CROSSWORD

1456: Gale warning by Dumpynose

A first prize of £30 and a bottle of Graham's award-winning, Late- Bottled Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 10 April, with two runners-up prizes of £20 (or, for UK solvers, the latest edition of The Chambers Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary'). Entries to: Crossword 1456, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Stree , London WC1N 2LL.

Words linked with two quartets of unelued lights form a timely phrase.

Name Address ACROSS 1 Laden lorry one could bear (awful big rig we'd hate empty) (11) 11 Glum without wife, husband loses heart (6) 15 Potter and potter's ultimate wheel (5) 16 Timber apparent in twisted tree

(5)

17 Gin repelled imperfect spouse (6) 18 Enormous motor for ladies' man? (5) 20 Minute adult cat I see (6) 21 Set time composer keeps (5) 22 Explorer and followers tour South Africa (7) 27 Phoenix's foot peasant treated

(7)

29 Horns author heard (5) 30 Cloth Cecilia almost spun (6) 32 Works out of print and date (5) 34 Mac's blue loch has fish around (6) 37 One nabbed by the force? (5) 38 Bobby ever in odd places (7) 39 Dish cooked east of Syracuse (6) 41 Drink you filter poorly, removing nothing surplus (11) DOWN 2 Irish worker about to scratch itch? (8) 3 Swelling a depleted home team playing Austria (9) 4 Troops commissary general sacked, lacking good English CSM (12, two words) 6 Piece of fish or bit of fruit? (8) 7 A piece of cake climbing tree

(5)

8 Dreadful point court ignored

(4) 9 Lassie ingests constant fruit (6) 10 Old itch riled nameless parson 12

(5)

Catch chestnut in dragnet (6) 14 Producer of beams still swamped by nasty Isoptera (12, two words) 23 Unlimited fruit? Not so much (8) 24 Melchitarist, no male saint, cooked fish (8) 25 Promptly twice rejects soft fruit (6) 26 Hunt out soldiers stuffing duck (7, two words) 28 Hand arsenic over for tyrant (6) 31 Pick upright liberal for king (5) 33 Stiff priest's hostile (5) 35 Shot soaring cuckoo (4)

Solution to 1453: Ikebana

The words arranged were ASPHODEL (14 PRIMROSE (14), CELANDLNE (30A), CLEMATIS (36), TULIP (12), LOVE-IN-A-MIST (16D), ROSE (20) and FREESIA (28).

First prize: Sir Norman Price, Eastbourne. Runners-up: Mrs M.

Speelman, London; Miss B. Cooper, Oxfordshire.