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 four-way symmetry: both top and bottom and left and right match, so you can fill in 12 more squares straight away.

Across

1 Outlandish claim about

American show

5 Ease dad out of

a lake (Two words)

9 Grasp argument

involving a relaxing place

10 Got comfortable, putting small light behind home

11 Colour of unpredictability

12 Recall about

underground space

13 Answers about next deity

14 Left inside, she’s a

terrible nuisance

17 Using brain, you start

in base two

21 Poor balance around

a sphere

22 Deduce negative

response from flames

23 Holding racket inside

24 Force her family to have

something pickled

25 Feature that’s intellectual

in the East End

Down

1 Tom’s broken more

than half

2 Brandish small fish

3 Supporter of light

murder weapon

4 Seal off river in a

bit of light

5 Model taken with mouth

6 Somehow needs a month with plenty more of that (Three words)

7 Rinse out a

warning device

8 Maid exchanged with a

similar attendant

15 Risk not starting walk

16 Delicate and fine,

swimming around lake

17 Boat uncovered

with guile, initially

18 Navigation aid that

looks both ways?

19 Boy gets key for

composition

20 A novel, a second time