FACTFINDER’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Former spa town in Stirlingshire (pop about 7,000) (6,2,5) 10 A character representing the same sound as another (9) 11 The water-crowfoot (5) 12 Upper edge of a ship’s side next to the bulwark (7) 13 Having a significant effect (7) 14 A violet-blue dye (6) 16 City in north-west India (pop over 1 million, the centre of the Sikh faith (8) 18 The green woodpecker, cuckoo, etc (8) 20 City in central California (pop about

520,000), founded in 1872 (6) 23 A brittle steel-grey semimetal (7) 24 Joseph __ (1672 - 1719), Wiltshire-born essayist who cofounded the Spectator (1711) (7) 26 The concluding part of a Greek drama (5) 27 A variety of peach with a smooth skin (9) 28 One of the three horse races of the Triple

Crown in the US (8,5)

DOWN

2 The paunch or first stomach of a ruminant (5) 3 Mountain in northern Pakistan (28,250 ft), the second highest mountain in the world (7) 4 A French subsonic tactical missile (6) 5 Period devoted to leisure pursuits (4,4) 6 A siren of the Rhine in German legend (7) 7 Disease caused by mites (9) 8 A personification of death (3,4,6) 9 Instrument for detecting and measuring radiation (6-7) 15 A projecting moulding over door-ways, etc (4-5) 17 Extremely severe, as the laws of a chief magistrate of Athens (b c650 BC) (7) 19 Arnold __ (1837, 1931), Staffordshire-born novelist who wrote Anna of the Five Towns (7) 21 To transmit wirelessly (7) 22 The newspaper of the Salvation Army (3,3) 25 The CGS unit of intrinsic brightness (5)