Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 105
A Puzzle by eXternal
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Foreword
Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
He’s been cutting his teeth on the DIY COW clue-writing competition, and today you can tackle eXternal’s first NTSPP puzzle. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
The puzzle
A Puzzle by eXternal
There is an interactive version of the puzzle here.
If you prefer your puzzles on paper, a pdf of the puzzle can be downloaded from the interactive version.
| Across | Down | |||
| 1 | Tribe’s overthrown champion lacking power (7) | 1 | Pleasant sounding doctor has look internally (7) | |
| 5 | Heartless quibble about nothing to start with becomes tortuous (7) | 2 | Balance worker’s bronze on centre of ledge (9) | |
| 9 | Fast time, nothing slow (5) | 3 | Church representative conceals love bite (5) | |
| 10 | Smell of European capital is a distinctive feature (5,4) | 4 | Woman’s to manage upbringing accepting one carer (9) | |
| 11 | Get lost novel appraised (9) | 5 | Long-gone headless sea creature (5) | |
| 12 | Able to sting (5) | 6 | Son’s wearing net garment to enhance natural features (9) | |
| 13 | Fetch affluent guards worthless material (5) | 7 | Endlessly repeat a whack (5) | |
| 15 | Talk sexy without boundaries with similarly affected Serb military leader (9) | 8 | Justice for Liberal voter, gaining seat (7) | |
| 18 | Main partner to join forces with religious community (4,5) | 14 | Push forward and bug lover to get married with chief (9) | |
| 19 | Carry out punishment brought about by head of teaching (5) | 16 | Spineless creature harassed war hero clutching last of retirement money (9) | |
| 21 | Jerk briefly with minute expression (5) | 17 | Severe don in a car crashed (9) | |
| 23 | Delivery is key, what a six for us! (9) | 18 | Cut futuristic film’s lost provided backing, upsetting movie reviewer (7) | |
| 25 | It’s fantastic being wonderful girl’s love (9) | 20 | Reject it, day in bank, while being taxed (7) | |
| 26 | Annoyed European admitted to returning obscenity (5) | 22 | Enter, one bearing plonk (5) | |
| 27 | Mechanical device resulting from engineering chatter (7) | 23 | Worn out clothes line causing complaint (5) | |
| 28 | Virgin cradling child in craft (7) | 24 | Very old place turned upside down to uncover exes? (5) |