The 12 clues of Christmas – prize puzzle!
Are you ready for a cryptic Christmas challenge? Join our wordsmiths and take on this special end of year brain teaser competition – with 12 cryptic clues to solve and the chance to win a £50 John Lewis voucher.
For Speak’s content team, a defining feature of the first few months of 2021 was our shared love of regular team quizzes – and the daily cryptic clues set by our head of content, George Theohari.
Now, for the first time, we’re giving all our friends and followers a chance to test their word-power by solving 12 of these crossword-style brain teasers.
Everyone who sends in a complete set of correct answers by midday (GMT) on 24 December will be entered into the free prize draw. See rules below.
Hint: the last letter of each answer will give you the first letter of the next solution.
Commonest name for a forger (5)
Honk your horn at the help when it’s time for a musical get-together (10)
Follow your leader to China, say, for baking essential (5)
‘Born to me’ reinterpreted for a musical instrument (8)
Go in to return key (5)
Antiquity found where lice reside (5)
Island’s home to top Royal Institute (5)
Compressed inside a seed enclosure (2, 1, 8)
Copy that could take ages to fill out (4-4)
Authority to carry out a nice dinner for a couple of guys (7)
The twisted Madame E made me eat green beans (7)
In addition, no beginning to next Sun God (5)
Terms and Conditions
To enter the competition, send your answers to enquiries@speakmedia.co.uk stating your full name and email address, with the subject line ‘cryptic clues’. Entries received after the closing date will not be considered.
The closing date for all our competition entries is 12pm (GMT) on Friday, 24 December 2021.
Only one entry will be permitted per person, bulk entries made by third parties will not be permitted.
The winning entrant will be the first correct entry drawn at random from all the correct entries after the closing date.
The winner will be notified within 28 days of the close of the competition by email. If the winner cannot be contacted or fails to respond within 28 days of such notification being sent, Speak Media reserves the right to offer the prize to a runner up, or to re-offer the prize in any future promotion.