BARE BONES

WIN A COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS SET, AND A BRADFORD’S CROSSWORD SOLVER’S DICTIONARY

Our Bare Bones Crossword is unique because you have to complete the grid – numbers and squares – as well. We have inserted four black squares and four clue numbers to get you going. The crossword has a fourway symmetry: both top and bottom and left and right match, so you can fill in 12 more squares straight away.

Across

5 Family pursuing bear organised burglary (Two words, hyphenated) 7 Different arrangement, as carthorse would be for orchestra 9 Overdue journalist is behind table getting broken 11 Taxi takes hard left and is dry and white 12 Politicians: ‘Nuisances are the effects of delivery’ (Two words) 15 Sportsman puts endless series first 17 Contest of stamina for a superhero? 19 Effeminate place to sleep? (Two words) 20 Stir eggs in with new medicinal plant

Down

1 Cooks a burger accompaniment 2 Stupid with the last bit of money 3 At home with church a little bit 4 Bowl, when inside receptacle 6 Quickly devise a plot about a girl (Three words) 8 Leave to get fruit and act wildly (Two words) 10 Intimidate daughter and another relative 11 Island shows sign, without the sentimental stuff 13 Bishop on way back covers line to make a local regulation 14 Is city able to be shrewd? 16 Look glossy, left out 18 Thinker doesn’t start in bad weather