Crossword roundup: let’s mince some oaths

In the sample clues below, the links take you to explainers from our beginners series. The setter’s name often links to an interview with him or her, in case you feel like getting to know these people better.

The news in clues

It’s been one of those periods where you can’t tell whether the clues are topical on purpose or simply because royalty always provides a lot of handy abbreviations. Case in point: you can’t help wondering when Nutmeg wrote her clue …

… for LESE MAJESTY.

Latter patter

One reason I find the words “the king” odd in a news context is that they summon a different set of images. For me, “the queen” has always been a real person who stars in stamps and wears hats of various colours. “The king”, though, is someone who says things like “I care not who she loves, my daughter shall wed the Duke of Burgundy” and “Bring me more blasted boar and send in my tumblers.” But I’m getting used to it.

“I can’t bear this bloody thing … every stinking time.” I’m hoping for more low-level imprecations from our new king and have already incorporated “stinking” as a go-to word for venting petty frustration. Pasquale offers us an all-time classic minced oath:

… in his clue for DRAT. Which oath is minced here? Let’s turn to this paper’s Nancy Banks-Smith, whose most recent piece was about The Archers, a soap whose focus on matters ecological Nancy found infuriating in 2008:

Around 1600, English speakers, wary of saying “God” or “Lord” while peeved, devised workarounds including “Gad” and “Lud”. “Od” arrived just in time for Shakespeare to have Rosalind bark “Od’s my will!” in As You Like It, and over the centuries “God rot!” became “Od rot!” and eventually dear old “Drat!”

Our next challenge is from the same family, and we’ve treated one part of it before. Somewhere between Dickens and Dahl, it became used primarily for comic effect; reader, how would you clue GADZOOKS?

Cluing competition

Many thanks for your clues for POPINJAY. The word seems to lend itself to such elaborate multipart clues as Combinatorialist’s “Old man, in the middle of Hey Jude, there’s no doubt, ‘it’s a fool who plays it cool’”, though for directness, it’s hard to top Wellywearer2’s audacious “How to make said ex-Chancellor a dandy”.

The runners-up are Faiton77’s measured “Conceited leaders in Palace or Parliament? It’s not justified as yet” and Montano’s plaintive “‘Come round!’ – Juliet’s plaintive cry for beau”; the winner is the astonishing “Old leader of People’s Popular Front of Judea – splits to atone for, dude”. Kludos to VivaZapata.

Please leave entries for the current competition – as well as your non-print finds and picks from the broadsheet cryptics – in the comments, below.

Clue of the Fortnight

In Alchemi’s recent puzzle, there are repeated references to “20”, almost all of which direct the solver to 20 down – but not all, which makes this clue …

… for NUMBER all the slyer. Finally, anyone who’s enjoyed an Azed puzzle and has seen the following will have taken a moment to wonder whether these are in fact the answers, in a grid filled by Azed’s Observer stablemate Chris Riddell:

Find a collection of explainers, interviews and other helpful bits and bobs at alanconnor.com

The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book by Alan Connor, which is partly but not predominantly cryptic, can be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop