Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 045
A Puzzle by Isla
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Foreword
Welcome to the forty fifth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Today we have a first puzzle from a new setter. Isla, neither Scottish nor female, is a fan of Chilean footballer Mauricio Isla, the 22-year-old right-back who plays for Udinese in Italy. This puzzle is on the tough side, but well-worth the effort.
The puzzle
A Puzzle by Isla
There is an interactive version of the puzzle here.
If you prefer your puzzles on paper, a pdf of the puzzle an be downloaded from the interactive version.
| Across | Down | |||
| 1 | Cut back gel, no good in hair that stands up (6) | 1 | Jesus the man: extremely hairy, pale, undressed (10) | |
| 4 | Arsenal keeper’s third amazing calamity (8) | 2 | Tea cups at home? (5) | |
| 10 | When blotto, seal lips around a straw to get the rest? (9) | 3 | Records contain recent indication of new driver (1-6) | |
| 11 | Wipe the floor with flash young boxer? (3,2) | 5 | No-name linen, absurd copying (5) | |
| 12 | Travellers’ protector’s crazy as shrubs (2,8,4) | 6 | Gammon I ate produced pungent gas (7) | |
| 14 | Series of tests remains (5) | 7 | Busy Lizzie’s over-eager, starts to scramble for time (9) | |
| 16 | Train pupils to throw a ball, perhaps? (4,2,3) | 8 | See unknown after supernatural vision (4) | |
| 18 | I’m ready, you sound unprepared… (9) | 9 | Coats, pants cover high fashion (5,3) | |
| 20 | …ready to be shot at dawn (5) | 13 | Killer band had a quest – to rock the world, ultimately (5,5) | |
| 21 | Between flights a plane parks in airfields (7,7) | 15 | Careless fellow not about to guess (9) | |
| 25 | Tot has area for play (5) | 17 | Russians purge army marshals, power transferred in the teeth of this? (4,4) | |
| 26 | Dictator over east provokes horrific tableau finally (9) | 19 | Ancient race of colonial England (3,4) | |
| 27 | Hearing related to blocking diary radical union leader’s penned (8) | 20 | Eating flower in such a manner reversed problem in marsupial (7) | |
| 28 | Entertained a thought (6) | 22 | More appealing as queen under arrest, king set free (5) | |
| 23 | Bows and bouquets (5) | |||
| 24 | Fancy fish are (4) |
NTSPP – 046>