BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

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Large Australian kingfisher (Dacelo novaeguineae); the kookaburra (8,7)

Guide or escort, especially one travelling ahead of a main vehicle (8)

English snooker player who won the 2017 World Championship (4,5)

Knot or roll of hair arranged on the back of a woman’s head: French, ‘nape of the neck’ (7)

Short piece of sacred choral music; from Old French, ‘little word’ (5)

‘The horned Moon, with one bright ___/Within the nether tip’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (4)

2013 biographical sports drama film starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl (4)

Site on the internet or another computer network where users can converse in real time, typically about one subject (8)

Genus of leguminous plants of the family Fabaceae to which chickpeas belong (5)

Crimean port on the Black Sea, scene of a conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in 1945 (5)

First letter of the Hebrew alphabet, from which the Greek alpha is derived (5)

Hafez al ___, Syrian Baath statesman; President 1971–2000 (5)

Large West African monkey of the family Cercopithecidae with a red and blue muzzle and blue hindquarters (8)

Ancient region of Europe

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corresponding to modern France, Belgium, the southern Netherlands, SW Germany and northern Italy (4)

Second-youngest of the four March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (4)

Widow of Elimelech and mother-inlaw of Ruth (5)

Lowest lake in the world, on the border between Israel and Jordan (4,3)

Pseudonym used by English poet and novelist Anne Brontë (5,4)

Small pieces of toasted bread served with a savoury topping as a starter or canapé; Italian, ‘little crusts’ (8)

Ernest Hemingway novel set on the Italian Front in the First World War (1,8,2,4)

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Greyish cloud forming a solid layer at medium altitude, typically 2,400– 6,000m (8,000–20,000ft) (11)

Character played by Kristian Nairn on TV’s Game of Thrones (5)

Walther ___, German physical chemist who formulated the third law of thermodynamics; Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1920 (6)

Star of films including Yes Man and True Crimes (3,6)

Capital and largest city of Venezuela, in the north on the Guaire River (7)

Manipulative hypnotist in the George du Maurier novel Trilby (8)

Practice or art of engaging in controversial debate or dispute (8)

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Republic of SE Asia on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea (7)

Helical groove on the outside of a screw, bolt etc. or on the inside of a cylindrical hole (6)

Music written or printed form of a composition with all the vocal and instrumental parts arranged on staves one under the other (5)

London borough formed in 1965 from the metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn and St Pancras (6)

Radioactive transuranic metallic element artificially produced from curium, atomic no. 98 (11)

Ken ___, English director of films including Carla’s Song and I, Daniel Blake (5)

2007-8 BBC One police drama series starring Tim Pigott-Smith and Zöe Lucker (9)

Eight-legged horse ridden by Odin in Norse mythology (8)

Chief port and former capital of the Ivory Coast, on the Gulf of Guinea (7)

Black-striped nocturnal African mammal of the hyena family that feeds mainly on termites; Proteles cristatus (8)

‘And seek for truth in the groves of ___’ Horace Epistles bk.2 (7)

Male falcon or hawk used in falconry, especially a peregrine or a goshawk (6)

Island of Equatorial Guinea on which the national capital, Malabo, is located (5)

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