| PRINCIPLE | As a rule it's accepted and by the head teacher we hear |
| SEEME | Teacher's "We need to talk" |
| CHARLESLAW | Fish served with the French salad - as a rule it's "gassy" (7,3) |
| MONARCHY | As a rule, it's what we're used to |
| DICTATORSHIP | Heard talking to the typist from despatch - as a rule it's absolutely awful (12) |
| OLIGARCHY | As a rule, its leaders are unlikely to get to number ten |
| LAW | As a rule, it's half walled up (3) |
| LONGREIGN | As a rule, it's extensive (4,5) |
| REIGN | As a rule, it's seen in foreigners (5) |
| LURE | As a rule it's used for bait |
| HABIT | As a rule, it's worn (5) |
| CAPITALOFZAIRE | Z (By the way, I made this puzzle in mid-May 1997 when the country was still called this, and by the time the puzzle came out in newspapers just two weeks later, the country's name had been changed. |
| GAS | It's sold by the gallon in the U.S. and by the liter in Europe |
| STRICT | The head teacher at this secondary school on the outskirts of Todber is terribly rigid in sticking to the rules (6) |
| THOUGHT | Despite the fact that the head teacher considered (7) |
| SCHWITTERS | Artist who fled Nazi Germany to the Lake District where he sought both refuge and refuse by means of peace and by the found objects or rubbish for his "Merz" collages (10) |
| NODDING | "When you are old and grey and full of sleep / And ... by the fire" (Yeats) |
| SAINTOMER | Alice Diop film inspired by a real French court case and by the story of Medea |
| NEIL | __ Pearson, plays Vaughan Fitzgerald, the head teacher of Waterloo Road school (4) |
| PACKHAM | Once the head teacher of Bessie Street School in Corrie (5,7) |
