BIG PRIZE X-WORD
ACROSS
1 Large state of SE India
formerly called Madras (5,4)
6 Prophetic book of the Old Testament telling of the son of Amittai (5)
10 Desdemona’s cousin in
Shakespeare’s Othello (8)
11 City in the Caucasus of SW Russia, capital of the Kabardino-balkar
Republic (7)
12 Arm of the Arctic Ocean north of Russia between the Taimyr Peninsula and the New Siberian Islands (6,3)
13 Hard semi-precious stone consisting of an impure variety of chalcedony (quartz), typically banded in appearance (5)
15 English singer-songwriter whose hits include ‘Crazy’ and ‘Get It Together’ (4)
16 See 36 Across
17 Any marine percoid fish of the family Labridae, having thick lips, strong teeth and generally bright coloration (6)
20 Deciduous Eurasian tree of the olive family (Oleaceae); Fraxinus excelsior (3)
22 Cleared area on a golf course from which the first stroke of a hole is made (3)
25 Young salmon that has returned to fresh water after a single winter at sea (6)
26 Province in the Apulia region of SE Italy bordering Bari, Taranto and Lecce provinces (8)
29 Wilfred ___, (1893-1918), English WWI poet whose works include ‘Dulce et
Decorum est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ (4)
30 ‘All empire is no more than power in ___’ John Dryden Absalom and
Achitophel (1681) (5)
31 Director of the 2017 heist comedy film Going In
Style (4,5)
34 John ___, British Whig statesman; Prime Minister 1846–52 and 1865–6 (7)
35 Angular distance of a place on the earth’s surface north or south of the equator, usually expressed in degrees and minutes (8)
36 & 16 Across ‘Lovely little blue-eyed’ girl loved by
Mark Twain’s Tom
Sawyer (5,8)
37 Waiter who manages wine services in a hotel or restaurant; French,
‘butler’ (9)
DOWN
2 Tennis player who won the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1992 (5,6)
3 Longest river of France, rising in the Massif Central and flowing generally northwest to the Atlantic at St-nazaire (5)
4 Former county of SW England (1974-96) created from areas of north Somerset and south Gloucestershire (4)
5 Annual midwinter festival in Lerwick, Shetland, that includes the ceremonial burning of a Viking ship (2-52)
6 Evergreen coniferous shrub whose berries are used to flavour gin (7)
7 Recess in the wall of a room or garden; from Arabic, ‘vault’ (6)
8 Of a menu, having dishes listed separately and individually priced (1,2,5)
9 Republic of SE Europe on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov (7)
14 Greater Manchester town known for the invention, in 1793, of a pastry filled with dried fruit (6)
15 2015 play by playwright Lynn Nottage awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (5)
18 Product from the membrane lining the fourth stomach (abomasum) of calves and other young ruminants, used in cheese production (6)
19 Rearing of silkworms for the
production of raw silk (11)
21 Second-largest of the five Great Lakes of North America (5)
23 1999 action horror film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Gabriel Byrne (3,2,4)
24 Actress who played the Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-3) (3,5)
25 Thick-walled second region of a bird’s stomach in which food is ground up, typically with grit (7)
27 Capital of the Falkland Islands, on the island of
East Falkland (7)
28 Babylonian girl in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, lover of Pyramus (6)
32 North American isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top, similar to but smaller than a mesa (5) 33 Léon ___, socialist Prime Minister of France 1936–7, 1938 and 1946–7 (4)