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

5 Dressing, up against

the wall

8 Fashionable side performing (Two words, hyphenated)

11 Strange spirit

12 Horse gets food with

nothing on top

13 Kind of milkman

14 Canoe unsuitable for

so much water

15 Useful husband

also unknown

20 Who doubts about

whether it holds bricks? 21 Greek character is able

to point and bend 22 Crawler, when quiet 23 Group finds bed

next to lake

24 Dialect used

in fortress

Down

1 Afford a

supplementary item

2 Belief in credit notes

3 Minor route,

but wide

4 Benefit, capturing

new turncoat

6 Mary acted badly as a

student (Two words)

7 Routine performer on top of sink?

(Two words) 9 Guardian breaking

garden pot

10 Worker is after fraction – hardly new (Two words, hyphenated)

16 Reporter follows

son into cabin

17 Fix unending

stream on time

18 Parade takes

thirty-one days

19 Knock over

small tablet