CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

No 16,864

FOR your chance to win, solve the crossword to reveal the word reading down the shaded boxes. HOW TO ENTER: Call 0901 293 6233 and leave today’s answer and your details, or TEXT 65700 with the word CRYPTIC, your answer and your name. Texts and calls cost £1 plus standard network charges. Or enter by post by sending completed crossword to Daily Mail Prize Crossword 16,864, PO Box 28, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GF. Please include your name and address. One weekly winner chosen from all correct daily entries received between 00.01 Monday and 23.59 Friday. Postal entries must be date-stamped no later than the following day to qualify. Calls/texts must be received by 23.59; answers change at 00.01. UK residents aged 18+, excl NI. Terms apply, see Page 50.

ACROSS

1 Criminal perhaps steals one gem (8)

5 Cleaners put back old weapon (3-3)

9 Apparent place to which Peron’s wife retired (8)

10 Gourmet initially scoffed a topclass dessert (6)

12 Suitable time of day for this clue? (4)

13 Occasionally arrive with dogs outside pits (10)

15 Rick’s annoying person (4,2,3,4)

19 Mass wedding Ruth and he arranged (13)

23 Quietly creep into complex to gain insight (10)

25 Long piece of biscuit china (4)

28 Single old Yankee hosts modern American (3-3) 29 Gathering country’s contribution (8)

30 Vocalises every so often in Tyrol valleys, forgetting line (6)

31 In revised lyric, Ned’s smashed old record (8)

DOWN

1 Lying face up, revealing bend in backbone (6)

2 Paved area taken in outside, principally (5)

3 Can’t stand heat waves (4)

4 Artist on the fiddle reduced Italian food (7)

6 Renovated to some degree, like Humpty Dumpty (5)

7 I’d carried in gift for chief (9)

8 Unfinished dessert also known as Greek main course? (8)

11 Spot drunkard swallowing litre (4)

14 Rant about storyteller (4)

15 Foreign correspondent’s male swan? (3,6)

16 New wife receives old present (3)

17 Some acknowledged border (4)

18 Piece of music, strangely sharp and oddly uneven (8)

20 Now and then doubt variable tax (4)

21 Firm invested in new money, showing prudence (7)

22 Polish result of punch? (6)

24 A bunch of parliamentarians picked up message (5)

26 Tired out, having been taken to court (5)

27 Some imaginative Persian priests (4)