BIG X-WORD

ACROSS 1

2000 Lars von Trier film starring Icelandic musician Björk (6,2,3,4)

10 Underwater hockey game in which a heavy puck is moved along the floor of a swimming pool (8)

11 State of south-west India formerly (until 1973) called Mysore (9)

12 Husband of Sapphira, struck dead for lying (Acts 5) (7)

13 Emperor of India (c. 269–232 BC) known for his vigorous patronage of Buddhism (5)

15 Brandy distilled from the refuse of grapes pressed for wine-making (4)

16 Pasta in the form of smooth tubes longer and thicker than macaroni (4)

17 Capital of the Isère department in SE France, on the Isère River (8)

18 1976 sports drama film written by and starring Sylvester Stallone (5)

20 Common language of the Greeks in Hellenistic and Byzantine times, mostly derived from the Attic dialect (5)

22 Either of two large spiralhorned African antelopes of the genus Taurotragus; T. oryx and T. derbianus (5)

25 Enchantress who lived on the island of Aeaea; daughter of the sun god Helios (5)

27 City of SW Switzerland on the north shore of Lake Geneva; capital of the canton of Vaud (8)

28 & 5 Down Polish author whose novel Flights won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018 (4,9)

30 Mexican dish consisting of a folded or rolled tortilla with a savoury filling; from Spanish, ‘wad’ (4)

32 Genus of flowering plants of the birch family (Betulaceae) to which the alder belongs (5)

33 Phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a song or poem, especially at the end of each stanza (7)

35 Volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the N coast of Sicily; the most north-easterly of the Lipari Islands (9)

36 Squid served as food, especially in Mediterranean cuisine; from Latin, ‘pen-cases’ (8)

37 Star of the 2018 science fiction film Solo: A Star Wars Story (5,10)

DOWN 2

Instrument for measuring the heating power of radiation, especially of the sun’s rays (11)

3 City of SE Nigeria; capital of the short-lived secessionist state of Biafra (19671970) (5)

4 Greek island in the Ionian Sea off the north-east coast of Cephalonia (6)

5 See 28 Across

6 Amelia ___, US aviator who

became the first woman to fly solo across the

Atlantic (1928) (7)

7 Musical direction to play with an immediate reduction of speed; from Italian, ‘held back’ (8)

8 Clyde William ___, US astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 (8)

9 Umbelliferous plant of the carrot family widely cultivated as a herb; Petroselinum crispum (7)

14 Point in the orbit of the moon or a satellite at which it is furthest from the earth (6)

15 Dame Nellie ___, stage name of Australian operatic soprano Helen Porter Mitchell (1861–1931) (5)

18 Long narrow arm of the Indian Ocean lying between northeast Africa and

Arabia (3,3)

19 White wine grape native to the Loire valley but widely cultivated elsewhere; also known as Pineau de la

Loire (6,5)

21 ‘Gem State’ of the northwestern US, bordered to the north by British Columbia (5)

23 1974 Charles Bronson film remade with Bruce Willis in 2018 (5,4)

24 Formerly in India, a respectful form of address to a married European woman (8)

25 Coniferous evergreen tree (Cupressus sempervirens)traditionally usedas symbol of mourning;sometimes called pencil pine (7)

26 Black amorphous form of

carbon made by heating wood or otherorganic matter in the absence of air, used as a fuel etc. (8)

29 State capital of Nebraska,

founded as Lancaster in 1856 and renamed in

1867 (7)

31 Milky latex of the sapodilla tree (Achras zapota) used as the main ingredient in

chewing gum (6)

34 Former basic monetary unit of Slovenia replaced by the euro in 2007; equal to 100 stotinov (5)