BARE BONES

Complete the grid – numbers and squares. 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. Answer next week.

Across

7 Having no money by

noon, not working

8 River animal

is a scoundrel

11 Drink of character,

by the sound of it

12 Excessively red, moving right as required (Two words) 13 Not going back

a great deal

14 Beams in lift,

reportedly

15 Accidental

place to live

20 Limit on international

appearance 21 Deceive on more than one occasion (Two words, hyphenated) 22 Make a record out

of a piece of wood

23 Making holes is dull 24 Musical-sounding

country

Down

1 Oily utensil in

cafe (Two words)

2 Second woman

to have fish

3 Small, agreeable gesture about old hood

4 Cats, in large number,

showing conceit 5 Singular sailors

make celebrities

6 Inability to remember

mad hunk (Two words) 9 Draw a stretch of

land? About time

10 Tons about time

for performing

16 Mark isn’t wandering

around area

17 Like this, initially guilty, heartless guy becomes mushy

18 Being out

on a spree

19 Yields plant ovules,

we hear