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, June 25 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, July 11. You must complete the iSpy box to enter. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter – and good luck!

Across

1 English scientist, the first doctor to introduce and study the smallpox vaccine (6,6)

8 – – – – – – Stories,

1902 story collection by Rudyard Kipling (4,2)

11 To accept new members into an organisation such as a club, through often secret ceremonies (8)

12 Waiting For –––, Samuel Beckett play featuring Vladimir and Estragon (5) 13 A mixture of fat and flour, used as a basis

for sauces (4)

14 See 35 Down

15 A horse race for three-yearold thoroughbreds run annually since 1875 at Louisville, USA (8,5)

17 A small, sharp sliver of wood or plastic, used for extracting pieces of food from between the teeth (9) 19 The edible brownish seeds of a leguminous plant, cooked and eaten as a vegetable (7)

23 A group of people interrelated by ancestry or marriage (4)

24 In sport, a goal or point that

levels the score (9)

25 Riding –––, a short whip

with a thong at one end (4) 26 and 6 Down Romantic comedy by Shakespeare featuring twins Viola and Sebastian (7,5)

28 Containers, usually made

of metal, in which dry foods such as tea or coffee are stored (9)

31 ––– ––– I, Emperor of Ethiopia from

1930 to 1974 (5,8)

34 In the Old Testament, the Tower of ––– was intended to reach from earth to heaven (5)

36 –––, Lady Hamilton, the

mistress of Lord Nelson (4) 37 A small enclosed plot of land adjoining a house, worked by the occupier (5) 38 Tallest fence on the Grand National course at Aintree (3,5)

39 Wall built out from a riverbank or seashore to control erosion (6)

40 1960 play by Harold

Pinter, a film version of which was made in 1963 (3,9)

Down

2 ––– fever, acute viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes (6)

3 Dog Day –––, 1975 film directed by Sidney Lumet (9)

4 A plank of softwood timber, such as fir or pine (4)

5 Former UK exam that determined the type of secondary education a child would be given (6-4) 6 See 26 Across

7 To edit a work into appropriate form for publication (6)

8 A structure built from a

shore out into the water (5) 9 John Singer –––, Italianborn painter famous for his portraits (7)

10 Canadian-American writer who won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 (4,6)

16 Affirm the correctness

or truth of (6)

18 ––– lily, Southern African plant with a white funnelshaped spathe (5)

20 Errors in writing

or printing (6)

21 Hand tool with a heavy head, one end of which has a cleft for extracting nails (4,6)

22 Popular house plant with long, tough, evergreen leaves and purplish flowers (10)

25 RMS –––, steamship that rescued survivors from the Titanic (9)

27 A quiet song to soothe

a child to sleep (7)

29 Louisa May –––,

American novelist who wrote Little Women (6)

30 Country on the East Coast of Central America, bordered by Mexico and Guatemala (6)

32 The constitutional and

judicial capital of Bolivia (5) 33 Erik –––, French composer and pianist whose works include

Trois Gymnopédies (5)

35 and 14 Across 20th Century American singer and actor who was nicknamed the Singing Cowboy (4,5)