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

1 Tolerating drinks supplier not moving (Two words) 10 Musical fade can be heard in pigment (Two words) 11 Defence group never managed to disturb 12 Compendium includes its own writer

13 Component that gives off heat

15 Elderly aristocrat outside getting berated (Two words)

17 Hard for blade to be transported around ancient city

21 Fashionable to make vine go twisting, covering university (Two words) 25 Woman left sofa in vehicle 26 Respected woman ended overwhelming desire

27 Somewhere in Italy and in France, you look with your head 28 Competition puts beast’s companion and prisoner on trial (Two words)

Down

2 Metric equation contains a very short time

3 Elbow uncovered without force

4 Useless in pet management 5 Gaugin’s first relative gets drawn

6 Working a lot around noon with a key 7 Elgar doesn’t start changing old tempo

8 Some butter starts to go hard, even emulsify 9 More effort to maintain ridge of coral

14 See nothing in senility 16 Admit to being won over 17 Man expected to cover top of drive

18 Her and my composition sound the same

19 British worker joining union? Language!

20 Each extremely behind the conclusion

21 One torn apart in opening 22 Call by – it’s wrong after six 23 Informant on the lawn 24 Deny accusations about singer