I looked it up. There are 22 places called Salem in the US, the most famous being the one with the witch trials. It’s also the capital of Oregon and a small town in my own state (Connecticut) I didn’t even know how to find on a map.

LOW YEAR)* – the Royal We was Queen Victoria’s way of referring to herself (as in the apocryphal “we are not amused”), or her “one”, as formerly used by the more recent late Queen GROSS OUT: that is why I underlined just ‘disgust (verb) as definition, leaving ‘show’ as a link word. Now that’s off my chest: I actually found this mostly enjoyable and a touch easier than previous from the same setter. I needed help with TITOIST (would never have got there on my own, to be fair) but almost all the rest was a steady, reasonably challenging solve, albeit with some solutions from definition and crossers without really understanding the parsing til I got here. I noticed three Frenchisms which suited this Francophone but may have been a little trop for some… C (chapter) + an anagram (about) of FOUR – I have happy memories of visiting these delightful locations (worth a look) on a holiday in Corfu

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Arcing is a type of electrical discharge that occurs when electrons flow between two conductors, usually metal, in an environment with a gas or vacuum. The conductors can be wires, rods, or other objects that are capable of carrying an electrical current.’) Edit – thanks to KVa and Alan C: a reversal (up, in a down clue) of LEG (pin) + C in A lot of NAKE[d] (raw) I thought of trying DOER where SHER is, since a doe is a female of various species, and a doer is an actor. But then “old” in the clue wouldn’t have been doing anything–doer is a rare word, but not a particularly archaic one.

There are a number of neat anagrams and some witty definitions and deft misdirection, with great surfaces all round.

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The cryptic grammar (I follow) doesn’t quite work here – a pity, since the setter dealt with I effectively in the previous clue and in 8dn muffin @53 – I would see ‘apply’ (with qm) as one of Paul’s whimsical adjectival constructs, like ‘jetty’ = ‘a bit like a jet’. Fwiw Wiktionary has apply as an alternative spelling of appley. And come to think of it, if stubble can be stubbly, and a bobble can be bobbly, why can’t an apple be apply? DE (inDEed at heart, which took a minute or two to work out – nice misdirection) + PRESS) (iron) + I[r]ON) minus r (right) The PDF option will still show if it was available on the old crosswords before they were moved over to our new platform. How do I print a crossword?