy band in their early days. One of the solutions is the title of a Grateful Dead song and another is the name of a longtime Deadhead friend of mine. So I’m calling this a mini-theme 😉

20. muffin @12: Your ‘don’t bother with’ list seems to be getting ever longer, but you still seem to be torturing yourself with their puzzles 🙂

    (And I don’t understand how you came to enter BIER – the wordplay seems unambiguous to me).

21. Indeed, Gervase @ 15. The Dead were rooted irreversibly in, and emerged from, the hippie counter-culture of mid-1960s San Francisco, although their performing life long outlasted the ‘hippie era’ as such. So I had no problem with that.

22. Aoxomoxoa @19: And your own nom-de-plume adds to the mini theme!

23. Never quite felt comfortable with this. Though I did struggle on to a finish, there were too many bits of parsing that had me mouthing What? As mentioned in several of the comments above. UDDER did make me smile, however, though I think this device has been seen before on here.

24. I agree with Jack OFT @7 regarding SNARLS, fiasco & loser, dead & hippies (indeed, I know a fair number who are still very much alive and kicking).
    I’m also 100% behind Jack regarding beer: cold? Ye gods!! (And if anyone’s getting a round in, I feel the same way about Whisky: just a splash of room-temperature water, please – no ice!!)
    I appreciate Yank may include Americanisms – but I’d always thought heat was weaponry: something that both villains & police “packed”, so that’s a new meaning for me.
    Also tush, which I’d thought just meant one’s bottom.
    7D’s typo made that impenetrable for me: a Crossed Fingers Guess, from the crossers.
    But, on the plus-side: I really liked GABRIEL, GABLE & GAGGED, grinned at UDDER & GENITALIA, was amused at the image of Claire Danes giving Icelanders a rough time (now THERE’S an idea for a future series of ‘Homeland’!) and, once I’d stopped wondering about that blasted pink doll (or even Klaus) finally twigged the Australian greeting.
    So thank you Yank for the education, and Andrew for the blog.

25. Gervase @20
    It’s that unsatisfactory “in” again in 12a. It can be read the other way. I have less excuse for entering ROSE @ 21a, though!

26. Thanks Yank and Andrew

    I largely enjoyed this even as a relatively new solver, but did have similar questions and quibbles to those already raised.

    One I’d like to question is 28a – does the grammar work? I got it and parsed it, but doesn’t beings pursuing punishment imply that Ents should come before rod? Now if beings were pursued by punishment I would accept the grammar but it would spoil the surface. Any thoughts from any more experienced solvers – am I misunderstanding or overthinking?

27. Simon S@16: No, that doesn’t work and I’m afraid the blog is wrong. There’s a missing ‘A’.

28. poc @27
    There’s only one A in dollAr sign?

29. Slug a la mode though it appears to be a snail

30. Muffin@28: The blog states, and I quote: “DOLL (good-looker) + (IN RAGS)*”. There is no A in that parsing. There is an A in DOLLAR SIGN. QED.

31. MC @26 if you substitute ‘following’ for ‘pursuing’ then you should see that ENTS follows ROD

    poc @27 I don’t see a problem with this. The A comes from RAGS so, DOLL + anagram of INRAGS = 10 letters, all accounted for.

32. Seemed to be a lot of creatures going hither and yon inc POOH bear, COW & UDDER, BEE, RAM, DUCK, RODENT, BABOON, BULL and DINOSAUR. Agree that this included some head-scratching moments but I found it most enjoyable. ‘Grateful’ for the challenge and thought ICELANDERS and DRAMA SERIES were great spots.

    Ta Yank & Andrew.

33. poc @30 — there’s definitely an A in RAGS. Look, there it is again 🙂

34. This American has never heard “fiasco” used to refer to a person, or “loser” used to refer to a situation. “A cold one” for “a beer” is standard American, though.

    The clue for 12 could yield BIER as easily as BEER, and since BIER is what I went for, I was held up at 7D for a while.

35. [Pooh was so-called because of the noise he made blowing flies off his nose while his arms were stuck straight up after hanging on to a balloon*. He was originally Edward Bear; I can’t remember where “Winnie” came from.
    *It’s surprising in how many works of fiction, balloons always float upwards. Only helium (or the hazardous hydrogen) balloons would do so. I would be surprised if they were easily available in 1926, when the story was written. There was a Jonathan Creek episode in which the plot needs an ordinary balloon to float a considerable distance.]

36. Quite a tricky solve, not helped by the various quibbles mentioned. Loser= fiasco I don’t get, and I agree that “left” is a strange indicator for a down clue! Dead = hippies can only be about the band but I’ve not heard it used generically.

    The quibble-free clues were mostly excellent though. So yes, a mixed bag.

