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 962, The Mail on Sunday, PO Box 3451, Norwich NR7 7NR. Entries must arrive by Friday, September 25 (photocopies not accepted). The winner’s name will be published on October 11 from the first correct entry drawn.

Winner of Bare Bones No 959: John Turnbull, of Erdington, Birmingham.

Across

5 Cool breeze from a barrel

8 Very little money for a cartoon

11 Whole time, hiding permit 12 Revealing monarch the other side of field 13 Guy doesn’t finish, so is a failure

14 City guides, by the sound of it

15 Log transported by railway in splendour

20 You and I have nothing but sadness

21 Old coat wrapped round his middle revealing interesting things

22 Milking container for that sort of thing

23 Old moss formation is a gradual assimilation 24 Always set out to reach the highest point

Down

1 Road, ultimately, conceals no child

2 Cut seller’s top wood 3 Stem betting on equipment

4 Away from a team 6 In control, managing the hamlet (Three words)

7 Girl talk – daughter’s missing garment (Two words)

9 Divine way to end a meal? (Two words) 10 Being attacked for foreign articles on conflagration (Two words) 16 Succeeded, came first, needing oxygen, faint

17 Hippo is expected to have equilibrium 18 Provided information around four

19 Second woman to have fish