BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1 Florentine merchant and navigator who died in 1512, after whom the Americas are named (7,8)
10 King of Argos in Greek myth who mobilised
the Seven against Thebes (8)
11 Port city of NE Brazil, capital of the state of
Ceará (9)
12 Flat vertical strengthening structure at a boat’s stern, to which an outboard motor is attached (7)
13 Landlocked province of China whose name means ‘south of the (Yellow) River’; capital, Zhengzhou (5)
15 Chief antagonist of the 2017 superhero film
Wonder Woman, played by David Thewlis (4)
16 See 29 Down
17 Nadine ___, South African author of novels including The Conservationist (1974) and No Time Like the Present (2012); Nobel Prize in Literature (1991) (8)
18 Formerly in America, a body of men assembled by a sheriff to assist in maintaining law and order (5)
20 ____ Kentaurus, star which along with Toliman forms a binary system, the brightest in Centaurus (5)
22 Basin of holy water at or near the entrance of a church, used by entering parishioners to cross themselves (5)
25 Culinary herb of the mint family (Lamiaceae)
named from the Greek word for ‘smoke’ (5)
27 District of South London formerly noted for its eponymous pleasure gardens (c. 16601859) (8)
28 Title of Russian emperors before 1917, derived
from the Latin Caesar (4)
30 Lead character of a 1929 A. A. Milne play
based on a book by Kenneth Grahame (4)
32 Highest-charting UK solo single by English
singer Amy Winehouse, released in 2006 (5)
33 Most abundant of the monosaccharide carbohydrates, naturally occurring in honey and fruits (7)
35 The most widely-spoken artificial language, created by Polish oculist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 (9)
36 Ancient landmass that formed the northerly
half of the supercontinent Pangaea (8)
37 1985 song by Dire Straits whose music video was the first to be played on MTV Europe (1 August 1987) (5,3,7)
DOWN
2 Police chief played by Roy Scheider in the
1975 Steven Spielberg film Jaws (6,5)
3 Post-sunset meal eaten by Muslims to break
the daily fast during Ramadan (5)
4 Any marine bivalve mollusc of the order Ostreida, common in shallow coastal waters (6)
5 Bloomsbury Group author (1879-1970) whose novel Maurice was published posthumously (1,1,7)
6 & 21 Down Either of the body’s two largest saliva producers, situated just in front of each ear (7,5)
7 Usual North American name for coriander,
from Spanish (8)
8 Ancient city state of North Africa with which Rome fought the three Punic Wars (264–241 BC, 218–201 BC and 149–146 BC) (8)
9 Vivid red dye obtained from the crushed bodies of the insect Dactylopius coccus (cochineal) (7)
14 River that, along with the Oder, forms the
border between Germany and Poland (6)
15 Highest mountain of the Pyrenees, in the
Posets-Maladeta Natural Park of NE Spain (5)
18 Small rubber-headed hammer used in percussion of the chest and testing reflexes (6)
19 Ethiopian-born Dutch runner who won the women’s London Marathon on 23 April 2023 (5,6)
21 See 6 Down
23 Capital and second-largest city of Benin by population, in the SE near the border with Nigeria (5-4)
24 Member of the common people of ancient
Rome, as distinct from the patricians (8)
25 2010 Disney animation with music by Alan Menken, including the Grammy-winning song See the Light
26 Spanish sheep’s-milk cheese traditionally
produced in moulds of woven grass (8)
29 & 16 Across Murderous fictional barber first appearing in the serialised penny dreadful The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (1846-7) (7,4)
31 In Arthurian legend, the island to which the mortally wounded Arthur was taken following his final battle (6)
34 ’The ___ awards it, and the law doth give it’ (Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice act 4, sc. 1) (5)