General knowledge 879

(answers in next week’s paper)

ACROSS

1. Trelawny of the —-, a comedy by Pinero (5)

5. A serf of ancient Sparta (5)

8. One of a pair of glandular organs in the abdominal cavity (6)

9. Capital of the Hauts-de-France region (5)

10. Long absence from one’s country (5)

11. A variety of chrysanthemum, or dahlia (6)

13. Small bone of the middle ear (5)

15. Plain white cotton cloth (6)

18. A Pole, Czech or Bulgarian, for example (4)

19. The “Beehive State” of the USA (4)

20. Hulled grain (6)

24. Colloquial language (5)

26. Colourless, odourless, inert, very light gas (6)

27. Hero of a romantic tragedy which largely takes place in Verona (5)

28. A compound of oxygen and some other element (5)

29. Evergreen tree also called sweet bay (6)

30. Name used by Georges Remi, the creator of Tintin (5)

31. Projection which fits into a mortise (5)

DOWN

1. Painter and engraver whose works include A Rake’s

Progress (7,7)

2. A shrub, Syringa vulgaris (5)

3. Straw or wicker beehives (5)

4. John —-, alias Alexander Smith, one of the Bounty mutineers (5)

5 Carnivorous animal with poorly developed hindquarters (5)

6. Bernardino —-, Italian painter of the Lombard school (5)

7. Semi-autobiographical play by Emlyn Williams (3,4,2,5)

12. Wild cat with a pale yellow coat with stripes and blotches (6)

14. English legendary saint said to have been martyred by the Huns (6)

16. Surname of a knighted British astronomer, one-time director of Jodrell Bank (6)

17. Fish of temperate and tropical seas (6)

21. The ear shell or sea-ear, common in the Channel Islands (5)

22. Pin in the side of a boat for keeping an oar in place (5)

23. Constellation between Virgo and Scorpio (5)

24 Young river salmon (5)

25. A native of the largest of the continents (5)