    Thanks Yank and Andrew

37. [muffin @35: From an article in Time magazine:
    Although the book was published 89 years ago Wednesday, the beloved character got his start five years before, when Milne gave his son a toy bear for his first birthday on Aug. 21, 1921. But that bear wasn’t named Winnie: he was initially called Edward. The name Winnie came later, from a brown bear thaAlthough the book was published 89 years ago Wednesday, the beloved character got his start five years before, when Milne gave his son a toy bear for his first birthday on Aug. 21, 1921. But that bear wasn’t named Winnie: he was initially called Edward. The name Winnie came later, from a brown bear that young Christopher Robin Milne visited in the London Zoo. Harry Colebourn, a Canadian lieutenant and veterinary surgeon, had brought the bear cub to England at the beginning of World War I and named her for the city of Winnipeg, leaving her at the London Zoo when his unit left for France. Milne’s introduction to his 1924 book When We Were Very Young traces the origin of the second half of the name to a swan: “Christopher Robin, who feeds this swan in the mornings, has given him the name of ‘Pooh.’ This is a very fine name for a swan, because, if you call him and he doesn’t come (which is a thing swans are good at), then you can pretend that you were just saying ‘Pooh!’ to show him how little you wanted him”]

38. [Sorry for the duplication in the middle – finger trouble]

39. [Thanks Gervase @37]

40. I think I had three clues solved in the top half on my first pass, but theSE corner began to come together and then the SW. Some of the definitions seemed a bit weird, but are we speaking American English here? I am trying to learn Vietnamese using Duolingo and sometimes the English is odd, to put it mildly .
    Unlike Gdu and muffins, I do not hya don’t attempt list, but I do have an I’m going to struggle with this thought when I see certain setters. Yank is one of many, most really, but I enjoy the challenge. I try not to use aids until I’m really stuck and often find the go away and come back later approach works just as well. I needed that for fiasco/ loser; He’s a fiasco/loser. Really? Okay, maybe in Annapolis.
    Thanks both

41. I quite enjoyed this – often struggle with Yank but got on his wavelength today (except LAGER). Not Chambers, but Merriam Webster has loser=fiasco and I think it works (to some extent), just to be contrary 🙂

42. I gave up at 80%, rare for me. I’ve enjoyed precious puzzles by Yank but found this one hard to tune into. The typo in the BULLETIN clue threw me, although once fixed it’s a good clue. Per previous commenters, LOSER is flawed by both directionality and reversal indicator word (and a stretchy definition, so an unsatisfactory clue thrice over). And an inconsistent approach to AmEng indicators: we got one for DOLLAR SIGN but not for the HEAT part of HEADREST.

    But I liked DINOSAUR, UDDER, RODENTS and DRAMA SERIES.

43. I read a lot of US fiction, but this was too Yank for me. Definitions that won’t be found in Chambers. It should be in the Boston Globe.

44. I quite enjoyed this, but had the same quibbles as most. The best thing to emerge from it, imo, is the description of the loose synonyms from JofT@7, with minor paraphrasing: inadequate equivalence.

45. Non-UK solvers often comment that Britishisms have passed them by, but they don’t harrumph about it. A puzzle by Yank does what it says on the tin! 🙂

46. I thought this was fine apart from the quibbles mentioned. As a Brit who is aware of other cultures I’m definitely familiar with the term ‘a cold one’ for beer, although I would associate it with Australia rather than the US. British ales should be cool when drunk, that’s why they are traditionally kept in cellars. The idea they are served warm comes from US, Oz, Germany and elsewhere where beer is drunk very cold making ours appear warm.

47. Gervase@37…and I recently read A.A. Milne’s delightful autobiography, “It’s Too Late Now”. Told with great wit and humour. What a talented individual he was…

48. Gervase @45: I would quibble with that – it’s a puzzle in a UK paper and so the default is that the puzzle uses UK English unless signalled somehow. If we are to assume that the setter’s name signifies US usage then that should be consistent. However, we had an Americanism indicator for “dollar sign”, the British “laager” rather than “corral”, and even a cricket reference. I think Yank is well aware that Americanisms need signalling (as was the use of Italian and Strine in the puzzle) but very few people are aware just how many expressions do not translate – “a cold one” being a good example. Only recently I had to point out to a Canadian friend that the way he used “moot point” was pretty much exactly opposite to the way a British person uses it – and no-one else present had the slightest idea there was a conflict there.

    Having said all that, I am in awe of people who solve these puzzles without having the full cultural background many setters assume. And, like Shanne@4, when I have to dig out a cultural reference I don’t understand (be it foreign or related to modern popular music combos, or television series) I am glad to have learned something.

49. [I remember reading that Americans think that beer in Britain is sour, flat, and warm, whereas it is, of course, bitter and served with the chill off – I can’t remember the rebuttal of “flat”.
    “Cold one” was how Crocodile Dundee described a beer, hence why I associated it more with Australia.]

