General knowledge 870

(answers in next week’s paper)

ACROSS

1. Traditional author of Greek fables about animals (5) 5. A social class in India (5) 8. Fourth largest Canadian city, founded in 1826 as Bytown (6) 9. The county town of County Clare, Republic of Ireland (5) 10. The last king of Troy, father of Hector and Paris (5) 11. An evening party (6) 13. An old saying (5) 15. In Greek mythology, a merman sea-god, and son of Poseidon (6) 18. Wild animals hunted by sportsmen (4) 19. Second letter of the Greek alphabet (4) 20. Monetary unit of Hong Kong (6) 24. A hooked claw (5) 26. Sign of the zodiac, the twins (6) 27. Venomous snake of the cobra family (5) 28. Walt Disney character (5) 29. A marine species of tortoise (6) 30. A strong, twilled, woollen cloth (5) 31. Large river of southern Europe, rising in Switzerland (5)

DOWN

1. French author famous for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, etc. (9,5) 2. Surname of the 1991 Formula One world champion (5) 3. Body of men used to aid a sheriff (5)

4. 2009 children’s film starring Ashley Tisdale, Aliens in the — (5)

5. Pickled seed vessel of the nasturtium (5) 6. A midriff of meat (5) 7. King of England, the son of Ethelred the Unready (6,8) 12. Colourless, odourless hydrocarbon gas (6) 14. Small, desert-dwelling rodent often kept as a pet (6) 16. Name given to the Spanish peninsula (6) 17. Thread or stitch for joining the edges of a wound (6) 21. Nocturnal, arboreal mammal resembling a monkey (5) 22. A semi-precious stone (5) 23. Waist or circumference measurement (5) 24. River flowing through Rome to the Mediterranean at Ostia (5) 25. The borderland of Hell (5)