The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29969.
I am always happy to see Paul as the setter for my blog.
After first in 1D CHOO-CHOO (which has come up in crosswords a couple of times recently), I hit on 10A FOOL, without ever realising it was the key clue, with references which include an impresive array of Shakespearean characters, from the professional jesters, to the true dullards, to the Shakespearean fools, clever bumpkins who use their wits to good effect. The Shakesperaeans are highlighted in motley colours in the grid. Halfway through solving, it was noticeable that my grid contained a scatter-shot of answers; but it all came out in the end, in a way which, for me, Paul generally manages to make particularly satisfying.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | SHOOTOUT |
Leave pitch for final battle (8)
|
| OK: a charade of SHOO (‘leave’ as imperative) plus TOUT (‘pitch’). | ||
| 9, 14 | APRIL THE FIRST |
When filthier traps set? (5,3,5)
|
| An anagram (‘set’) of ‘filthier traps’, with an extended definition with reference to the thematic 10A FOOL) | ||
| 10 | FOOL |
Bottom, for example, sweet (4)
|
| Double definition: the character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a fruit dessert. | ||
| 11 | IN TRAINING |
Moderation ultimately cutting it, wet acquiring skills (2,8)
|
| A charade of INT, an envelope (‘cutting’) of N (‘moderatioN ultimately’) in ‘it’; plus RAINING (‘wet’). | ||
| 12 | SHTICK |
Cane has whipped hard in routine (6)
|
| An envelope (‘has whipped’) of H (‘hard’) in STICK (‘cane’). The comedic reference might be seen as tangentially thematic. | ||
| 14 |
See 9
|
|
| 15 | COSTARD |
Hoax has taken in famous 10 (7)
|
| An envelope (‘has taken in’) of STAR (‘famous’) in COD (‘hoax’, verb), for the character in Love’s Labour Lost. | ||
| 17 | CATHODE |
Rat traps however ending in pipe where current flows (7)
|
| A charade of CATHOD, an envelope (‘traps’) of THO’ (‘however’) in CAD (‘rat’); plus E (‘ending in pipE‘). | ||
| 20 | SPRAY GUN |
Aerosol device possibly empty, gas having run out (5-3)
|
| An anagram (‘out’) of PY (‘PossiblY empty’) plus ‘gas’ plus ‘run’. | ||
| 22 | INDIGO |
One of seven bands that’s popular enjoy love (6)
|
| A charade of IN (‘popular’) plus DIG (‘enjoy’) plus O (‘love’), for one of the traditional seven colours of the rainbow. | ||
| 23 | TOUCHSTONE |
10 bit something hard (10)
|
| A charade of TOUCH (little ‘bit’) plus STONE (‘something hard’), for the character in As You Like It. | ||
| 24 |
See 2 Down
|
|
| 25 | FESTE |
Interminable rot for 10 (5)
|
| A subtraction: FESTE[r] (‘rot’) minus its last letter (‘interminable’), for the jester in Twelfth Night. | ||
| 26 | EMISSARY |
Agent exhausted having killed leader and rescued girl (8)
|
| An envelope (‘rescued’?) of MISS (‘girl’) in [w]EARY (‘exhausted’) minus its first letter (‘having killed leader’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CHOO-CHOO |
Soften tobacco, say, doubly loudly – for puffer? (4-4)
|
| Sounds like (‘loudly’) CHEW (‘soften tobacco, say’) repeated (‘doubly’). | ||
| 2, 24 | BOWL OVER |
Astound Cockney Casanova? (4,4)
|
| A charade of BOW (‘Cockney’, of someone born within the sound of Bow Bells) plus LOVER (‘Casanova’). | ||
| 3 | YORICK |
10, barely sick, housebound? (6)
|
| An envelope (-‘bound’) of IC (‘barely sICk’) in YORK (royal ‘house’-), for the jester who appears as a skull in Hamlet. | ||
| 4 | STATUTE |
Rule with old king in new seat (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of TUT (Tutankhamun, ‘old king’) in STAE, an anagram (‘new’) of ‘seat’. | ||
| 5 | HABANERA |
A taboo embraced by goddess in aria (8)
|
| An envelope (’embraced by’) of ‘a’ plus BAN (‘taboo’) in HERA (‘goddess’), for the famous aria in Carmen (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle). |
||
| 6 | BRANDISHED |
Design I dropped flourished (10)
|
| A charade of BRAND (‘design’) plus ‘I’ plus SHED (‘dropped’). | ||
| 7 | PLANKS |
10s in wood? (6)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 13 | IN THAT CASE |
The satanic works, atheist can too then! (2,4,4)
|
| An anagram (‘works’) of ‘the satanic’, and also (‘too’) of ‘atheist can’. | ||
| 16 | REGISTER |
Record for example in brief, bar lifted? (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of E.G. (‘for example’) in [bar]RISTER (‘brief’) minus BAR (‘bar lifted’). | ||
| 18 | DOGBERRY |
Stalk with fruit 10 (8)
|
| A charade of DOG (‘stalk’, verb) plus BERRY (‘fruit’) for the foolish constable in Much Ado about Nothing. | ||
| 19 | SNOOKER |
10’s game (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 21 | PROOFS |
Page and covers – those to check? (6)
|
| A charade of P (‘page’) plus ROOFS (‘covers’). | ||
| 22 | IRENIC |
Wrath appealing? Not quite for pacifist (6)
|
| A charade of IRE (‘wrath’) plus NIC[e] (‘appealing’) |
||
| 24 | OAST |
Top off, beach drier (4)
|
| A subtraction: [c]OAST (‘beach’) minus its first letter (‘top off’). |
April fools day, the first of April, today. Hoax in there too.