50. LOSER is to the left in the horizontal line on the page: you just write it in vertically.

51. A little surprised at the frothing (hee hee) over “cold one” because the phrase is ubiquitous here (e.g.), but that is one of our differences.* “The Dead” as a nickname for the Grateful Dead is ubiquitous too, even before the legacy band that officially went by the name The Dead (I did have trouble with that but it was my fault.)

    Loser… yeah no. I thought maybe it could be taken as “loser” for a losing situation, like maybe a bet that’s a loser, or a venture that’s a loser? Even then it’s pretty loose. Pity because the wordplay was so good. IMO “left” is OK as a reversal indicator in down clues for hidden words and hidden words only, because you can go right to left in the clue even if not in the grid.

    Defeated by G’DAY but had to admit it was fair when I revealed it. Overall a fun solve for me. Thanks Yank and Andrew!

    MCourtney@2: Winnie the Pooh and LOTR are certainly universal touchstones at least in the US! The things I found UKish in this puzzle were GEN, DUCKS, Rose Tyler, and the Cod Wars, but they all cross my threshold of having heard of it independently–I’ve even seen a couple of Eccleston/Piper Dr. Who episodes and the first two are crossword staples.

    *[In Ruth Rendell’s excellent novel Talking to Strange Men one of the main characters finds himself unwillingly spending time with a self-absorbed jerk. One of the signs of what a jerk he is is that he serves beer in cans, extremely cold. This was funny to me.]

    [JackofFewTrades@48: The real stumper for me is “tabling” a bill in the legislature. In the US it means suspending it for further consideration that will likely never come, in the UK it means starting to consider it now! I think.]

    [muffin@49: That reminds me of Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, where Mildred Lathbury doesn’t know what to order in a pub and asks for bitter, “hoping that it wasn’t the kind that tasted like washing-up water,” but “When it came I found that it was.”]

52. My overarching thought whilst ploddingly solving this was that it’s a great crossword that deserves more careful editing (for the reasons rehearsed multiple times above)

53. I agree that this was a mixed bag. Some great clues, although I felt that DRAMA SERIES was overworked, and I thought it was stretching it to have a homophone from Afrikaans without any indicator as such. Should G’Day have been (1,3)?

    GABRIEL, ECO-WARRIOR, DINOSAUR, RHOS, LINDEN and PINT OF ALE were all lovely. As indeed a pint of ale would be right now.

    Thanks S&B.

54. We have BEER, LAGER, and PINT OF ALE. Wonder what Yank was doing while he set this…

    I am still of the opinion that the setter (not just this one; any setter) need not signal Americanisms. If it’s in the dictionary, you should know it, or at least be able to look it up. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the people who protest such things around here are just against Americanisms in general. But as my compatriots have already said, fiasco = LOSER isn’t American, it’s just wrong.

    I liked POOH-BAH for a reason no one’s noted yet: “tush” is an Americanism for “arse”, yet another Yiddish loan, which makes that clue pretty funny.

55. mrpenney @54: I agree. JoFT complains that ‘heat’ wasn’t flagged up as an Americanism but DOLLAR SIGN was, but the latter isn’t an Americanism at all – it’s perfectly understandable in British English and appears on all our keyboards. Just ‘mark’ would have been rather too vague, so Yank embroidered it a bit.

    And I smiled at ‘tush’ – I always enjoy a bit of Yiddish.

56. And perhaps we need some examples from other registers of English, innit 🙂

57. “Tush” for arse (ass in the US) features in the dance scene (!) near the end of Blazing Saddles.

58. [Sorry to hear Gervase@38 has suffered an escalation in middle-finger trouble.]

59. Thanks to Yank and Andrew. Grateful

60. Same comments as most others really, excellent crossword with a few quibbles. Chambers has “to speak in a surly manner” for SNARL, and “haughty” as a Shakesperean meaning for surly, so maybe that is the connection. Plausible, but it still feels like a stretch to me.

    Chambers also has “a complete failure of any kind” for fiasco, which if applied literally to a not very successful person might get you to LOSER.

    Feel like I’m clutching at straws here a bit, but that was as close as I could get to parsing these two. As I said above, I really enjoyed the rest of it.

61. In the Jewish part of Leeds where I grew up, the Yiddish for bum was tukas, apparently americanised into “tush”.

62. You can say ‘we’re onto a loser here’ about a situation, and if you’re offered ‘a cold one’, it’s generally going to be a beer even in the UK.

63. Got on fine with this except for DOLLAR SIGN and SNARLS.
    UDDER was the funniest.

64. It may be relevant that the English meaning of TUSH used in 5ac has a similar usage to PISH and WS Gilbert combined the two to make Pish-Tush, a rather less important Mikado character than POOH-BAH.
    Those wanting reassurance that good things can come out of America should google GABRIEL and Sutton Foster.

