GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Across 1.

Wine growing valley in Central Otago (8)

3. Alexander the Great’s warhorse, who died after the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BC (10)

8. Fly, native to Africa, which feeds on the blood of mammals (6)

11. Slow-moving, bottom-dwelling shark, harmless unless provoked (5)

12. Male name used twice in the title of a 1963 hit by The Kingsmen (5)

13. Edible seaweed used in Japanese cuisine (4)

14. Currency of Bhutan, which replaced the rupee in 1974 (8)

15. Canadian singer/songwriter who joined Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1970 (5)

16. Common Welsh surname, also

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18. One of the islands of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides (4)

19. In the Old Testament, a son of Abraham who died aged 137 (7)

22. One of the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women (4)

25. Country where chess originated in the 6th Century (5)

27. Freshwater carnivorous mammal of the weasel family (5)

29. An adult male swan (3)

30. Biblical character, son of Methuselah and great-grandfather of Noah (5)

31. $) liquid used as an early anaesthetic (5)

32. Two-wheeled transport whose name was coined by a Swedish journalist in 1952 (5)

34. '' ( starring Will Smith and Jamie Foxx (3)

35. Fruit with varieties such as Winter Nelis, Comice and Bartlett (4)

36. Soldier who appears in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V (3)

38. English rock band who had a 1983 hit with Owner of a Lonely Heart (3)

39. Soviet Space station which orbited Earth from 1986 until 2001 (3)

40. Title used by male offspring of a British duke if they are not the eldest son (4)

43. First name of the US singer (1917-1996) known as ‘the queen of jazz’ and ‘First Lady of Song’ (4)

46. Organisation formed in 1960 to agree policy for the production and sale of petroleum (4)

47. Method of self-defence developed in China and Japan (3-5)

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49. Northern Italian city in the Veneto region (5)

51. Belgian-Australian who had a 2011 hit with Somebody That I Used to Know, featuring New Zealand singer Kimbra (5)

52. Governor of a province under the ancient Persian monarchy (6)

53. Instrument of execution used in France until 1977 (10)

54. Small carnivore of the family Herpestidae, native to southern Eurasia and mainland Africa (8)

Down 1.

Auckland suburb on the upper Waitemata harbour (10)

2. Genus of wild and domestic cattle, named from the Latin for cow (3)

3. City on the Caspian Sea, capital of Azerbaijan (4)

4. Alternative name for long-eared burrowing mammal of the family Leporidae (5)

5. $ ! ) comprising short blocks of wood (7)

6. The only six-letter anagram of Geneva (6)

7. Breed of spaniel, with English and Welsh varieties (8)

8. Reference point against which other things can be evaluated; a test or criterion (10)

9. Number of coins in the fountain according to a 1954 Frank Sinatra song (5)

10. Patron saint of sailors (4)

17. # ( are Pelham Grenville (9)

20. Sport which became popular after the release of The Hunger Games

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21. Department store selling luxury goods, founded in 1875 and located on London’s Regent Street (7)

23. # & ( place to export butter to England (6)

24. Chemical element with the atomic number 67, named after the city of Stockholm (7)

26. Small complex endocrine glands that sit on top of each kidney (7)

28. ! # ( commercially successful model went on sale in 1873 (10)

33. English rock band, formed 1968, whose albums include Machine Head, Stormbringer and Perfect Strangers (4,6)

37. Scottish biologist/pharmacologist who discovered penicillin (7)

41. First name of Father McGuire, played by Ardal O’Hanlon in the Father Ted TV series (6)

42. Third largest penguin species after the Emperor and King (6)

44. “The soul should always stand __, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience”: Emily Dickinson (4)

45. German chemist who invented a piece of common laboratory equipment (6)

49. In Persian mythology, winged fairy-like spirits descended from fallen angels (4)

50. ' ( ( on a 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name (4)