CRYPTIC CROSSWORD
No 16,288
FOR your chance to win, solve the crossword to reveal the word reading down the shaded boxes. HOW TO ENTER: Call 0901 293 6233 and leave today’s answer and your details, or TEXT 65700 with the word CRYPTIC, your answer and your name. Texts and calls cost £1 plus standard network charges. Or enter by post by sending completed crossword to Daily Mail Prize Crossword 16,288, PO Box 28, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GF. Please include your name and address. One weekly winner chosen from all correct daily entries received between 00.01 Monday and 23.59 Friday. Postal entries must be date-stamped no later than the following day to qualify. Calls/texts must be received by 23.59; answers change at 00.01. UK residents aged 18+, exc NI. Terms apply, see Page 64.
ACROSS
6 Comments varied strangely — they’re about speech (8,6) 9 Inadequate container kept in pighouse (6) 10 Fellow writer’s company car runs over horse (2-6) 11 Shameless and unwise to exclude Republican (8) 13 Section of foot marching perfectly (6) 15 Lack of interest shown in hymn, so I hear (6) 17 Ask for time during hot contest (6) 19 Native British stop owing money (6) 20 Old-fashioned son slices duck with mushroom (8) 22 Independent scatty girl in charge of delicate work (8) 24 Flipping racket left wound (6) 26 Cheap collation prepared in dark bar, maybe (5,9)
DOWN
1 Incidental Tantric music played on a lyre originally (14) 2 Part of range in Provence (4) 3 Diamond pattern largely knitted, missing a line (6) 4 Love getting into footwear heading off for party (8) 5 Fail to mention old university in Cambridge (4) 7 Leave Spain having absorbed constant thrill (6) 8 Idea not working to cover supervisors, as already stated (14) 12 Top steering device for milk supplier (5) 14 Eddy’s Cornwall girl doesn’t start (5) 16 Posh dancer trained tenor to perform with restraint (8) 18 Local call interrupting brother’s Spanish dance (6) 21 Perhaps ladies occupy hospital lounge (6) 23 Short Gaelic woman (4) 25 First of summer fruit for Irish playwright (4)
NEED A CLUE? Text TIP to 65700 to receive FOUR answers to today’s crossword, or call 0901 293 6236. Texts and calls cost £1 plus standard network charges. Today’s clues available between 00.01 today and 23.30 only.