65. [MikeB @64
    That reminds me of Ping, Pang, and Pong (unlikely) minor characters in Puccini’s Turandot.]

66. Battled through this with great difficulty and ultimately failed on 20d, where I essayed an unparsed ‘snorts’. Quite a lot I didn’t know, which is par for the course with this compiler. Better fortune tomorrow (I hope).

67. Ref Aoxomoxoa @19 I am the said friend (1 ac being my name). I like the mini-theme idea, and will add 23d to the mix, Loser being a much played song of the Dead’s.

68. Forgot to mention that as for Clark Gable, while his career lasted until 1961, his era as the top Hollywood box-office draw was over by the early 40s. Most of his most memorable movies are from the span between 1932’s It Happened One Night (still a great movie) and 1939’s Gone With the Wind (wildly overrated, even if you choose to ignore the racism and revisionist history). So I’d say “30s actor” does the job–it makes you think of the right guy, and that’s what a clue is supposed to do.

    Gervase @56: 🙂

    [Muffin @65: not even all that minor–they’re in every scene but one, and they get Act 2 Scene 1 almost to themselves.]

69. Lovely crossword, 24d was the clue of the day.
    NHO HEAT = POLICE
    Thanks both

70. After reading the blog, I’m glad for the comments regarding SNARLES, FIASCO, DEAD, I had the same issues, indicating that I am not a complete idiot.

71. wrt 23d – parsed the clue a L for left and POSER (as unresolved) – to a degree giving OSER – combining to produce LOSER. Still felt answer was a bit of a loose definition as others did.

72. Mr P @68
    I suppose it depends on what you mean by “minor”!

73. Similar experience to many above. I always dislike Americanisms…. surely a crossword in a British paper should be in proper English, as opposed to its illegitimate offspring, “US English”? Like others, I eventually gave up and revealed the last three, all of which were very poorly clued – DOLLAR SIGN, SNARLS and LOSER.
    Thanks to Andrew for trying to explain what was, in all fairness, a bit of a mess.

74. muffin @49[ As a Southerner I prefer my pint without a head. The server usually refers to it as flat. A friend pointed out that as it retains all the gas naturally produced in the brewing process, it is less flat than one with a head which is produced by the release of said gas. ]

75. Got there in the end. Agree with everything everyone has said but GENITALIA, ECO-WARRIOR, UDDER and the brilliant HAIR-RAISERS make this my fave puzzle so far this year. Thanks Yank, thanks Andrew.

76. Rob T@33 et al: I sit corrected. There is indeed an A. I can even see it now. Embarrassing.

77. poc @76 ha ha! we all get blindspots so don’t worry about it. Happy New Year.

78. Rob T@33 et al: I sit corrected, There is indeed an A. I can even see it now …

79. Nice to come here and see the quibbles being pretty much consistent with my own. I got off to a good start with it but struggled to varying degrees after getting the grid half-filled. I’d thought/assumed that given my pounding headache, aching limbs, cough etc that my brain just wasn’t up to the mark on this occasion, so there’s some reassurance of the ‘it’s not just me, then’ variety.

80. I suppose we can get used to a bit of looseness after a while, or else hope that the setter tightens up after feedback. Just ‘left’ to require reading a hidden word backwards is simply wrong.

    I’m not going to start reading Tolkien at my time of life, so ENTS will just have to be memorised. ‘Hippies’ for DEAD is a bit of a stretch for me too, though at least I was able to write in the answer.

    I enjoyed the clue for 10a, though I did think it was a little clumsy to have ‘Genova’ in the clue, containing the same first three letters as the answer. Maybe ‘Napoli’ could have improved it a little?

    Thanks to Yank and Andrew.

81. Hello All,

    YANK here. Regarding the DEAD DUCKS clue, my original clue was “U.S. band …” I’m guessing that the editor intended to change this to “Hippie band …” but left out the “band.”

82. Many thanks Fred.

    I actually parsed DEAD as a cool-speak intensifier, perhaps used by hippies, as in “they’re so zeroes” indicated by the exclamation mark, so didn’t get caught up in the debate.

83. On the Android Guardian ap, clues with formatting appear as their HTML source when selected, so 7d looks like
    “Report <i>Slug</i><i>a la mode</i>”
    It’s annoying because it makes reading the clue hard, and because the HTML is so badly formatted.

84. Missed three, similar to HoagyM@73: DOLLAR SIGN, LOSER, LINDEN, though all were gettable in retrospect (to the left?)

    Held up by a great misdirection in 28a RODENTS, with “orc” contained in “porcupine”

    Belated thanks to Yank@81 for commenting — always great to hear from the setter!

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