THE PRIZE CROSSWORD
WIN £1,500
There’s an amazing £1,500 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, January 13 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, January 29. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter.
ACROSS
1 Term for a Spanish conqueror of the New World in the 16th Century (12) 8 A river in central New York State; the largest tributary of the Hudson (6) 11 The science of preventing, diagnosing, alleviating or curing disease (8) 12 Any animal with two feet (5) 13 A skin eruption (4) 14 Alcoholic drink originating in Russia, made from grain, potatoes etc (5) 15 The Poet Laureate from 1968 to 1972, father of Oscar-winning actor Daniel (5,3-5) 17 Industrial city in Southern Germany; capital of BadenWürttemberg state (9) 19 A flower or small bunch of flowers worn pinned to the lapel or sometimes carried by women (7) 23 A freshwater ornamental or food fish (4) 24 Quiet songs to soothe a child to sleep (9) 25 The bow of a vessel (4) 26 A hill in Northumberland where invading Scots were defeated by the English in 1513 (7) 28 Eating utensil used by the Chinese, Japanese and other people of East Asia (9) 31 A breed of small terrier with a long coat and drooping ears (6,7) 34 --- High Dam, a dam on the Nile forming the Lake Nasser reservoir (5) 36 A street or yard lined by buildings converted from stables into dwellings (4) 37 A fabric woven in a pattern of parallel diagonal lines or ribs (5) 38 Genus of plants to which the monkshood and wolfs bane belong (8) 39 A unit of a poem; verse (6) 40 British novelist and biographer who wrote Love In A Cold Climate (5,7)
DOWN
2 A state of the North West United States, on the Pacific (6) 3 A modern ballroom dance in rapid quadruple time (9) 4 The coloured muscular diaphragm surrounding the pupil of an eye (4) 5 The first of Anton Chekhov’s major plays, first produced in 1896 (3,7) 6 The largest city of the United Arab Emirates, on the Persian Gulf (5) 7 Part of a river where the current is very fast and turbulent (6) 8 --- Waters, American blues musician, often called the ‘father of modern Chicago blues’ (5) 9 An arrangement of leather straps fitted to a draught animal in order that it can be attached to a cart (7) 10 --- Irving, American writer best known for short stories including Rip Van Winkle (10) 16 Clement ---, British Prime Minister 1945-1951 (6) 18 European freshwater food fish with reddish ventral and tail fins (5) 20 Starts or beginnings (6) 21 The collective noun for a group of owls (10) 22 A place where medicine and medical supplies are prepared and issued (10) 25 Seth ---, villain in the Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit (9) 27 Charles Lutwidge --wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll (7) 29 Italian painter of the Venetian school, whose works included Bacchus And Ariadne (6) 30 Large feline mammal of the Americas, similar to the leopard (6) 32 In cricket, a run not scored from the bat, such as a wide, no-ball or bye (5) 33 A city in Northern Italy, in central Lombardy (5) 35 A desert in Eastern Asia, which covers most of Southern Mongolia (4)