BARE BONES

Complete the grid – numbers and squares. We have inserted four black squares and four clue numbers to get you going. The crossword has a four-way symmetry: both top and bottom and left and right match, so you can fill in 12 more squares straight away. Answer next week.

Across

1 Behold terribly rude

Pole in place of pilgrimage

5 Support music accompanying a singer 9 Procure from strange tradesman

10 Drink makes socialist complain audibly (Two words) 11 College briefly in communication

12 Don’t move a horizontal bit of decoration, by the sound of it 13 Festival involving a steer 14 Mark sees British church hiding a great deal 17 Endless claim about firm form of cotton

21 That woman’s in the right

22 Leaving payment levied at leisure (Two words, hyphenated)

23 By way of answer, six went first

24 Rely on running behind – Frenchman is mean 25 Allow sharp beginning for small dish

Down

1 Two leaders leave flood in toboggan

2 Drain gallon off, say 3 Shark toured around, having the worst time (Two words) 4 Creep lies about having daughter 5 Important to have energy, and again, colour

6 Musical musician, active on the board (Two words) 7 Employed, that is, to take star back (Two words) 8 Understanding graveyard’s first epitaph 15 Large old ships, for fun 16 Fixing the fellow inside with unknown strapping 17 Bucolic rustic conceals livelihood

18 Polite about ordinary citizens

19 Second actor is a fake 20 Throw camera’s extremities on the way