THE PRIZE CROSSWORD
There’s an amazing €2,000 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, January 5 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, January 21. You must complete the iSpy box to enter. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter – and good luck! 11 An opinion formed beforehand, especially an unfavourable one (9)
12 Theodore ---, 26th president of the US, after whom the teddy bear is named (9)
13 Type of worm with a sucker at each end of its body, feeding on the blood of other animals (5)
14 Reflections or
meditations (7)
15 An approach made by an athlete for a long jump or pole vault (3-2)
16 Arthur ---, Irish brewer who signed a 9,000-year lease for the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin on
New Year’s Eve 1759 (8)
18 Nikita ---, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1953-64 (10) 22 An Italian variety of chicory, with purple leaves streaked with white (9)
24 A shoe worn for running
and other sports (7)
27 Something temporary
or makeshift (7)
28 Arturo ---, Italian conductor; a music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic (9)
30 The less unpleasant of two unpleasant options one must choose between (6,4)
32 To formally renounce
a throne (8) 35 Georges ---, French Romantic composer and pianist, best known for the 1875 opera Carmen (5)
37 An organised series of races of yachts or rowing boats (7)
38 Matthew ---, English poet and diplomat buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey in 1721 (5)
39 Musical instruction meaning ‘not too much, moderately’ (3,6)
40 Singers, especially those who regularly appear with a band or group (9)
Down
1 An oral or written expression of regret or contrition (7)
2 Becomes worse or lower
in quality (12)
3 Silence after noise (4)
4 Colouring matter which is turned red by acid and blue by alkali (6)
5 and 7 Upholsterer credited with making the first American flag, born on
New Year’s Day 1752 (5,4) 6 Bread slices dipped in beaten egg and lightly fried (6,5)
7 See 5
8 The floor of
a fireplace (6)
9 Forest of ---, region of western Gloucestershire, England, bounded by rivers Wye and Severn (4)
10 Short stays in places between parts of a long journey (9) 17 The lowest or
deepest point (5)
19 Extreme or immoderate, especially in beliefs or opinions (5)
20 French artist born on New Year’s Eve in 1869 (5,7)
21 Dick ---, pantomime in which a poor boy sets out for London to make his fortune (11)
23 Hard, yellow French cheese made from cow’s milk (5)
25 In law, a defence by an accused person that he or she was elsewhere at the time a crime was committed (5)
26 In Australia, a branch of a river which runs to a dead end (9)
29 In music, the repeating of
an earlier theme (7)
31 To secure money by
intimidation or violence (6) 33 A subdivision or subsidiary section of something larger or more complex (6)
34 In music, an individual group of five lines and four spaces used in staff notation (5)
36 Clownish or eccentrically
funny (4)
37 Of fruit or grain that is mature and ready to be eaten or used (4)
38 The skin of a fur-bearing
animal (4)