THE PRIZE CROSSWORD

There’s an amazing €2,000 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, December 22 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on

Across

1 and 18 Down Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1937-1940 (7,11) 5 Lincolnshire town, location of a National Hunt racecourse (6,5) 10 --- josh, an aromatic lamb curry dish (5) 11 A series of upright frames over which athletes in a race must jump (7) 13 A word imitating the characteristic crying sound of a cat (5) 14 A two-wheeled, one-horse carriage with a fixed hood (6,3) 15 The Anglo-Saxon ---, manuscript created during the reign of Alfred the Great (9) 16 A large, roomy handbag or shopping bag (4) 17 A person who has a profession or skill, especially medicine (12) 20 Long, snakelike fishes with smooth, slimy skin and reduced fins, once a food source for London’s poor (4) 21 City in the Middle East, claimed by Israelis and Palestinians as their capital (9) 22 A line of stone or concrete forming an edge between a pavement and a roadway (4) 26 A person with a fear of spiders (12)

27 and 28 Down 20th Century Austrian-American actress who became an inventor (4,6) 29 Coverings for beverage containers to keep the contents hot (3,6) 31 A barrier set up across a street by the police or military (9) 33 A member of a Nilotic people, formerly noted as warriors, living chiefly in Kenya and Tanzania (5) 34 In Buddhism and Hinduism, the final release from the cycle of reincarnation (7) 35 A measure of the relative size of two amounts expressible as a proportion (5) 36 A specialist in the management and treatment of large, woody plants (4,7) 37 Bertrand ---, British philosopher awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature (7)

Down

1 The northernmost point on the earth’s axis (5,4) 2 Person who refrains from using any animal product, for food, clothing, or any other purpose (5) 3 In rugby, means of restarting play after the ball has gone into touch (4-4) 4 The branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles (6) 5 1st Duke of ---, title of John Churchill, English general who commanded British forces in the War of the Spanish Succession (11) 6 Something that has survived from the past, such as an object or custom (5) 7 Relating to a movement in European art, music and literature in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries (8) 8 The first actor to play James Bond on film (4,7) 9 The first day or days of the calendar, celebrated as a holiday (3,4) 12 Small, marine food-fish of the herring family (8) 16 The capital of the US state of Florida (11) 18 See 1 Across 19 A geologic period in the Palaeozoic era, known as the Age of Fishes, during which the first ammonites appeared (8) 23 Seaside resort in Lancashire, on the Irish Sea, home to three piers (9) 24 Speculative or conjectural views or ideas (8) 25 In Greek myths, a three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades (8) 26 An endeavour to achieve something, effort (7) 28 See 27 Across 30 An accumulation of weathered rock fragments at the foot of a cliff (5) 32 Deviating from what is usual or proper (5)