Paul sets the challenge this morning – and I found it quite a tough one.
At one point, I found that I had the bottom half completed and practically nothing in the top but managed to chip away at it and finally got there, with one parsing which is beyond me.
Favourite clues were 6ac, 11ac, 21ac, 22ac, 26ac, 1dn, 3dn and 22dn.
Thanks to Paul for an ultimately satisfying workout.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Spooner’s glimpse behind Spooner’s obscuration? (3-6)
PEA-SOUPER
Not a great fan of Spoonerisms and I can’t really make this one out – see (glimpse) pooper? (not a great start) Please see comments 3-6.
6 Charming thing replacing British leader in PM once with leader in multimillionaire (4)
MOJO
[b]OJO (nickname for Boris Johnson, (PM once) with the B (British ‘leader’) replaced with M[ultimillionaire]
8 Almost nothing that is absorbing moisture, initially, drying mixture (4,4)
SODA LIME
SOD AL[l] (almost nothing) + IE (that is) round M[oisture]
9 A jacket shortened, very hot? (6)
ABLAZE
A BLAZE[r] (jacket)
10 Dog – spaniel? (6)
POODLE
Collins – ‘poodle: a person who is servile’; ‘spaniel: a person who is obsequiously devoted’
11 Grating a third of cheese, why put on loose fragments? (8)
SCREECHY
SCREE (loose fragments) + CH[eese] + Y (why)
12 Small red and white rats (6)
SWINES
S (small) + WINES (red and white)
15 Good long periods after horse vaults (8)
DUNGEONS
DUN (horse) + G (good) + EONS (long periods)
16 Mixture, potato served to Mennonites, but no starter? (8)
MISHMASH
MASH (potatoes) after [a]MISH (Mennonites) – both Collins and Chambers have ‘Amish’ as ‘of or relating to a Mennonite sect’
19 Additional pair of letters for dictator? (6)
EXCESS
Sounds like (for dictator) X S (pair of letters)
21 Where porridge tasted by European, but not an egg, say (4,4)
GERM CELL
CELL (where porridge – slang for prison sentence – tasted) after GERM[an] (European) minus an
22 Left-leaning lefty, minister in speech (6)
VERBAL
A reversal (left-leaning) of LAB[our] (lefty) + REV (minister)
24 Fireplace, something cold or warm, then hot (6)
HEARTH
HEART (which can be cold or warm) + H (hot)
25 Still figures increase joining factory (8)
WAXWORKS
WAX (increase) + WORKS (factory)
26 Rock star bedding very old model (4)
STUN
SUN (star) round T (very old model)
27 Figure in biblical text inspired by head, powerful leader (9)
POTENTATE
TEN (figure) in OT (Old Testament – biblical text) all in PATE (head)
Down
1 Image, digital fake by the sound of it? (5)
PHOTO
Sounds like ‘faux toe’ (digital fake)
2 Drop a girdle over (7)
ABANDON
A BAND (a girdle) + ON (over)
3 Green OBE? (5)
OLIVE
O LIVE (be)
4 Firstly, eagle drops after cuckoo leaps over the moon (7)
PLEASED
An anagram (cuckoo) of LEAPS + initial letters of Eagle Drops
5 Tidy lower field (9)
REARRANGE
REAR (lower) + RANGE (field)
6 Cross–country race? (7)
MALTESE
Double definition – see gladys @27 for a better parsing
7 Nonsense passes as expression of glee (4,5)
JAZZ HANDS
JAZZ (nonsense) + HANDS (passes) – a new expression for me
13 Article in cereal, something to eat (5,4)
WHITE MEAT
ITEM (article) in WHEAT (cereal)
14 Shuttle breaks with it (9)
SPACESHIP
SPACES (breaks) + HIP (with it)
17 Ace of diamonds? (4,3)
HOME RUN
A score made in baseball, which is played on a diamond
18 One’s idiotic hum? (7)
HALFWIT
half of HUM[our] (wit) – I think
20 Corrupt board after business in Spanish city (7)
CORDOBA
An anagram (corrupt) of BOARD after CO (business)
22 Very repetitive climax in Jimi Hendrix tune then, ‘Foxy Lady’ (5)
VIXEN
V (very) + last letters (climax) of [jim]I [hendri]X [tun]E [the]N – a clever clue
23 Joint investment in bank ledger (5)
ANKLE
Hidden in bANK LEdger
I wonder how many millions of things could be clued by “something to eat”? Thank goodness for the straightforward wordplay.
