THE SKELETON CROSSWORD – £325 in prizes
There is a £100 prize for the first correct solution drawn; nine runners-up receive £25.
Send your completed crossword to the address shown in the box below left. In the skeleton crossword, the black squares and clue numbers have to be filled in as well as the words. Four black squares and four clue numbers have been inserted to give you a start. The black squares form a symmetrical pattern; the top half matches the bottom, and the two sides correspond. You can fill in 12 more squares at once to correspond with those given.
ACROSS
2 Uncommon virtue of a pet 8 Atlas, oddly, and a globe
too
9 Strange post doesn’t face
an instrument
10 Class rat - teen off register 11 Pickle mistake gutted saints 12 Fools back in town saw
openings
13 Grateful head girls seeing
aids
15 Fish assessor’s initial
conclusion
16 Vegetable all right with a
little gravy
17 Maybe Derek and Bruno
ordered whiskey
20 A model inside posed
immediately
22 Fruit consumed after
delicious starter
23 Catch cheat out, resulting
in emotional pain 24 Something eaten in front of
us
25 Author’s first and second
introduction to special book 26 Cut male communist made
snake move
DOWN
1 Cold-hearted change
argument
2 Failures ditching fifty dandies 3 Mercenary playing on a
northbound road
4 Doing nothing for golfers is
OK (3 words)
5 Angry corsair initially lacking 6 Garden shed engineer
conceals
7 A mathematician’s
takeaway?
13 Talk of yoga ending in the UK 14 A child saving face by
working
18 Round-faced chap is half
Arabian
19 Statue of leader not ending
alarm
21 This one made a kind of
bend, therefore 22 Effervescence originally in
pop that’s flat