CRYPTIC CROSSWORD
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 16105, 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 datestamped 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+, exc NI. Terms apply, see Page 62.
ACROSS
1 Rebuke handsome youth casing motorway hotel (8) 5 Cut American racket (6) 9 What engravers do in bed in the Home Counties (8) 10 Puzzle sounds oddly fine, approaching top-class (6) 12 Stick article inside church (4) 13 Carpeting having powerful effect on old fellows (7,3) 15 Old London club the main topic of conversation (4,2,3,4) 19 Churchgoer hosts a more nervous Yankee from UK? (5-8) 23 Club in Corsica organised gymnastic feats (10) 25 Briefly manage without yard (4) 28 Bill carries pig on boat (6) 29 Pursue man at university receiving zero for English (6,2) 30 What some smokers do at home with hard drink (6) 31 Overhaul army’s system, omitting SAS for balance (8)
DOWN
1 Each expert consumes pastry dish (6) 2 Stone worker’s ‘Mother and Child’ (5) 3 Standard choice of adjacent letters (4) 4 Bendy bus froze, not starting in such conditions? (7) 6 Where to slow down superior performance (1-4) 7 Zoo patron mistreated tiny animal (9) 8 Sage and onion perhaps raises stink in innards (8) 11 Kitty cherishes large bed (4) 14 Member of choir? Get her to leave completely (4) 15 Spotted flyer flying right to me (5,4) 16 Opponent of revolutionary European (3) 17 Every fruit should have its top cut off (4) 18 Ignoring book at home, Abraham upset prince’s wife (8) 20 Couple’s final position in game on board (4) 21 Minister’s home, removing iron from dining room (7) 22 Work hard during test to obtain prize (6) 24 Stone pinched during robbery lost (5) 26 Bird and sheep nearly trapped in mine (5) 27 Short rotund fruit (4)
NEED A CLUE? Text TIP to 65700 to receive FOUR answers to today’s crossword, or call 0901 293 6236. Texts and calls cost £1 plus standard network charges. Today’s clues available between 00.01 today and 23.30 only.