I hadn’t heard of JAZZ HANDS, nor that meaning of “jazz”. Didn’t know a toady was a spaniel. Couldn’t parse HALFWIT.
Not sure why the last letter of a word is a “climax” (22d). And why the second “Spooner’s” in 1a?
PHOTO & OLIVE were my favourites, and brought a smile.
An enjoyable experience, thanks Paul &
… Eileen!
1A. I think behind = pooper/rear-end
(Did Spooner live in the time pea-soupers were a thing? My knowledge of history is rudimentary at best.)
As always when Paul shows up… great fun and plenty of giggle-worthy cleverness.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I took “pooper”= behind as Paul’s toilet humour.
Behind=pooper .. second Spooner’s could refer to his time. Re 22 d repetitive implies the sequence of words following
Thanks both – I sort of saw it just as I clicked ‘Publish’ but thought I would give someone else the pleasure. 😉
Thanks all three!
Many thanks to Paul, and to Eileen for the blog. Couldn’t parse HALFWIT, and failed in the north-east corner because I decided the first word in 7d was CLAP. I didn’t know about the obsequious spaniel either. A head-scratcher of a puzzle, but fun.
Oh, and I think ‘repetitive’ in 22d must indicated more than one climax, ie all the endings …?
* indicate
Thanks David @5 and judygs @ 9 – I’ll delete my query.
Put this one down as a failure. Needed the crossers for a lot of these, notably MOJO, and couldn’t parse HALFWIT or JAZZ HANDS, though now Eileen has helped me with the former I think it’s an excellent clue. Didn’t know jazz meant nonsense. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Weirdly, my favourite was OLIVE.
My experience was the same as Eileen’s with the bottom half completed and the top half virtually empty. I also had never come across JAZZ HANDS nor that meaning of spaniel. Tried to think of a PM with a ‘B’ in the name having mercifully forgotten about ‘Bojo’, but got there in the end. So, all in all, hard work. Liked 16 and 21 Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Very short of time today and I gave up on this having failed to solve a single clue 🙁
I enjoyed reading the blog – thank you, Eileen.
A tough but hugely enjoyable challenge from Paul this morning. Too many ticks to list but 6a, 1d, 3d, 14d and 18d all prompted admiring chuckles.
Good , too, to see Jimi Hendrix getting a mention at 22d. (Eileen, I took ‘repetitive’ simply as an indication that ‘climax’ applied to more than one word?)
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Isn’t the second Spooner someone who eats pea soup?
I’m starting to get a vibe from Paul that reminds me of DA in the SMH on a Friday. OLIVE is an example. Quirky, devious, obtuse and bordering on “you’ve got to be kidding” with the odd absolute genius of a clue that stops you giving up entirely and wanting to return. I almost had to give up on this one and had to cheat mercilessly to get there in the end. I did like hum(our) for HALFWIT.
Yes, the second Spooner in PEA SOUPER refers to the Victorian age in which he existed.
“something cold or warm” = heart (really?) and HOME RUN left me disappointed to say the least.
George @ 17, you may well be right! As in: eaten with a spoon.
Sorry, Eileen… I see the ‘repetitive’ issue was dealt-with long before I posted!
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Other way round for me – top full and bottom empty, though I needed electronic help for JAZZ after guessing HANDS – as with others I didn’t know the expression of “jazz” for “nonsense”. Also never heard that meaning of “spaniel”, and never would have seen “faux toe”.
I saw how HALFWIT would work, though couldn’t think what hum would be half of.
Myrvin @13 – why is that weird? OLIVE my standout too!
Tim C @18
HEARTH was my first, and, for some time, only, one in!
I also only had one in after the first pass muffin @18. I think it was VIXEN. That’s when I nearly jacked it in.
@22 sorry
Be careful what you wish for! After yesterday’s plain sailing we arrive in very tricky conditions. I almost gave up on this, with only a handful of clues solved after the time it usually takes to finish a puzzle, but I persisted and it all came out in the end.
On reflection, many of the clues which seemed impenetrable at first are not particularly tortuous. Crossword panic causes brain freeze 🙁
A lot of good clues here, but the faux toe is the best homophone I have seen for a long time.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
I remember a pea souper in London in the late seventies. It was so thick that at one stage on a journey home by car the driver asked me to open the door on my side so he could navigate by the edge of the kerb. We made it, eventually, with great difficulty, as was my experience with the crossword today.
Anyone going to say this one was too easy? Hard work, and few smiles unless you enjoy toilet humour (though the faux toe was fun). Haven’t come across SODA LIME before, and I will take Paul’s word for it that an egg is a GERM CELL (O level Biology was sixty years ago) and that JAZZ=nonsense. I went through the entire list of clues twice before ANKLE gave me a toe-hold (ha ha), and finally got stuck in the NW and revealed OLIVE (sneaky!). Last in was POODLE – I think “spaniel” was the kind of fawning dog used to describe the concept in the days before poodles were invented. I had MALTESE as the race who inhabit the cross country.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
PS: in my case, right hand side full and left empty, for quite a while.
That’s a better parsing for MALTESE, gladys – thanks for that.
Just for the record: like a number of you, I didn’t know jazz = rubbish but I found it in Chambers.
Finished most of the NW and SE and then gave up with mental fatigue. I did parse PEA-SOUPER. Well done to those who finished this. Such a contrast to yesterday.
Ta Paul & Eileen for disentangling.
I had much the same experience as others, and ended up revealing several answers in frustration. I can’t really complain and several clues were indeed very good (LOVE, PHOTO, MOJO, SPACESHIP) though I think Paul’s trademark humour has long passed it’s sell-by date. I did wonder why ‘lower’=REAR though. Seems very loose.
A definite contrast to yesterday! I liked this a lot, although didn’t know that meaning of spaniel so crossed my fingers as POODLE was the only dog breed I could make fit.
PEA-SOUPER was classic Paul. Minor shame about ‘eat’ appearing in the surface & clue for WHITE MEAT, but hey ho!
Thanks Paul & Eileen.
A tricky crossword, but one that we mastered eventually. This was a tricky boy and we are justly proud
I feel sure that Spooner = soup has featured in past crosswords.
“and all that jazz”
I’ve heard of a “jazz breakfast” (coffee and a cigarette (possibly with additives)_but not that.
POODLE probably the weakest but overall this was entertaining and pretty logical after
untangling the innocent looking deceptions.
A return to form as far as this cynic sees it.
Thanks eileen and everyone else with help in parsing,
With most of LHS unsolved, having got J X & Z spent too much time looking for a Q to give a pangram:
I should have remembered that Paul doesn’t usually do that sort of thing.
Opens page
Let’s see….1 across – Spoonerism. Bloody hate Spoonerisms.
1 down – spend 5 minutes falling down a rabbit hole of digital fake = iCon but can’t see how to make it to 5 letters.
Press reveal. Sigh. Give up.
Phew! Great fun. “All that Jazz” a great song from the musical “Chicago”. Thanks both.
Spaceshot for 14d of course was of no help for 27a. D’oh!
Brilliant Paul and Eileen.
Oh and I have to single out PHOTO as a beauty. Great fun.
I made heavy weather of this with the NE the last to fall – like some others DNK JAZZ HANDS and jazz = nonsense.
Like GDU @1, I would query how climax = last letters. The Chambers Thesaurus for climax gives: ‘culmination, height, high point, highlight, acme, zenith, peak, pinnacle, summit, apex, apogee, top, head. I did find in Chambers: 5: loosely, the last term of the rhetorical arrangement but that would seem to be very obscure. Can anyone else explain this?
I liked the cheeky ‘almost nothing’ in SODA LIME, the wordplays in MISHMASH, GERM CELL, VERBAL and POTENTATE, and the HALF-WIT.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I liked the clue so much that I didn’t pause to consider the definition, but looking back over it, I’m not sure where Paul found SODA LIME = ‘drying mixture’. It’s used to absorb carbon dioxide rather than water vapour from air or other gases.
A lot of guesses that turned out to be right. Loved JAZZ HANDS, we do them in choir concerts to jazz up certain songs, so I’m surprised so many people had not heard of the phrase, nor that JAZZ means rubbish – all that jazz…
Slow solve like others, and many unparsed, so thanks to Paul for the fun and Eileen for the parsing, along with help from clever solvers.
