BIG PRIZE X-WORD
ACROSS
1 Capital of Mauritania since 1957; from Berber, ‘place of the winds’ (10)
5 Electrical signal transmitted
along a nerve fibre (7)
10 Port city of eastern Denmark in which Shakespeare’s Hamlet is set (8)
11 ‘On with the ___! let joy be unconfined’, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage (1812-18) (5)
12 Shaggy-haired humpbacked bovine mammal commonly called buffalo in North America (5)
13 Erskine ___, US author of novels including 1932’s Tobacco Road (8)
14 Roman emperor succeeded by his adopted son Trajan in 98 AD (5)
15 2011-15 US drama series starring Emily Vancamp and Madeleine Stowe (7)
18 Coming destruction of the gods in a final battle with the forces of evil (8)
20 Genus of Eurasian and African plants in the grass family (Poaceae) to which the oats belong (5)
22 First character introduced in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the
Willows (1908) (4)
23 In bridge, whist etc, an absence of cards of a particular suit (4)
24 Goddess of fortune in
Greek mythology, identified with Roman Fortuna (5)
27 Minute disc-shaped particle
in blood involved in clotting;
also called thrombocyte (8)
29 Colourless flammable liquid obtained from petroleum and coke, used as a solvent and in organic synthesis (7)
31 Unwanted light in a photographic image caused by reflection within the camera (5)
32 Small tropical American tree whose seed pods yield tannin; Caesalpinia coriaria (4-4)
34 Any aquatic bird of the order Podicipediformes, having a long neck, lobed toes and vestigial tail (5)
35 Nickname of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Major Alan Schaefer in the 1987 film Predator (5)
36 Oldest of the four sisters making up Louisa May Alcott’s Little
Women (1868) (3,5)
37 Japanese dish of thinlysliced raw fish served with soy sauce, grated radish etc; ‘pierce flesh’ (7)
38 Character played by Martin Freeman in the BBC One crime drama Sherlock (4,6)
DOWN
1 Detective played by
O. J. Simpson in the 1988 comedy film Naked Gun (8) 2 Omission of the final sound or syllable of a word, as when photograph becomes photo (7) 3 Hyoscyamus niger, sometimes known as stinking nightshade (7)
4 Small tile of stone, glass etc.
used in making mosaics (7)
6 City of northern Iraq on the river Tigris which includes the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh (5)
7 US singer-songwriter whose hits include ‘Hello’ (1984) and ‘My Destiny’ (1992) (6,6)
8 2008 British horror thriller film starring Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender (4,4)
9 United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who succeeded Julian Castro in March 2017 (3,6)
16 1964 musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley and Ann-margret (4,3,5)
17 Small pieces of stone used for paths and roads and as an aggregate, often mixed with sand (6)
19 Part of a city occupied by a minority group, used historically for Jews in Europe (6)
21 2017 comedy film starring Charlie Day, Ice Cube and Christina Hendricks (4,5)
25 Rodent genus of the family Muridae that contains the Eurasian field mice (8)
26 Len ___, British author of novels including The IPCRESS File (1962) and SS-GB (1978) (8)
28 Capital city of the Italian island of Sicily, founded by the Phoenicians in 734 BC (7) 29 Spy film starring Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence and Lee Remick (7) 30 Healing or soothing preparation for the skin; from Latin, to anoint (7) 33 Of a judicial act, directed against a thing, as property, rather than a person (2,3)