The Guardian’s April fool crossword explained – plus the other papers’ fooling

The answers in a recent Guardian puzzle didn’t seem to fit the grid. And why did the New York Times fill in some solutions?

We have tracked in these pages the fall and rise of the April fool puzzle. Once a staple of crosswording, it seemed almost to disappear in the 2010s – just at the time that every brand from hipster to megacorp attempted engagement using unfunny jokes signed off by committees, making the entire morning of 1 April a joyless, wretched chore.

Happily, there’s much less organised fun these days, and each year brings more signs of the recovery of a unique kind of fooling. A crossword setter plays tricks and conceals their real intentions every other day of the year, so what happens on 1 April?