Gervase @42
Although it wouldn’t be the first choice – anhydrous calcium chloride or silica gel would be better – SODA LIME does absorb water.
@36 PeterM looking for Q didn’t stop me finishing but J helped sort out the NE corner. Pangram hunting wasn’t a total waste of time.
Liked HALFWIT.
Thanks both
It’s not often I say this but I found this less tough than a lot of commenters here and on the Guardian forum, and by that I mean relatively speaking for Paul who I generally do find on the trickier side – just a lucky wavelength thing some days. But a super puzzle, loved PHOTO, SODA LIME, GERM CELL, VIXEN, OLIVE and HALFWIT.
One minor eyebrow wiggle was POODLE – two synonyms for a fawning person that are dog breeds, and ‘dog’ as the definition, it all seemed a bit same-sidey.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Ooh, Paul, this was well beyond my pay scale today. Thought I had a bit of a toe hold with another part of the foot in ANKLE as first one in in SE corner. But I suppose the main problem was that I just couldn’t get things started at all in the top half with that devious Spoonerism at 1ac. Thought it had to be Eye-something or other. So totally stuck. Fair play though, when I revealed the missing solutions I thought them ingenious enough…
…sorry, Gladys@27, hadn’t yet read the comments as I was in a rather downbeat, grumpy mood, but I see you’ve already mentioned the toehold/ankle foot connection…
muffin @44: True enough, but so do biscuits 🙂
I still don’t understand Maltese, Can anyone explain a bit more?
Thank you Eileen for explaining HALFWIT, a very clever clue now I see it. And gladys for MALTESE (as in ‘Maltese cross’ country). A challenging puzzle. My favourites were PHOTO, OLIVE and MOJO. Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I like the concise invention & wit, even if I was only half up to it.
Thanks Paul & Eileen
My first one in was COCKER, for “Dog-spaniel”…..
A dog being something that cocks (it’s leg) and a cocker a type of spaniel. I thought it was one on Paul’s level.
I expect it was just me.
….. but then the crossers didn’t work.
I’m a fan of Paul and his alter ego Mudd and I’m not someone who takes a strict view on crossword conventions – it’s just a game – but I was disappointed at “red and white “ clueing “wines”. Lots of red and white things aren’t wine, and lots of wine aren’t red or white. “red or white say” would be ok but of course would ruin the surface.
Doctor Clear @53: That also occurred to me at first. In fact, I think it would have been a better solution as ‘dog’, ‘spaniel’ ‘poodle’ are all too close in meaning.
Having discovered that spaniel as a verb can mean follow, I entered that for POODLE. PHOTO and OLIVE were my favourites. I think I favour George@17’s parsing of the second Spooner.
For spaniel, see Midsummer Night’s Dream: “I am your spaniel. And Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me – but as your spaniel. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, but give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.”
But I for one hadn’t seen POODLE used that way, so it was still sort of a bung and shrug moment.
If you want to see All That Jazz and some jazz hands, here’s Chita Rivera.
[Oh, and happy Thanksgiving to the other Americans!]
Normally I would solve diagonally from top-left to bottom-right, getting helpful first letters. This one was quite the opposite.
I didn’t find anything obvious until the last three down clues: CORDOBA, VIXEN, ANKLE.
Then it was a case of solving backwards, with less helpful last letters. Loved FAUX TOE. loi POODLE.
Great stuff. Thanks P&E
Lived in NYC for a number of years and never heard the term “Ace of Diamonds” in relation to baseball although I am informed there is a Japanese Baseball Manga called that?
Great puzzle…
Thanks Eileen and Paul. Had to cheat on a couple and there are some that I find baffling (needed the parsing for HALF WIT, to realize that “HUM” was half of humor!) but also some excellent ones, 2d, 3d, 5d, 14d particularly economical definitions.
Pace Collins and Chambers, the Mennonites I grew up with in Pennsylvania were always very clear that Mennonite and Amish are different; I believe both are Anabaptists but the Amish schismed off from Mennonites and are not part of the Mennonite World Conference, except possibly the Beachy Amish? But close enough for a crossword.
