THE SKELETON CROSSWORD – £325 in prizes

There is a £100 prize for the first correct solution drawn; nine runners-up receive £25.

Send your completed crossword to the address shown in the box below left. In the skeleton crossword, the black squares and clue numbers have to be filled in as well as the words. Four black squares and four clue numbers have been inserted to give you a start. The black squares form a symmetrical pattern; the top half matches the bottom, and the two sides correspond. You can fill in 12 more squares at once to correspond with those given.

Send to: Skeleton Crossword, PO Box 12578, Sutton Coldfield B73 9BT. The winners will be the first correct entries drawn after the closing date of noon on Friday. Please allow 30 days for prizes to arrive.

ACROSS

1 A meal soldiers finished 4 Fight about neckwear worn

by airhead

10 Ferocious lion vet treated 11 Dry promoter given back

trouble

12 Tree equally close to bush 13 Back from jail, some testify

in case

15 Increases reversed after

final spike

16 Men ruined work - it’s

sabotage!

17 Flipping cobblers put on

boot’s heel wrong! 19 Grand ending of fine short

film

22 Express article cut in front

of reporters

24 Eccentric leaving a splitting

punt

25 Passed inside man heard a

weapon

26 Water given to a horse and

drunk

27 Copper perhaps capturing

American relative

DOWN

1 News about a novelist at

sea

2 Jabs for a copper, initially 3 Fat suit one made the focus

of polemic

5 Occasional year-end

overtime

6 A cluster of clerics

beginning Mass

7 Takeaway a torn cubist

ordered

8 Impasse, say, broken by

male cast

9 Brief record ruined her meal 14 Either way, one disapproves 15 Spot someone vacated by

venue’s rear

18 Search for gold dropped in

anger

20 Attendants opening up

about squire filling out

21 A body of water and nothing

more

23 This rotated landmark oddly

faces a city