Quite accessible and enjoyable. Took me too long to find fool.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
I usually find Paul’s puzzles too hard, and this was no exception. Thanks PeterO for the blog which confirmed that I would never have finished it. Still, it’s good to have some hard ones for the experts.
Btw imus for minus in 22d.
Always a bit weary of crosswords on April the First but thankfully no silly tricks with this one.
Not much laughing as very little went in but slowly managed to fill in all the squares on this one. Whilst not having Mastermind of Shakespeare most the characters are somewhere in the periphery of my memory. Good luck to anyone who has forgotten this knowledge since their school days.
Enjoyed the APRIL THE FIRST anagram.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Puzzle was made easier for me by the theme.
New for me: IRENIC, SNOOKER = a fool’s game.
I couldn’t parse 16d.
Lots of brute force required to complete this for me; despite the early theme spot my Shakespearean knowledge is sadly lacking. As a result I found it sadly unsatisfying, although undoubtedly clever like all Paul contributions.
Michelle @4 19d isn’t saying snooker is a fool’s game, it’s a double definition: ‘snooker’ is both a synonym for ‘fool’ and a game.
Thanks to Paul and PererO.
michelle@4
SNOOKER
I think it’s a double def as the blog says.
To snooker=to fool
And SNOOKER is a game.
Enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks Paul.
Great blog. Thanks PeterO.
After first in APRIL THE FIRST, I was looking for FOOL and there it was at 10. I enjoyed this immensely and getting the theme meant I was looking for TOUCHSTONE, as I studied As You Like It at O Level. The Police Review magazine used to have the Dogberry Column which highlighted funny anecdotes and baffling incidents experienced by officers. My favourites were EMISSARY, BRANDISHED and REGISTER.
Peter,
Ta Paul & PeterO.
Peter, I’m interested in why you started the parsing of SHOOTOUT with OK? The O.K. Corral gunfight maybe?
I’m sure we had Shakespearean fools as a theme recently. I’m no scholar of the bard but I remembered the Wiki page. I hope the learning sticks this time.
This was a good challenge. I liked the when and the then. I was Google-assisted for the fools but relatively pure elsewhere and all parsed.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
I would suggest that 10a’s FOOL is a triple definition – the Fool in King Lear never has a name, but is addressed as Fool (“O Fool, I shall go mad!”); lovely clue. PLANKS came as a slightly nasty surprise, as by that time I was convinced they were all Shakespearean, but was more wary of being fooled again by SNOOKER.
I enjoyed this one a lot (not always the case with Paul, sadly). Line DaveE, I took a while to find FOOL – FESTE was my way in. Favourites: SPRAY GUN, IRENIC, EMISSARY – good constructions AND surfaces, for once 😉 – and the Cockney Casanova (where I spent a while trying to drop an aitch from something)
But where is Trinculo?
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
Sarah @10: I like your suggestion.
Took ages getting [c]oast, though I know someone who lives in a converted oast, pretty groovy pad too. Loi was costard, had to cheat by alpha for the c before the word surfaced. LLL not a play I know, and cod for hoax doesn’t ring loud. Great puzzle for the day though, well done Paul, and thanks Peter.
