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Well, I found this the toughest yet. Lots of traps to fall into.

A bit of a grind and it needed a bit of reverse engineering.

The Bob Norton allusion escapes me. Even his interesting bio seems to throw no light on the answer...

Update. I see that a 'Norton' authored the book whose title is the grid entry...

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend this short video featuring Jonathan Crowther and Gemelo (which I now know how to pronounce)…

https://youtu.be/JpcMqY71UVE?si=Q-PVj-VeWj7LCKC2

Rattled along nicely once I had a few letters in the grid. Credit to Gemelo for so many entries with unique anagrams. That helped a lot.

Yes a tough puzzle, and I'm not sure it was my favourite so far, though clever it undoubtedly was.

My gripe with Gemelo is with his description in 23 ("...from northern parts of Scotland").

We live in a village sometimes called the first village in the Highlands, so our view to the north is of the rugged 'Arrochar Alps'.

Because the Highlands run on a diagonal line SW to NE it is possible to be at our house in the Highlands just 40 minutes north of Glasgow Central - definitely not northern Scotland: likewise one may be north of Inverness at the 'Black Isle' enjoying the rolling, agricultural lowlands scenery, definitely in the north of Scotland!

I don't think it's a pedantic point...

Harumph - Naughty Gemelo!

Rant over.

M

Understood, Hounds and I share your irritation. But the fact is that in common understanding there are several “norths”: just a few - true, magnetic and “map”. True and magnetic are pretty convergent at present but “map” in the sense of the usual representation of the UK which most citizens treat as their conventional understanding is way off and always was: Edinburgh is actually a good way west of Liverpool but you won’t see that on any traditional atlas. In those representations the Highland Boundary Fault becomes almost horizontal rather than the dramatic diagonal that it is on (and in) the ground.

Maybe we should take some comfort from the fact that, north of the Fault, we are geologically in Canada rather than Europe….😉

Thank you Jack and I defer to you with your greater cartological knowledge.

I took my atlas of the UK (Faber, 1956) and turned the relevant page clockwise about thirty-five degrees, so as to make the Highland Boundary Fault horizontal as you suggest.

Garelochhead - where I stay - stubbornly remains in central Scotland despite this change.

There are, however significant ramifications: if Dumbarton Town FC ever play Raith Rovers I will no longer be able to chant 'you dirty northern b*st*rds'.

It's a gripping debate so I have opened some crisps and poured a glass of wine, waiting for the switchboard to light up.

M

Made it across the line with a final push this morning.

I’ve come across “escape through hedge” before in a puzzle… I look forward to the day I can deploy the term in real life!

The anagram function in the Chambers app proved rather useful.

Thanks to Gemelo for a good challenge.