BARE BONES

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 four-way 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 Pocket Thesaurus. Send your solution to: Bare Bones Puzzle No.589, The Irish Mail on Sunday, PO Box 5332, Cardiff Lane, Dublin 2. Entries must arrive by Friday (photocopies not accepted). The winner of Bare Bones No.588 is Breda Harrison, Midleton, Co. Cork.

Across

1 Reptile, to you and me, is a sign of spring 5 Budgetary check initially fails to work out 10 Allowance for boarding house abroad 11 Use rare form of removal 12 Sound of reflection from the choir 13 Walk at steady speed, having left location 14 Risky venture has a pulse 15 Daughter informed by English victim of deception 17 An appealing sort of angle 18 Invention includes an outlet for air 22 Signal gets broadcast by river 23 Chief pilot is an idiot 24 Models in a whirl, but not very often 25 Cat takes to a new salad ingredient

Down

2 Managed to put church next to farm 3 Illicitly copy a child’s bed 4 Unaccompanied by best dairy product (Two words) 5 European tribute to eggy bread (Two words) 6 Devise a material with stitching 7 Entertain a source of inspiration 8 Supplement has a side about writer on diamonds 9 Cited true form of virtue 16 I step out onto slope 19 Put together, rigidly upright 20 Kitty has a good time on the day 21 Key to strange instrument