BIG X-WORD

ACROSS

1 Notional environment in which electronic information exists or is exchanged (10)

5 2018 crime thriller film starring Rosamund Pike and Daniel Brühl (7)

10 Radioactive metallic element of the actinide series occurring as an impurity in uranium ores; atomic no. 89 (8)

11 Taxonomic group forming a subdivision of a class, consisting of one or more families (5)

12 Mutant character played by Alexandra Shipp in 2016’s X-men: Apocalypse (5)

13 Son of the sun god Helios and the sea nymph Clymene in Greek mythology (8)

14 Island republic in the SW Pacific west of Kiribati; capital, Yaren (5)

15 Former kingdom of north and central Germany abolished by the Allied Control Council in 1947 (7)

18 Third-largest satellite in the solar system after Ganymede and Titan, orbiting Jupiter (8)

20 Follower of the school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BC (5)

22 Twenty quires of paper, consisting of 500 (formerly 480) sheets (4)

23 David ___, British dramatist whose works include

Plenty (1978) and Stuff Happens (2004) (4)

24 Small island of the Outer Hebrides connected by a causeway to Vatersay (5) 27 Gabriel ___, French physicist who devised the earliest process of colour photography; Nobel Prize for Physics (1908) (8)

29 Elias ___, Bulgarian-born author of novels including Auto-da-fé (1935) and Crowds And Power (1960); Nobel Prize for

Literature (1981) (7)

31 Submerged part of a vessel’s hull where the vertical sides curve inwards to the keel (5)

32 Either of the two bones connecting the breastbone to the shoulder blades (8)

34 Swiss dish of grated potato formed into small flat cakes and fried, often topped with cheese (5)

35 Decorative red dot worn in the middle of the forehead by Indian women, especially Hindus (5)

36 Eight-legged grey horse ridden by Odin in Norse mythology (8)

37 Dean ___, Secretary of State under Harry Truman (1949– 53); instrumental in the formation of NATO (7)

38 Large arid region of the western US between the Sierra Nevada and the

Rocky Mountains, including most of Nevada and parts of adjacent states (5,5)

DOWN 1

Monument honouring a dead person or people buried elsewhere; from Greek, ‘empty tomb’ (8) 2 Greek city in which Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors is set (7)

3 In Jungian psychology, the facade someone presents to the world to conceal their true thoughts and feelings (7)

4 Second-brightest star in the night sky, in the southern constellation Carina (7)

6 Israeli singer who won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with Toy (5)

7 1941 comic play by Noel Coward whose protagonist is the novelist Charles Condomine (6,6)

8 Capital of the Canadian province of Alberta, on the North Saskatchewan

River (8)

9 Name by which Cambodia was known during the rule of the Khmer Rouge (197689) (9)

16 Most populous state of India, created in 1937 as the United Provinces (5,7)

17 Volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea at the north end of the Bay of Naples, part of the Phlegraean group (6)

19 Eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet, related to the Phoenician lamed (6)

21 Evergreen dwarf shrub (Vaccinium oxycoccos) cultivated for its edible fruit (9)

25 Body of water known to the ancient Romans as Pontus Euxinus (5,3)

26 ‘Wolverine State’ of the north central US, bordered on the north and east by Ontario (8)

28 Group of stars or galaxies that are gravitationally bound (7)

29 Diacritic mark written under a c in French to show that it is pronounced like an s rather than a k (7)

30 Alternative name for the spiny anteater of Australia and New Guinea; from

Greek, ‘viper’ (7)

33 Major division of a long poem, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320) and Byron’s Don Juan (1819-24) (5)