Looking for an Easter puzzle, I scrolled through my records, and found that I have set several Church Times puzzles for the week after Easter. Eventually I found No. 434, which dates from Good Friday 1998 – though I can’t honestly say you’d know (there is one relevant answer). A glance at the copy I’ve kept revealed the presence of a few annotations showing where the Church Times editor had amended some clues. I didn’t note specific examples, but went through the clues as I typed them up, saying: “Not my style – must be an editorial change”, “No, I’d never write that” and so on. Wrong every time…
ACROSS
1 Story about recall of Prohibition is almost colourless (7)
5 Uprooted cedars kept for a special purpose (6)
8 A duty, we hear, to provide certain points (5)
9 Did train crash in part of West Indies? (8)
10 Scoundrel mixing a beer with port (9)
11 Part of flower – head of peony – once recalled (5)
13 Notice former schoolboy assist the minister (7)
15 Consumer wants nude dancing to accompany half of sermon (3,4)
17 Recants after suffering ecstatic states (7)
19 Author invoked by those calling on the Devil? (7)
21 Rushes and does the lesson, we hear? (5)
23 A real cost involved for moving flight (9)
25 Girl in lurid green is running as if possessed (8)
26 Dirty, dour and ultimately spooky (5)
27 Some agreed Ginger should have a trim (6)
28 Joseph, perhaps: “What’s not colourful about me?” (7)
DOWN
1 A bird depicted in advert for lift (11)
2 Amended precise sets of instructions (7)
3 See one store clad in brick, mostly (9)
4 Added section of text rapidly (5)
5 Prodigal son at one stage? There’s terribly dire news about him initially (9)
6 Primate in Church meeting with devil (5)
7 Historical period linked with Saint and American opponent of church powers (7)
12 Sorry pleader, distraught, with no end of repentance, produces this? (5,6)
14 Gets eager, possibly, for festival gift (6,3)
16 A clue: God set out these commandments! (9)
18 President meeting fat and romantically-inclined churchman (7)
20 Unhappy Minister spurning one form of political infiltration (7)
22 Guru floated above one (5)
24 Ordered expunging of French belief system (5)
Solution
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