Anonymous@50: I think the idea is that there is.a Maltese Cross so Malta is the “cross country” and the Maltese are the “race” from Malta? Bit of a stretch IMO (there’s no shortage of countries with crosses on their flags). Unfortunately I first tried MULATTO, with many misgivings, and had SCRATCHY for the crosser, and didn’t work it out till I got DUNGEONS.
After the general consensus that yesterday’s puzzle would have been an excellent Quiptic, I’m inclined to say that today’s would have been an excellent Friday offering. Nearly got there in two sittings (I’m happy to give three sittings to a Friday) but MALTESE defeated me as my self-imposed time limit came to an end. Is Maltese a race? I tend to think of the word in terms of much larger groups of humans, but it is a vague and fluid concept, and I am sure is applied to single nationalities sometimes. Had no parsing for PHOTO or HALFWIT so many thanks Eileen for enlightening me and for the rest of the excellent blog. Thanks Paul for some hard head-scratching, and especially for my favourite, VIXEN.
I should probably not attempt Paul in the future. I found much to dislike here, several unparsed, more parsed only in hindsight, and a couple of NHOs in finally filling the grid.
Surely I cannot be alone in being irritated by 16A?
Both Collins and Chambers are, by any factual standard, simply wrong on the topic of Amish and Mennonites. Despite similarities, the Amish and Mennonites have entirely separate histories and neither one is a branch nor sect of the other.
Anyway, I wrote in the answer under protest.
Just to explicitly answer Anonymous’s question @50:
I think it can be parsed either as (Cross-country) race, as Gladys@27 interpreted it, or (Cross) -country race. You get (Malta) race = Maltese or (Maltese) = country race. Maltese either way.
Sorry, hadn’t refreshed before matt w @61 posted.
mrpenny@77, another Shakespeare scene led me to solve this.
From Antony in A&C: The hearts/ That spaniel’d me at heels, to whom I gave/ Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets/ On blossoming Caesar.
@67… sorry, mrp@ 57 not 77
Manhattan @60: “ace of diamonds?” is meant to be punny, as indicated by the question mark. No one literally says that. However, an ace in baseball lingo is the team’s best pitcher, so I did spend a few moments trying to think of a pitcher who would fit. Then I realized we were using “ace” in a broader sense.
Matt w @61 and Jacob @64: I had the same eyebrow raise about Mennonites and Amish. All Mennonites I’ve known are careful to make clear the distinctions between the various Old Order communities. And of course I don’t know any Amish–they mostly keep to themselves, which is one of the differences!
Quenbarrow @67: thanks for that. Don’t know Antony and Cleopatra as well as I should.
Is SWINES a word? I thought the plural of “swine” was ….”swine.
jeceris @70
Good point, but does it wotk like “fish”? One fish, some fishes, lots of fish?
jeceris @70, from Collins: swine
noun
(pl swines) A coarse or contemptible person
(pl swine) another name for a pig.
I thought the same, jeceris @70 – so I checked.
Interesting: Collins gives
swine:1 (pl swines) a coarse or contemptible person 2 (pl swine) another name for a pig – so ‘swines’ is correct here!
I’m sorry, Robi – your comment wasn’t there when I started typing mine.
I still don’t get HALFWIT even with Eileen’s explanation. Maybe I’m one.
John W @75 – the definition is ‘One’s idiotic’ and the wordplay is ‘hum’, which is half of HUMour, meaning wit.
(I realise this clue is not really fair on Americans. 😉 )
Uniquely, Malta was awarded the George Cross as a nation by George VI in 1942 for the people’s bravery during the second siege of Malta. Hence “cross-country” = Malta & “cross-country race” = Maltese.
Loved MOJO. The only four-letter PM I could think of was Pitt, which clearly wouldn’t work. Only got it when I had the J.
Never thought of SOD ALL or “faux toe.” Nho JAZZ HANDS.
I solved almost none of this until I got to the check button, then slowly crawled up from the same three verticals mentioned above. plus HEARTH and WAXWORKS.
Thanks, Paul and Eileen.
Stunningly good. It took 2 long sessions to complete this beauty. Top ticks for PHOTO, MOJO & OLIVE and biggest penny drop LOL for the HOME RUN
Multiple climaxes indeed 🙂
Cheers E&P
Dave Howell @77 – true enough but there was a Maltese Cross long before that (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_cross ). I think that’s the one referred to in the clue.
