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 16,409, 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 68.
ACROSS
1 Account given by girl in court in superb performance (5,3) 5 Ban energy-free drink to get trimmer? (6) 9 Form the basis of three foreign articles about India (8) 10 Turn soil over — it’s rotten (6) 12 Traffic controller operating in church (4) 13 Great fun working in middle of July, but thankless (10) 15 Eg Mexican language linked to a chap around Morecambe (5-8) 19 Ned’s replacing stove that’s spotless (6-7) 23 Thrash orphan girl holding broken lathi (10) 25 Leading group of Rastafarians withdraw emperor (4) 28 Crafty, like Oliver’s friend (6) 29 Wake-up call concerning European in French town (8) 30 A number of Romans involved in boxing team (6) 31 Head man from Warsaw’s a tall thin person (8)
DOWN
1 Grasp contents of nest (6) 2 Plug lecturer’s extra feature (3-2) 3 Father’s anonymous seductress (4) 4 Bun and French mushroom a politician rejected (7) 6 Notice uniform on officer’s dirty maybe (5) 7 Glaring, having had a close shave? (9) 8 Enter old ground once smelling good (8) 11 Quietly pack first carriage? (4) 14 School’s sequence of 10 letters (4) 15 Brief missive about journal lacking adult viewers (9) 16 Bacilli regularly give trouble (3) 17 Skate here, beginning to go off the edge (4) 18 Mount about 50 for the first time in grounds (8) 20 Small room for biology unit (4) 21 Utter text, remembering contents (7) 22 A piece of cake, a sort of block (6) 24 Put up hotel on river (5) 26 Lots of rounds also exploded across bow of Victory (5) 27 Average bloke nurses athlete’s foot (4)