Crossword

Get your brain in gear.

ACROSS

9 A fellow is a nark – wagging tongue (9) 10 Ambiguity about pool sounds complete (8) 12 Doctor sees work decrease (4)

13 Song about the man (6)

14 Pen new melody for deity ( 7)

15 Broadcast a ruling about European getting a pain (9)

17 Steer a plan to encourage bonus feature (6,3) 18 Girl takes in a mineral ( 7)

20 Last character played game, incorporating universal figure of speech (6)

21 First king starts to suspect a university lecturer (4) 24 Best 60s group, originally a heavy object (8) 26 Bribe gets a blue house (8) 28 Repeatedly find unknown old toy (2-2) 29 Witchcraft makes firm return with sect (6) 31 Wine, endless tea and endless happiness ( 7) 34 Metal left – better than man getting uranium (9) 36 Pet heard about large building (9)

38 Cat’s lip turned out to be artificial ( 7) 39 Rector, old, spills last of last drink in elaborate style (6)

40 Mean to change the last word (4) 41 Pretend to wear lame suit (8)

42 Typically performing with mode, say (2,7)

DOWN

1 Routine enthusiast gets fellow to leave (8)

2 Large university pursues improving room in fake gold (6)

3 US philanthropist to transport genie about (8)

4 A maths problem causes breathing difficulty (6)

5 Passion almost gets boyfriend a torch (8)

6 Southerner broke Roman’s chin (10) 7 Punish favourite dog ( 7)

8 Reason to put line in part of sentence (6)

11 Leave Pearl running round something in the garden ( 7)

16 Home as starting point, by way of railway (6)

19 Welshman takes year finding banned substance (5)

20 Rush to find something embarrassing left open (3)

22 A charge to see a reef (5) 23 Woman takes artist to see a different sort of art (6)

25 Time to rent coach out to skilled person (10)

26 Chewed on some digital information (3) 27 He’ll have one eye on endless sequence at work on Sunday ( 7)

30 Put off getting old money – English is relatively dear (8)

31 Accent varies – takes notes from dolphin, say (8)

32 Wrong license, right part of gun (8) 33 Wife sent this to a French festival ( 7) 35 Vitamin is new in CIA operation (6) 36 Mad to be seen in front of clock (6) 37 Mare ran, getting gold for composer (6)