Crossword and sudoku brain-teasers.

Time to steal a quiet moment and flex your brain with Friday’s puzzle pages

ACROSS

1 Author of the French trilogy consisting of The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray who also penned Jeeves and the Wedding Bells and the James Bond continuation novel Devil May Care (6) 4 French name for lamb’s lettuce, a butterytasting salad leaf served in warm salads with roasted carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, etc (5) 7 Flemish artist nicknamed Velvet, noted for floral compositions such as Flowers in a Wooden Vessel and Still Life with Tulips, Chrysanthemums, Narcissi, Roses, Irises and other Flowers in a Glass Vase (8) 14 Resembling an unfruited teacake or a cross between bread, cake and brioche, the original Bath ‘bun’ (5,4) 15 City in which India’s capital and the Lotus Temple are located (5) 16 First name of a ‘zero to hero’ boxer character played by Sylvester Stallone (5) 17 Mythological Greek muse of lyric and love poetry, depicted on a sarcophagus exhibited in the Louvre and a painting by Simon Vouet (5) 18 Novelist remembered for children’s classics including Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden and The Lost Prince (7) 19 Known as ‘the Elder’, Athelstan’s successor as King of England who was murdered by an exiled robber during a brawl and buried at Glastonbury Abbey (6,1) 20 Word linking with ‘Turf’ to form the tradename of a type of artificial grass used for fields and pitches for sport (5) 21 Word linking with ‘petit’ for the name of a French biscuit or ‘blanc’ for a variety of emulsified sauce for seafood (6) 23 Born in Ecclefechan in 1795, the historian, philosopher and satirist whose major works include Sartor Resartus and The French Revolution: A History (7) 26 Virgin Group founder who launched his career in 1968 with Student magazine (7) 28 Meadow flower in the primrose family once traditionally picked for May Day but less so now due to its decline (7) 29 __ _ _ netting; method of salmon fishing handed down by the Vikings, practised on the Solway Firth, Lune and Ribble (4) 32 Known as the ‘Town of Flowers’, the county town of Shropshire, where Charles Darwin was born in 1809 (10) 34 Bundle of nerve fibres transmitting neural signals between the brain and the peripheral nervous system (6,4) 36 Mr and Mrs ____; Roald Dahl’s husband and wife characters who play a series of revolting tricks on each other (4) 37 Representation of a word in shorthand; a précis; or, part of a drawing (7) 38 Victorian known for his cartoons in Punch and illustrations in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (7) 41 Jeweller who made the Imperial Easter eggs for Alexander III and his family (7) 43 One of the strikers in the current Manchester United FC squad (6)

45 Railway town in Cheshire, once home of Rolls-Royce and Bentley marques (5) 49 BBC Radio 4 Just a Minute host who received a special 50th-anniversary message from the Prince of Wales on Christmas Day in 2016 (7) 51 John von _______; Inventor of game theory and the Maniac computer who was involved in the nuclear doctrine Mad (7) 52 Hit single by Adele on her album 25 (5) 53 Cylindrical military cap with a plume adopted for the British infantry after the Napoleonic Wars (5) 54 __ _ _ _marine; pigment originally made from powdered lapis lazuli (5) 55 Night-blooming Mexican plants with flowers used to scent perfumes such as Fracas or Diptyque’s Do Son (9) 56 Mythical city of gold (2,6) 57 Abbreviated name of the British charity that operates the service Childline (1,1,1,1,1) 58 Chick or young of a pen and cob (6)

DOWN

1 Dr __ _ _ _ _; drama starring Suranne Jones (6) 2 Data transfers via bandwidth (7) 3 Parts of some of the musical instruments in the chordophone family (9) 5 English site of the annual Grand National (7) 6 Butterfly feeding on brambles and wild marjoram, also called a gatekeeper (5,5) 8 River rising in the Swiss Alps and then through six countries to the North Sea (5) 9 Chivalric title held by Edward FitzalanHoward, 18th Duke of Norfolk (4,7) 10 Creator of A Bigger Splash (7) 11 Hypothetical alignments joining areas including Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury, said to have spiritual powers (3,5) 12 Game played at Twickers (5) 13 Description of a car, race bike tyre, etc with little or no pressure/PSI (4) 22 Astronomical event with the phases umbra, penumbra or antumbra (7) 23 Sweet and sour Sicilian vegetable dish of aubergines, tomatoes, raisins, capers, flatleaf parsley, pine nuts, etc (8) 24 Description of a body mass categorised as 30 or above on the BMI scale (5) 25 1980s BBC television drama series with Rob Heyland as a zoo vet (3,2,3) 27 Projectile stored in a quiver (5) 28 Museum or gallery manager (7) 30 Creamy sauce flavoured with garlic, also known as butter of Provençe (5) 31 Capital of Zambia’s Copperbelt (5) 33 Artist’s pigment or paint with traditional hues including Payne’s grey, Windsor blue, potter’s pink, burnt umber and raw sienna (11) 35 Optical device that is used by birders, ornithologists and twitchers (10) 39 Description of a wind blowing towards the south, such as the one personified by Greek god Boreas (9) 40 Description of back-country ski trails away from patrolled areas (3-5) 42 South African surgeon who in 1967 performed the world’s first successful human-to-human heart transplant (7) 44 Fibre used to make Lycra, waistbands, smocking, hair scrunchies, etc (7) 46 Philanthropist and former GUS chairman whose name was used for colleges at Oxford and Cambridge (7) 47 Debut novel by Julian Fellowes (5) 48 Garment that was used to achieve the S-bend or wasp waist silhouette (6) 50 Soldiers or sports players collectively (5) 51 Basic component of a fragrance (top, middle or base), or of a flavour (4)

Solutions will be given next week. The last date for entries is February 28. The winner of this crossword will be announced on March 10. The winner of the February 10 crossword is Baneeta Malhotra, Dubai.