AlanC@8: I guess you are right about the OK corral. I went wildly wrong with this one: I got the answer but parsed it wrongly. I decided it was an Americanism to do with being out from some sport, googled and was gratified to find a “shoot out” meaning that suited my theory. Apparently comes from when a Baseball umpire signals to a player s/he is out by aiming a finger at their head, miming a pistol shot. Was so pleased I temporarily turned off my crossword head and moved on. Was braced for an April Fool puzzle and getting FOOL fairly easily helped with all the others. I did enjoy the thick PLANKS btw.
Anyone else put in PROBES at 21d?
I didn’t Shirl, but on the page and covers front, that stands up pretty well.
Yes Shirl, that was my first entry until FESTE put me right – it certainly fits.
gif @13: In LLL, COSTARD makes a dig at old pedants with inflated vocabularies, such as many of us here: ‘O! They have lived long on the alms-basket of words’.
Always a pleasure to solve a Paul puzzle. Once the theme was established it was a game of remembering the characters and seeing where they fitted.
Couldn’t parse REGISTER so needed the blog for that!
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Not great fan of Paul these days but this was good
For 19d, there was a character in the old kids’ TV show called Snooker, who was pretty much the fool of the piece.
I’m pretty sure it’s a coincidence.
Does barrister = brief (16d)?
A very apt puzzle for today. As Peter says, some of the Shakespearean characters are fools in the stricter sense of being jesters, while others are, for example, bumbling comic characters. Very clever. The double anagram in IN THAT CASE was very good.
I got SNOOKER after I had the crossers, though I’m not sure it really means to fool someone, but rather “to thwart (a person or plan) by placing an obstacle in the way” (Chambers). But maybe close enough?
Like several others I failed to parse REGISTER.
Many thanks Paul and PeterO.
I found that much more enjoyable than I usually do Paul. A number of helpful anagrams eased the way.
Thank you Paul and PeterO
angus @24: : Brief is sometimes used to refer to a barrister, though it technically refers to the instructions a solicitor gives to them.
Enjoyed the puzzle.
Are planks fools? Surely fools may be as thick as two of them, but are they planks themselves?
Thanks, Paul and PeterO..
Agree with Lord Jim #25, I’ve always understood snooker in the thwart sense, so I failed in that one (among others) but fun to be reminded of the Shakespearean clowns. Thanks Peter and Paul!
No TRINCULO. Has Paul been censored here?
According to Wikipedia (and to various books I’ve read ): “The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel” in British India in the 1870s, when the game was invented. So a snooker was also a fool, of sorts.
Couldn’t parse CATHODE, REGISTER or EMISSARY.
I had forgotten what day it was and thought the theme was going to be sweets. (Donkey wouldn’t fit in 10a.) It didn’t help that I solved SNOOKER early and Googled to find a tin of sweets with that name. Then I got Dogberry and retooled my thinking. I knew all the fools except Costard, and was really confused trying to figure that one out. (After Googling to find recipes for apple fool.)
I don’t see how either “has whipped” or “rescued” can be read to signify an envelope.
gladys @31: that’s interesting. (I had a look at the Wikipedia article you mention and was a bit surprised to see that snooker was invented by Neville Chamberlain. Turns out it was a different Neville Chamberlain though.)
My first thought for 19d was one of the foolish characters in Maid Marian and her Merry Men.
Obviously, the verb meaning ‘to fool’ is the more likely clue…
VinnyD @34
Agreed, neither is very close, and I questioned ‘rescued’ in the blog. Whip in the colloquial sense of steal or confiscate is somewhere in the right area.
Obviously not knowing much Shakespeare is a challenge. Of the fools I’ve only heard of Yorrick. And never heard of irenic or habanera either.
Got FOOL very early. Knew Bottom from AMSND, the only Shakespearean play that was on the curriculum during my secondary school years, and knew fool as a dessert from GK and cryptics. However, didn’t think to look for more Shakespearean fools. More fool me.
@34 – Whipping is wrapping something (like the handle of a whip) tightly, with cord (whipcord) – so it is a respectable synonym for wrapped. And similarly to rescue someone can mean to carry them (out of harm’s way).
Well, Bill Spokeshave and I never got on, England’s greatest playwright or not. I got FOOL and a handful of other clues, but none of the Bard’s characters. It’s no surprise to me, would not surprise my old English master, Mr Miles, and there is absolutely no chance of my expanding my knowledge of Shakespeare if I live to be 110. If I’m ever invited on to Desert Island Discs, of course I’ll be awarded his complete works. It will come in handy, I suppose, if I need to make a fire.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
FOOL was my FOI, but it didn’t help much, though I had heard of all the Shakespeare characters except COSTARD – isn’t that a sort of apple?
