BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 1943 short story on which the 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life was based, by US author Philip Van Doren Stern (3,8,4)

10 Opening prayer of the Jewish service held on the eve of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement); Aramaic, ‘all vows’ (3,5)

11 Form of extrasensory perception (ESP) in which one person’s thoughts are transmitted directly into another’s mind (9)

12 and 15 Landlocked country of western Africa

known from 1960 to 1984 as Upper Volta (7,4)

13 Herman ___, German-born Swiss author of novels including Siddhartha (1922) and Der Steppenwolf (1927) (5)

15 See 12

16 Titular heroine of a 2021 animated film about the

last dragon, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran (4)

17 Most widespread form of Buddhism, chiefly practised in Tibet, China, and Japan; Sanskrit, literally, ‘great vehicle’ (8)

18 Any of around 26 species of wading bird of the sandpiper family (Scolopacidae) resembling the woodcock, especially the common Gallinago gallinago (5)

20 Largest of the constellations, whose brightest

star is Alphard (Arabic, ‘the solitary one’) (5)

22 Animal genus of the family Equidae, order Perissodactyla, that includes the horses, asses and zebras (5)

25 Of a lord, owed feudal allegiance and service by

a vassal (5)

27 Gold and white horse breed whose famous members include Roy Rogers’ Trigger and the 1960s US TV star Mister Ed (8)

28 Tropical African tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) whose seeds yield a butter-like fat used as a food and in soap manufacture (4)

30 Fifth emperor of Rome (54–68 AD), during whose reign the Iceni queen Boudicca led a revolt in Britain (4)

32 Category of noun indicating the person or thing performing the action of a verb, typically ending in -er or -or (5)

33 Abode of the blessed dead in Greek mythology, described in Virgil’s Aeneid as a region of Hades (7)

35 Peninsula of NW Turkey between the Dardanelles and the Aegean Sea, scene of an attempted invasion of the Ottoman Empire by Allied forces during World War I (1915) (9)

36 Dried aromatic fruit of the tropical American tree Pimenta diocia, said to combine the flavours of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg (8)

37 English author (1901-2000) who wrote 723 novels, including 675 romances, beginning with 1923’s Jig-Saw (7,8)

DOWN

2 Region around the sun beyond which interstellar space begins, dominated by the sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind (11)

3 Densest of the seven naturally-occurring chemical elements comprising the noble gases group, discovered by British scientists Robert B. Owens and Ernest Rutherford in 1899 (5)

4 and 7 US singer played by Jennifer Hudson in the

2021 biopic Respect (6,8)

5 Person whose body type (somatotype) is thin and delicate, thought to accompany an intelligent, introverted and anxious personality (9)

6 High chest of drawers, typically comprising two

stacked sections standing on legs (7)

7 See 4

8 First musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein (1943), based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs (8)

9 In the nervous system, a gap between adjacent neurons, or between a neuron and an effector cell, across which electrical impulses are transmitted (7)

14 18th-century palace in NW Paris; the official

residence of the French President since 1873 (6)

15 Ballet movement in which the body is lowered by bending the supporting leg or legs; French, literally ‘melted’ (5)

18 In Indian cuisine, a triangular savoury pastry

deep-fried in oil or ghee (6)

19 Medical condition that has the technical name

dyspepsia (11)

21 Athenian statesman and legislator whose code of laws enacted in 621 BC prescribed death for almost every offence (5)

23 Tibetan utopia in the 1933 James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, and a former name (1942-53) of the US presidential retreat Camp David (7-2)

24 Effervescent North American soft drink traditionally flavoured with extracts of the tree sassafras and the vine sarsaparilla (4,4)

25 Heraldic charge in the shape of a diamond, used especially for the arms of an unmarried or widowed woman or a deceased person (7)

26 Heroine of the last story of Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353), noted for her patient endurance (8)

29 Rhythmic device in music involving the substitution of a pattern of beats, as when three replace two or vice versa; also called sesquialtera (7)

31 Bactrian princess who married the Macedon king Alexander the Great in 327 BC, and to whom she bore Alexander IV (6)

34 Member of the lowest class of the traditional Indian caste system (Scheduled Caste), formerly considered untouchable (5)