GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Across

1. Herb-flavoured cucumber preserved in brine or vinegar (4,6)

6. An extremely hot day (colloq) (8)

12. Item of garden equipment first made in 1832 after an engineer saw a machine in a cloth mill (5)

13. Yearly grants or allowances paid at equal intervals (9)

14. Second most common surname in South Korea (3)

15. Germanic tribe which fought Rome in the Cimbrian War in the 2nd Century BC (7)

16. River which rises in Turkey and runs for 1750km, through Iraq and into the Persian Gulf (6)

18. Type of soft bread roll from north west England (4)

19. Cinema which does not show mainstream Hollywood films (3,5)

20. Duplicate or replacement component for a vehicle or machine (5,4)

24. Apache leader who was held prisoner by the US government for 23 years until he died, aged 79, in 1909 (8)

28. Medium-sized primate of South Asia which is part of the genus Nycticebus (4,5)

29. Prime Minister of Italy since June 2018 (5)

30. Single-sloping roof surface (9)

31. Site of the last battle of the American Revolution, in 1781 (8)

34. Playground structure on which children can climb (6,3)

36. Type of large four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage fashionable in the 19th Century (8)

40. Second-largest moon of Saturn (4)

42. Japanese gang or gangster (6)

44. Person held as security for the good behaviour of a defeated party after a war or battle (7)

46. Stomach muscles (abbr) (3)

47. American manufacturer of recreational vehicles, named after a Native American tribe (9)

48. Irish girl’s name which means‘beauty’ or ‘radiance’ (5)

49. Make something clinically or starkly clean (8)

50. Singer who died in a plane crash in February 1959 (5,5)

Down

1. Emperor of Rome from 81-96, last of the Flavian dynasty after Vespasian and Titus (8)

2. A prosecution of a claim by litigation (7)

3. Capital city of Benin (5,4)

4. Roman general and politician who died at the Battle of Carrhae (7)

5. Phil ___, lead singer of hard rock band Thin Lizzy, who died in 1986 aged 36 (6)

7. Palace which is the official residence of 29A (5)

8. Temporary outbreak of itchy patches on the skin (4)

9. Christian saint and founding abbess of a monastery at Whitby, North Yorkshire (5)

10. Painful disorder of the joints or muscles (10)

11. Tiny, gnat-like flies that appear in swarms near water (6)

17. Malaysian state on the island of Borneo whose major ethnic group is the Iban (7)

21. Popular diet also known as the Stone Age diet (5)

22. Small Otago river which feeds into the Kawarau, and is best known for a town of the same name on its banks (5)

23. Fictional bear created by A.A. Milne (4)

25. A large division of geological time (3)

26. “___ is the sister of innocence and the cousin of stupidity”: Pierre Decourcelle (7)

27. Scottish actor who played the seventh Doctor Who (5)

28. In Greek mythology, river which had to be crossed to reach the underworld (4)

30. Inhabitants of the largest Balearic island (9)

32. Title of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland (9)

33. “If it wasn’t for baseball I’d be in either the penitentiary or ___”: Babe Ruth (8)

35. Cat used to catch rodents (6)

37. Forest in Sussex, setting for the stories featuring 23D (7)

38. Twelve pairs of nerves that emerge directly from the brain (7)

39. Mythological place mentioned in the first line of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan (6)

41. Actor who played the role of Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies (5)

43. Female name which was among the most popular in the English-speaking world for 400 years (5)

45. One of the title characters in a Roald Dahl story about an unpleasant married couple (4)