I agree with others who wondered why PLANKS are fools.
BigNorm @41
I think there’s a lot of “Emperor’s new clothes” about Shakespeare. In particular, his comic characters – take Dogberry for example – simply aren’t!
I liked the anagram &lit for APRIL THE FIRST.
My favourite setter in characteristically challenging form with lots of topical FOOLery, a not too obtrusive theme, and some great clues.
I vaguely recalled the SNOOKER/FOOL insult, possibly from Flashman books. A bit of Shakespearean FOOL knowledge came in handy too, not to mention opera, with HABANERA the beautiful aria from Carmen (as opposed to the hot chilli, also beautiful in its way).
Paul likes to subvert crossword cliches, and the BOW LOVER is a great example: I’m sure plenty of us were searching for a dropped aitch somewhere. My other top ticks were REGISTER for dropping the bar from barRISTER, and IN THAT CASE for the double (treble?) anagram.
Compliments of the season to Paul, and thanks to PeterO for untangling it all.
Thanks for the hints for a puzzle that was miles above my level.
Thanks to Paul too.
muffin @42 My internet was down overnight and for most of this morning, so I was late to the puzzle itself and to the forum. A costard is indeed a kind of apple, and anticipating that Shakespeare’s Costard might feature, I expected him to be clued as ‘Apple 10 (7)’. Too straightforward for Paul. Still, ‘Apple Fool (7)’ is a good clue which I shall save up.
Feliks @30 I take it that your indecent Italian is up to scratch, although having worked on Aretino’s infamous sonetti lussoriosi, I know where you’t coming from. I hesitate to imagine how Paul would have clued it if he had gone down that route.
Stymied by my Shakespearian ignorance but otherwise good fun.
Balfour @45
I would have preferred “Apple 10” to Paul’s clue!
Soundly beaten by this. Well done to those who prevailed!
Never heard of snooker to mean fool, but was pretty familiar with plank to have the same meaning. Don’t know why, it was not in common use in Essex where I grew up, or anywhere else I’ve lived for that matter, but it certainly rang a bell somewhere.
As a Canadian, I’ve watched a lot of baseball without ever seeing or hearing SHOOTOUT in the context suggested above by #15. However, both soccer and ice hockey use penalty shootouts to decide games in some circumstances.
Yes, #51 Buffytvs! I coached college-level baseball for many years, and have been a fan all my life. Never have I seen an umpire do that. If they had, we would all have found ourselves ejected from the game. It’s just not cricket.
Slow progress on this one but all parsed eventually. COSTARD held out on his own since mid-afternoon, LLL wasn’t on the school syllabus.
The short keynote entry that is common in Paul’s puzzles is often impenetrable for me. Sometimes I get them, sometimes not. Today I didn’t get it right away, like PeterO, but did eventually, which got me a long way with this one, except that the SW remained incomplete. Throwing in the towel now. Favourites 8a SHOO-TOUT, 12a SHTICK (“routine”), 6d BRANDISHED (“flourished”), 13d IN THAT CASE (double anagram)
Defeated by Paul’s trademark – no, not juvenile smut but dodgy synonyms. I was another with PROBES at 21d, and I tried COSTARN (having no memory of a fool called Costard) with con a closer synonym for hoax than cod, I would have thought. (‘Apple 10’ would have been a better clue, Balfour@45.) I felt reasonably pleased to have got within half a dozen of completing the grid, but it would be a stretch to say I enjoyed it.
Favourite was the bar being lifted from barrister to make REGISTER. I’m surprised that PLANKS was not recognised by some – I’m sure I’ve heard it many times as an insult, in the singular. Though not, I hope, in my direction.
Thanks to Paul for trying to entertain me, and to PeterO for putting me out of my misery.
Well, dim witted me never noticed that 10a FOOL was thematic based on the date. My thanks to everyone here for pointing it out. It all makes sense now.
I know very little Shakespeare. I did have some lessons on it in school but never liked it. I couldn’t (and still can’t ) understand the ancient prose, nor do I understand the obsession with it in the world of dramatic arts.
Thanks Peter and Paul.
It took me days to complete this puzzle. Paul is deadly. I actually solved everything! Big help from Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary and intuiting that to all the fools must be Shakespearean. A triumph for this Texan.