PUZZLES

Crossword and sudoku brain-teasers.

ACROSS

1 Artist and adventurer alleged to have engaged in cannibalism when he was shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean; his works include Charles Townley in the Park St Gallery and Tribuna of the Uffizi (7) 5 Said to sing in the UK from St Tiburtius’ Day (April 14) to St John’s Day (June 24), a bird whose arrival/song in April is a traditional signal that spring has arrived (6) 8 With aromatic peel used to make twists or spirals for garnishing drinks, citrus fruits such as the Sfusato variety growing on the Amalfi Coast (6) 13 With capacities measured in litres, bags used for outdoor pursuits, hill walking, mountaineering, camping, etc (9) 14 Common _____; scrambling purplish wildflower and forage crop on the British Royal Horticultural Society’s ‘perfect for pollinators’ list, used as a soil fertiliser due to its ability to make its own nitrates (5) 15 Tamil name for Sri Lanka; the proposed homeland of the Tamil people (5) 16 The _____; title of a novel by Joanna Trollope; or, a television series presented by Gareth Malone (5) 17 Depicted in a play by Shakespeare, a young Trojan prince who woos Cressida before being killed by Achilles (7) 18 Baroque musician dubbed ‘Orpheus Britannicus’ who became the organist for Westminster Abbey around the age of 20 and composed the first English opera, Dido and Aeneas (7) 19 Swiss _____; national anthem of Switzerland that was revamped in a more modern style in recent years (5) 20 Chalk stone used in the restoration of East Anglian historic buildings, the name of which is used by British paint-maker Farrow & Ball for one of its neutral colours (6) 22 Collective noun for a group of geese (6) 26 Situated on the Suffolk coast, the UK’s easternmost town, where Benjamin Britten was born in 1913 (9) 28 Card game also called trente et quarante and red and black (5,2,4) 30 East Ayrshire town where Robert Burns’ collection Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was first published (10) 32 French composer and conductor noted for Rondo Capriccioso, Samson and Delilah, Symphony No 3 ‘Organ’ and The Carnival of the Animals (5-5) 35 Bird with similarities to a nuthatch but with brown plumage forming an excellent camouflage against bark (11) 37 Meaning ‘mother’s necklace’ and described by Edmund Hillary as ‘unclimbable’, a Himalayan peak considered one of the most challenging and soughtafter ascents (3,6) 38 Rows of vegetable plants in furrows; primates related to baboons; or, marching (6) 40 Company of touring theatrical performers, dancers or singers (6) 41 _____ One Morning; Virginia Baily’s 2015 novel set in Rome (5) 46 Marine navigation instrument resembling a compass but with no magnetic needle; or,

name of a mega yacht designed by Tim Heywood (7) 48 Sir Walter Raleigh’s half-brother whose last recorded words were: ‘We are as near to heaven by sea as by land’ (7) 49 Imperial unit sometimes given along with metric in cookery books (5) 50 One of the seven deadly sins (5) 51 Vehicle depicted in JMW Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed (5) 52 Dog breed, either golden or flatcoat (9) 53 Item attached to a mortarboard (6) 54 Town on the French Riviera considered the world’s perfume capital (6) 55 Author whose The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is thought to bear one of the first references to foolishness and thus is tenuously linked to April Fools’ Day (7)

DOWN

1 The largest city in Switzerland (6) 2 Substances in the blood involved in coagulation, identified by numerals (7) 3 Geographic region comprising Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea (11) 4 Boats raced by Loïck Peyron, Chay Blyth and Ellen MacArthur (6) 5 Stew of Toulouse sausages with confit duck legs and cannellini beans (9) 6 Variety of Tuscan kale (black cabbage) traditionally served in minestrone (6,4) 7 Solemn promises in the Hippocratic code based on ‘doing no harm’ (5) 9 Plant traditionally used as a remedy for facial puffiness, genus Euphrasia (9) 10 Artificial borehole from which petroleum is extracted from the earth (3,4) 11 The mother, by Zeus, of Dionysus (6) 12 Political party discipline official (4) 21 Chadic Nigerian language (5) 22 The _____ ___; Kingsley Amis novel (5,3) 23 Traditional Greek off-white wool rug (7) 24 Discs known as winks and squidgers in tiddlywinks (8) 25 ‘Dr Livingstone, I_ _ _ _ _ _ _’, greeting of Henry Morton Stanley upon locating David Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Africa (7) 27 Novelist and playwright who created the characters of Dorian Gray and Lady Windermere (5) 29 Actress who starred as Sarah Brown in Bryan Forbes’s International Velvet (1’4) 31 A score of 40 in piquet when a player wins all 12 tricks (5) 33 Greek filo, feta and spinach pie (11) 34 Name of the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit (10) 36 Poet who wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan (9) 37 Large woody plant looked after by an orchardist; or, when linked with Yard, the title of a 2017 British television thriller starring Emily Watson (5,4) 39 Long ocean waves as they advance to the shore; or, cylinders of velcro or ceramic for curling/volumising hair (7) 42 Abbreviated name for a research period between Trinity Term and Michaelmas Term at Oxbridge (4,3) 43 Peg for the bunghole of a cask (6) 44 __ _ _ _ _ line; cord attaching a novice parachutist’s D-Bag to an aircraft enabling automatic deployment during a jump (6) 45 Cup ______; in Greek myth, a word used to describe Hebe (6) 47 Indian author who wrote The Golden Gate, A Suitable Boy and the collection of fables in verse Beastly Tales (4) 48 Egg whites used as an art material that can be added to gouache (5)