BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Large northern constellation whose seven

brightest stars form the Plough (4,5)

6 Traditional name for the European badger

(Meles meles), of Celtic origin (5)

10 Giacomo___, 18th-century Italian adventurer whose Histoire de ma vie (History of My

Life) (1960) established him as an archetypal libertine (8)

11 and 24 Down Famous aphorism by English poet John Donne, in the 17th devotion, Meditation XVII, of the 1624 prose work Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (2,3,2,2,6)

12 Bicameral parliament of the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), co-ruling with the Hungarian Diet (9)

13 Hindu goddess of the dawn, daughter of the

Sky (Dyaus) and sister of Night (Ratri) (5)

15 Southernmost of the Northern Marianas in the western Pacific, known as the ‘Friendly Island’ (4)

16 Clear soup made by concentrating and clarifying meat or chicken stock, often served as an appetiser (8)

17 Balkan country north of the Aegean Sea in ancient Greek and Roman times, now divided between Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece (6)

20 and 22 1995 action thriller film starring Sandra

Bullock and Jeremy Northam (3,3)

25 John ___, Emmy-winning star of the 1977-84 US

sitcom Three’s Company (6)

26 Chief antagonist of the 1985 James Bond film A View To A Kill, played by Christopher Walken (3,5)

29 Longest river entirely within Spain, used as the dividing line between Rome and the Carthaginians after the First Punic War (264– 241 BC) (4)

30 Fish genus of the family Gadidae (haddock, whiting, pollock etc.) to which the cod belongs (5)

31 Point in the path of an orbiting body at which it

is closest to the body that it orbits (9)

34 See 4 Down

35 Small slender toy spaniel with long hair and

flared ears; French, ‘butterfly’ (8)

36 State capital of Rhineland-Palatinate in west central Germany, a port on the left bank of the Rhine River (5)

37 Poisonous winter-flowering Eurasian plant of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae); several species, including the Christmas rose (9)

DOWN

2 Aromatic spice blend used especially in Moroccan cuisine; Arabic, literally ‘head of the shop’ (3,2,6)

3 Long white-skinned radish also known as daikon (Japanese, ‘big root’); Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus (5)

4 and 34 Across French author whose best-known works are the 1929 novel Les Enfants terribles and the 1934 play La Machine infernale (4,7)

5 17th-century Dutch painter of works including The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642), commonly known as The Night Watch (9)

6 Portuguese football club whose home ground is

the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon (7)

7 Grammatical unit that can be dependent or independent ticellular aquatic animal of the phylum Porifera, having a soft body supported by a porous fibrous skeleton (6)

15 and 18 First president of post-reunification

Germany, in office from 1994 to 1999 (5,6)

19 Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist (1870– 1937) who originated the concept of the inferiority complex (6,5)

21 Muse of love poetry in Greek mythology,

typically depicted playing a lyre (5)

23 Acrostic or short poem in which the last letters

of each line form a word or phrase (9)

24 See 11 Across

25 Informal group of entertainers in the 1960s that included Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr (3,4)

27 See 28

28 and 27 Prime minister of Peru who replaced Guido Bellido on 6 October 2021 (6,7) ‘Now as I was young and easy under the ___ boughs’ (Dylan Thomas ‘Fern Hill’ (1946) (5) Quartz-like form of hydrated silica that is the national gemstone of Australia (4) 32 33