BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1

Twin sons of Leda, known as the Dioscuri (6,3,6)

Roald ___, Norwegian explorer who led the first successful mission to the South Pole in 1911 (8)

Lagopus scoticus, common to upland moors of Great Britain (3,6)

Sauce of mayonnaise mixed with capers and chopped pickles, usually served with fish (7)

Member of the American Indian people dominant in central Mexico before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century (5)

British progressive rock band who had a 1982 hit with Heat of the Moment (4)

Mutant villain played by Ray Park in the 2000 superhero film X-Men (4)

Fictional island named by Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias (8)

The second-longest river of France, named after the Celtic goddess Sequana (5)

Surname of the title character in the 1990-5 Mayim Bialik American sitcom Blossom (5)

Island group in the Gulf of Bothnia forming an autonomous region of Finland; capital, Mariehamn (5)

John ___ (1782–1837), Irish composer and pianist who invented the nocturne (5) See Lyman Frank___, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) (4)

10 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 20 22 25 27 28 15 Down. 30

1815 Jane Austen novel largely set in the fictional village of Highbury (4)

Waterfowl genus of the family Anatidae to which the grey geese belong (5)

Pear-shaped fruit with rough leathery skin and green edible flesh; Persea americana (7)

Peninsula of NW Turkey between the Dardanelles and the Gulf of Saros; scene of a major Allied campaign in 1915 (9)

Chord whose notes are played in rapid succession rather than simultaneously (8)

Director of the 2018 science fiction adventure film called Ready Player One (6,9)

32 33 35 36 37 DOWN 2

2018 horror film starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (1,5,5)

English rock band whose albums include Dig Out Your Soul (2008) (5)

Trojan hero in Greco-Roman mythology, son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (6)

Outermost and toughest of the three membranes covering the brain and spinal cord (4,5)

Genus of rodents native to North America of the family Cricetidae to which the muskrat belongs (7)

Bony rod forming the last segment of the vertebral column of frogs and related amphibians (8)

Text recited at the Seder on the

3 4 5 6 7 8

first two nights of Jewish Passover, including an account of the Exodus (8)

Easing of hostility or relations, especially between countries (7)

Joseph __, Polish-born British novelist; Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904) etc. (6)

and Japanese director of films including 1954’s The Seven Samurai and 1980’s Kagemusha (5,8)

State of NW Mexico on the Gulf of California; capital, Hermosillo (6)

US inventor who patented the first commercially successful sewing machine in 1851 (5,6)

John Philip ___, US composer of marches including The Stars and Stripes Forever and The Liberty Bell (5)

Suitor of Hermia and former lover of Helena in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-6) (9)

Aromatic perennial herb of the daisy family, Artemisia dracunculus (8)

Fascist party of Spain under Franco, formally abolished in 1977 (7)

Knight in Arthurian legend who fathered Galahad with Elaine of Corbenic (8)

Omission of one or more sounds from the end of a word, as when out of becomes outta (7)

Chief seaport of the Democratic Republic of Congo, founded by Sir Henry Morton Stanley in 1879 (6)

Circular aperture in the iris of the eye through which light reaches the retina (5)

9 14 15 18 19 21 23 24 25 26 29 31 34 27 Across.