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 6 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, March 22. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter.
Across
1 A book of the Old Testament, probably written about 250BC (12) 8 A cocktail made from champagne and orange juice (6) 11 Small South American monkey with a long hairy tail, clawed digits and tufts of hair around the head and ears (8) 12 Germaine –––, Australianborn writer and academic whose works include The Female Eunuch (5) 13 A narrow, thin strip of wood or metal, as used in a Venetian blind (4) 14 Hermann –––, Germanborn Nobel laureate, author of Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game (5) 15 Italian Romantic composer of the operas La Traviata and Aida (8,5) 17 A person exercising supreme authority, monarch (9) 19 Eric –––, British darts player who won five world championships in the 1980s (7) 23 The river on which Northampton stands (4) 24 A town in the West Bank near Jerusalem, the birthplace of Jesus, according to the New Testament (9) 25 A percussion instrument consisting of a metal platelike disc struck with a softheaded drumstick (4) 26 Large, broad insects most common in warm regions, the male of which produces a continuous buzzing sound (7) 28 A city in Northern Ukraine, site of a nuclear power station accident in 1986 (9) 31 A loose alliance of political units (13) 34 In the Old Testament, the miraculous food which sustained the Israelites in the wilderness (5) 36 A thin strip of metal, plastic or bone used to stiffen corsets (4) 37 City in North Italy famous for its food industry, particularly its prosciutto (5) 38 Small barrel-shaped cheeses (8) 39 A person, such as a servant, who works hard at wearisome menial tasks (6) 40 Loose garments worn in bed (12)
Down
2 Coco –––, 20th Century French fashion icon credited with popularising the little black dress (6) 3 A sedimentary rock consisting mainly of calcium carbonate (9) 4 A frame that contains the panes of a window (4) 5 See 8 6 Ancient Roman garments (5) 7 A member of a people of Mongolian origin living on the southern slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal (6) 8 and 5 Wife of Louis XVI executed during the French Revolution in 1793 (5,10) 9 Marine bivalves with shells that close tightly together (7) 10 Physical or mental position from which things are viewed (10) 16 A small nocturnal burrowing rodent of dry regions of Asia and North Africa (6) 18 Australian cockatoo with grey wings and back and a pink body (5) 20 A device used with early firearms to push the charge into the barrel (6) 21 An aircraft capable of hover, vertical flight and horizontal flight in any direction (10) 22 A device that maintains a system at a constant temperature (10) 25 Member of a group of Roman Catholics who planned the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (3,6) 27 Mohamed ––– –––, Egyptian businessman, a former owner of Harrods (2-5) 29 A trial or practice, rehearsal (3,3) 30 An extension to a main building (6) 32 Jacqueline ––– –––, 20th Century British cellist, subject of the film Hilary And Jackie (2,3) 33 Ringing sound produced by the plucking of a taut string (5) 35 Raymond –––, 20th Century actor who was known for his roles in the TV dramas Perry Mason and Ironside (4)