BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 3rd-century Greek mathematician whose Elements established the principles of plane geometry (6)

4 US author of novels including The Color

Purple (Pulitzer Prize, 1983) (5,6)

9 See 27

10 Company that controlled the rail infrastructure in Britain’s newly-privatised railway system from 1994 to 2002 (9)

11 Largest city of Nebraska, on the Missouri

River opposite Council Bluffs, Iowa (5)

12 Capital of Kenya, popularly known as the

Green City in the Sun (7)

14 Back part of the human foot between the

instep and the base of the ankle (4)

17 Watery discharge of the eyes, nose or mouth

that occurs during sleep (5)

18 and 34 Down US blues musician born James Isaac Moore in 1924; I’m A King Bee (1957), Baby Scratch My Back (1966) etc. (4,5)

19 Coffee cup of half standard size, typically holding

2 to 3 fluid ounces (60 to 90 millilitres) (9)

21 Huntsman’s cry signalling the sighting of a

fox (5-2)

22 Former Bantu homeland in SE South Africa merged with Natal to create a new province in 1994 (7)

25 ‘More needs she the divine than the ___,’

Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606) (9)

27 and 9 Eponymous heroine of an 1878 Leo

Tolstoy novel; the sister of Stepan Oblonsky (4,8)

28 Largest lake of New Zealand, on central North

Island drained by the Waikato River (5)

29 Mischievous sprite of English folklore also

called Robin Goodfellow (4)

31 Muse of music in Greek mythology, often

depicted holding a flute (7)

33 Tall cylindrical military hat with a short peak

and a plume, popular in the 19th century (5)

36 Isobutylphenyl propionic acid, widely used as

an anti-inflammatory and analgesic drug (9)

37 Stable uncharged elementary particle with

almost zero mass when at rest (8)

38 Oscar-winning star of the 1982 biopic

Gandhi (3,8)

39 In cricket, an off break bowled with an apparent

leg break action (6)

DOWN

1 Large Norwegian dog of the spitz type with a thick grey coat and curled tail, used for hunting (8)

2 Any blood-sucking annelid worm of the subclass Hirudinea, having a sucker at each end of the body (5)

3 Raised platform at the end of a room or hall for

speakers, honoured guests etc. (4)

4 Any of the body postures adopted in yoga;

Sanskrit, ‘sitting posture’ (5)

5 Colourless flammable toxic gas produced by

oxidation of hydrogen cyanide (8)

6 Scottish chemist who discovered the noble

gases; Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1904) (7,6)

7 Butler in TV’s The Addams Family (1964-6),

played by Ted Cassidy (5)

8 Genus of rod-shaped Gram-negative enteric

bacteria to which E. coli belongs (11)

13 Of a judicial act, directed at property rather

than a person; Latin, ‘against the thing’ (2,3)

15 Smallest provincial capital of Canada, on

Prince Edward Island (13)

16 Large public square surrounded by buildings,

especially in an Italian town (6)

18 Hard white or colourless mineral of which

quartz and chalcedony are types (6)

20 US astronomer (1889–1953) whose eponymous law established that the universe is expanding (5,6)

23 Visible trail, especially that of a hunted animal;

from Afrikaans, ‘track’ (5)

24 2019 crime drama film starring Constance Wu

and Jennifer Lopez (8)

26 Branch of medical science concerned with the

classification of diseases (8)

30 Silky fibre obtained from the seed coverings of the ceiba tree (Ceiba pentandra), used for stuffing cushions etc. (5)

32 Sixth-largest island of the Philippines, lying

southeast of Mindoro (5)

34 See 18 Across

35 Spongy saclike thoracic organ to which the

adjective pulmonary refers (4)