FACTFINDER’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 A state of happiness based on false expectations (5,8)

10 The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, etc (5)

11 A fish of the horse mackerels (5-4) 12 A sparsey populated archipelago in the Northern Pacific Ocean (9)

13 The corncrakes (5) 14 Purple-flowered, broad-leaved stonecrops (7)

16 A blissful state (loosely) (7) 18 Highly-magnetised rotating neutron stars (7)

20 A hot pepper sauce (7)

21 Joyce Carol __(b 1938), American novelist

who wrote Them (1969) (5) 23 Broadpriciplesthatarenonspecific(9) 25 In or available for use (2,7)

26 A simultaneous discharge of artillery (5) 27 An instrument used to measure

radioactivity (6,7)

DOWN

2 An earthy metallic oxide of various kinds (5)

3 British ocean liner sunk by a German U-boat in May, 1915 (9)

4 Trees akin to the witch-hazel family (7) 5 Paul __ (1898 - 1972), US singer, actor and civil rights activist (7)

6 Albrecht __ (1471 - 1528), a German painter and engraver (5)

7 Short, single-edged, curved swords (9) 8 The __ , a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915 (13)

9 Popular epithet for an English dramatist (1564 - 1616) (3,4,2,4) 15 Superficial civility (9)

17 John __ (1782 - 1868), engineer who built the engine of the Comet (9)

19 An Italian form of address for a gentleman (7)

20 A hybrid between a tangerine and pomelo

(7)

22 An ornament like a spray (5)

24 City in northern France (pop 230,000), the

European Capital of Culture in 2004 (5)