Valentine@78; you could also have considered Lord Bute, Lord Grey, Robert Peel and Anthony Eden as 4 letter British Prime Ministers. Sadly, none of them helped with 6A!
I completed it after a lot of back and forths, going bottom up like many here. Left a bunch unparsed, hoping for the best. But also: Ace of diamonds for “home run” is just wrong on so many levels. Assuming the surface made sense, “Ace of Oval?” or “Ace of pitch?” would never be “SIX”. And the MOJO surface, what was it supposed to mean? I got the cryptic parsing, but what about the surface?
Thanks both,
Mercifully no one has repeated the old chestnut ‘How do you make a Maltese cross?’ ‘Poke him in the eye.’
washington irving @82 (are you still ghoing strong?)
I agree about MOJO – I’m sure that there could have been an improvement on “leader in multimillionaire”.
Tyngewick @63 – I came perilously close @80. 😉
Maybe… Ace is a shot which is not returned. A home run is a shot which is not returned on the baseball diamond
This was a scary at first then ultimately satisfying challenge. I had nothing through the first run through of the across clues. The 4 downs that I got gave me what I thought was a start, but turned out to be a FAUX TOE-hold.
I failed on 8a SODA LIME; I had the lime, but “sod all” escaped me for no reason. On seeing Eileen’s parsing, it became one of my favourites. Another one was 27a POTENTATE, with a clever construction and a very good surface. I also liked the excellent aural wordplay of 1d PHOTO.
Thanks Paul for the puzzle, and Eileen for “depuzzling” several clues for me.
Rather than complain, I’ll provide an alternate. It could have been “Six of diamond?” and it would be fine since a home run is the equivalent of the six in cricket. The trouble with Ace is that the word is used in baseball and not for the hitting but for the pitching. (Which makes sense, pitching is the closest to the tennis serve).
Ace in its adjectival form can mean excellent or superlative. Which on a baseball diamond surely includes a home-run? And anyway, the clue ends with a question mark – The setters universal get out of jail free card 🙂
Got all but the top left corner. Smut eludes me and POOP is American so doesn’t click and I had EIKON (I-con) for “digital fake at 1d then gave up. Paul is occasionally brilliant but too frequently tortuous.
Still thanks to Paul & Eileen.
Faux Toe, really, If this was a one clue only crossword, this would be impossible!!
Chapeau to anyone who finished this (well done Eileen). I usually manage to complete Guardian and FT crosswords but I have to admit I was nowhere near this one.
Another Geof, 1844-1930 so yes indeed.
@88 I like your clue better. Ace falls short for me.
A very late comment, but just wanted to say I was surprised at the number of carping comments above. We found it tough, but finished it the same day, which is by no means always the case. Didn’t need to cheat, and had a few laughs (esp PHOTO), though to be fair, we hadn’t parsed PEA-SOUPER.
Had a lucky start, wrongly putting in COCKER at 10 across gave me the excellent PHOTO and a tentative PEA-SOUPER. OLIVE soon corrected that misconception, but still only finished this morning over breakfast. Great crossword, really enjoyed it! Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Being forewarned that this one was tricky, I managed (over three sessions) to get all except GERM CELL, even with all the crossers. (Nho that use of “porridge”, and might not have gotten it even if I had.)
Agree with those who found HOME RUN a weak clue. Also not crazy about POODLE. Couldn’t parse HALFWIT.
The rest of the puzzle more than made up for it, with some lovely smooth surfaces and twisty meanings.
gladys@27 – of course! Thanks – and there was I trying to make MALTESE a triple def…. !
Another wonderful creation from this master of the art – we are so fortunate. I’ve said it before (often!) but how does he keep on doing it? Always something original …..
Many thanks, Paul and blessings to Eileen for her continued generous spirit ….
Didn’t start this until the weekend and got more than half. Struggled for a few days until a moment of inspiration got me Faux Toe and then ‘hum?’, but I was reluctant to write in POODLE because it seemed so lame. I even wrote down all the words I could think of to match the crossers – I got 18 but there are probably more – and I still think it’s a poor clue.
Really liked HALFWIT, though.
Belated thanks to Paul and Eileen.