BARE BONES

WIN A COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS SET, AND A BRADFORD’S CROSSWORD SOLVER’S DICTIONARY

Our Bare Bones Crossword is unique because you have to complete the grid – numbers and squares – as well. We have inserted four black squares and four clue numbers to get you going. The crossword has a fourway symmetry: both top and bottom and left and right match, so you can fill in 12 more squares straight away. There is a prize of a Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus set, and a Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary. Send your solution to: Bare Bones Puzzle No 928, The Mail on Sunday, PO Box 3451, Norwich NR7 7NR. Entries must arrive by Friday, January 31 (photocopies not accepted). The winner’s name will be published on February 16 from the first correct entry drawn.

Winner of Bare Bones No 925: Janet Lewis, of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

Across

1 Seafood caught by bad oarsman

4 Wise men with key to a form of sorcery

7 Small tax outside becomes huge

9 Reserve something to read

10 Capital – artist is after a tiny amount

11 Registered worker gets a verbal onslaught

12 Rummage around for a hunter of rabbits

13 Writer to attempt a particular style of writing

14 Resentful, having a beer 18 Predator is kittenish with broken toe 20 Behold iron lying around in a cold sheet

21 Breathe heavily, left inside factory 22 Tremble, leader having left to fish 23 Dismissal from storage area 24 Hospital department starts to get some dimension 25 Pale daughter joins staff

Down

2 Travelling on her river 3 Holmes’s manor in popular song 4 Intended to have miserly time 5 Lizard returning average note, say

6 Catholic inclination is a pain

7 Reveal spice of life before some entertainment

(Two words)

8 Boy with a right to a navigation aid

15 Big look around the house 16 Quick to knock with identification

17 Rascal removes tail from prawns

18 Trawlerman’s first comical chat about the day’s takings 19 Volunteers chap to be enchanted