CROSSWORD

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1989 Port for the first correct solution opened on 23 September, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK solvers, the latest edition of The Chambers Dictionary - ring the word Dictionary'). Entries to: Crossword 1277, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL.

Two quartets of unclued lights are both sugges ed by a light clued without definition. Ignore two accents.

Name Address ACROSS

9 Before Queen company bowed (4) 11 Poison about nobody from gossip (10, two words) 12 Rows of unopened bellows (4) 14 Metal transactions City reels

. about (6)

17 Accountant presses excessive surplice (5)

20 Treasureyou strike in sound (7, hyphened))

21 Renames delinquent for wrongful purpose (7, two words) 23 Possible buyer of skinned sausage in beer (7) 24 Flash festival anthem (5) 25 Diana wounded nymph (5) 30 Husband like Nero? (7)

32 Determined dull company ... (7, - two words)

36 ...note general conflict (5) 37 Servant lopped weed and tree

(5)

38 Repeated annual return to legendary landfall (6) 39 Waffle's one cake (4) 41 Almost reach sick mind (4) 42 An MD's been dire: awful —7 (13, two words)

DOWN

1 Society ever provided rumour (5, hyphened)

2 Advanced nonsense defiantly (5)

3 One needling errand that's run (6) 4 Plutonomist's town (5) 6 Part of trunk to an emu when schooled? (7) 7 Flap about till Pastor comes round (6, hyphened) 10 Cavalryman on jumping date went over again (10) 13 Test unfinished, children cry (7) 15 Hot near Bolton, foggy and cooler in Glasgow (8) 18 Unit a male put up, girlfriend keeps (10, two words) 19 Lives on wallop (8) 21 Mater playing rondo cuts solo piece (9) 26 Dumps DSS mail at sea (7)

28 Foreign lout crashed on circuit (7)

29 Cockney got in trim for sport (6) 31 Argentina imports more battered fish (6) 33 Candle grease one leaves melting (5) 35 Drain second big jug (5)

Solution to 1274: August

The discovery on 7 August 1896 of PLACER-GOLD at RABBIT (later renamed BONANZA) CREEK in the KLONDIKE led to a RUSH by PROSPEC- TORS to the YUKON.

First prize: Mrs M.C. Conway, Sale, Cheshire. Runners-up: John N. Dunham, Stoke Bishop, Bristol; Jack Fletcher, Sheffield.