THE PRIZE CROSSWORD
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, March 10 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, March 26. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter.
ACROSS
1 British architect who designed The Cenotaph on Whitehall (5,7) 8 Large insect most common in warm regions, the male of which produces a high-pitched drone (6) 11 The activity involving the purchase and sale of goods and services (8) 12 A long, low sofa without a back or arms (5) 13 An agreement between two or more parties, nations etc (4) 14 Grass-like plant typically growing on wet ground (5) 15 A delicate handmade fabric named after a French town (9,4) 17 A subsection of a piece of writing (9) 19 Tools for cutting grass etc, with a long handle and a curved, sharpened blade (7) 23 The derived SI unit of electric potential or electromotive force (4) 24 Joseph of ---, in the New Testament, a wealthy man who laid the body of Jesus in his own tomb (9) 25 A narrow and deep mountain valley, especially in Scotland (4) 26 A town in Saxony, famous for its porcelain (7) 28 A city in Ukraine; site of a nuclear power station accident in 1986 (9) 31 English Romantic poet; Poet Laureate from 1813 to 1843 (6,7) 34 The sepals of a flower, collectively forming an envelope that protects the developing flower bud (5) 36 Mount ---, an active volcano in Eastern Sicily (4) 37 A card game in which bets are made on the hands dealt (5) 38 Small or worthless ornaments or pieces of jewellery (8) 39 Made in imitation of a natural or genuine product; artificial (6) 40 A manually-operated device for putting out small fires (12)
DOWN
2 Male bees in a colony of social bees, whose function is to mate with the queen (6) 3 A person who comes to a country in order to settle there (9) 4 The rendered fat from a pig, used in cooking (4) 5 Nickname of the London skyscraper 30 St Mary Axe (3,7) 6 A port in North West Germany, birthplace of film director Wolfgang Petersen (5) 7 A mountainous department in the French Alps, crossed by the Isère river (6) 8 An artificial waterway constructed for navigation, irrigation or water power (5) 9 Juliet’s surname in Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet (7) 10 American politician who became the 46th Vice President of the United States in 2001 (4,6) 16 Open-topped glass container for serving water or wine at table (6) 18 Sylvia ---, American poet and novelist who married Ted Hughes in 1956 (5) 20 In Greek mythology, the ferryman who brought the dead across the rivers Styx and Acheron (6) 21 American composer and songwriter whose works include the musical comedy Anything Goes (4,6) 22 A fast, rhythmic dance of the 1920s, named after an American city (10) 25 Member of a group of Roman Catholics who planned the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (3,6) 27 Bedrich ---, Czech composer best known for the opera The Bartered Bride (7) 29 Small, edible mollusc, having a rounded shell with radiating ribs (6) 30 An evergreen Southern European shrub with pink or white flowers and aromatic blue-black berries (6) 32 A white or colourless mineral often tinted by impurities, valued as a gemstone (5) 33 A special pack of cards used mainly for fortune telling (5) 35 One of the freshwater lakes in Africa’s Great Rift Valley (4)