BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Himalayan state of northern India home to the official residence of the Dalai Lama (8,7)

10 An ommatophore, commonly observed on molluscs and crustaceans (8)

11 Fiorello ___, mayor of New York City (1933–45) after whom an airport in Queens is named (2,7)

12 ’Hoosier State’ of the midwestern US, whose motto is ‘The Crossroads of America’ (7)

13 Polynesia’s only extant constitutional monarchy, ruled since 2012 by King Tupou VI (5)

15 Thomas ___, English poet whose works include ‘The Song of the Shirt’ (1843) and ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ (1844) (4)

16 Wild mountain goat whose Alpine species is also known as the steinbock (4)

17 & 18Popular 1850 folk song by US composer Stephen Foster featuring the refrains ‘Doo-dah! doo-dah!’ and ‘Oh, doo-dah day!’ (8,5)

20 Aceraceous tree whose charcoal is used to flavour Tennessee whiskey, either by filtering or steeping (5)

22 Largest and most populous island of Greece, said to have been the birthplace of Zeus (5)

25 Genus of large social wasps, mostly Eurasian, comprising the 22 species of true hornets (5)

27 BBC current affairs programme that broadcast a segment on Swiss spaghetti trees on April Fools’ Day 1957 (8)

28 2011 science-fiction comedy film starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen (4)

30 Largest of the seven major islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, lying north of Montecristo (4)

32 French river rising in Switzerland, which divides into two branches that surround the coastal Camargue region (5)

33 Simple Christian emblem consisting of two bisecting arcs, commonly known as the Jesus Fish (7)

35 Biblical location ‘in the land of Moab’ from which Moses viewed the Promised Land before his death (Deuteronomy 32:49) (5,4)

36 US boxer born with the surname Barrow; world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949 (3,5)

37 Heroine of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1853), and the author’s only female narrator (6,9)

DOWN

2 Misnamed edible lichen of Arctic and mountainous northern regions; Cetraria islandica (7,4)

3 Seed husks and other inedible parts of cereal crops separated out by threshing and winnowing (5)

4 Modern Japanese martial art invented by soldier, farmer and pacifist Morihei Ueshiba in the interwar period (6)

5 Least dense of the six platinum metals, with the lowest melting point; atomic no. 46 (9)

6 Latin term meaning ‘in English’ or ‘in the English form’ (7)

7 Second-largest island in the Mediterranean, separated from Corsica by the Strait of Bonifacio (8)

8 Valve-controlled sluice or pipe regulating the flow from a dammed body of water, as to a water-mill (8)

9 Brother of Mary and Martha in the New Testament, brought back to life by Jesus four days after his death (John 11:1-44) (7)

14 Historical region and modern department of Greece of which Athens is the capital (6)

15 Part of a vessel’s bow containing one or more round holes for an anchor cable to pass through (5)

18 Pierre-Auguste ___, French Impressionist artist whose Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) hangs in the Musée d’Orsay (6)

19 Management or distribution of light and shade in a picture; from Italian, ‘light-dark’ (11)

21 Capital city of Cabo Verde, a port on the island of São Tiago (5)

23 Heroine of the 2001 romantic comedy novel Legally Blonde by US author Amanda Brown (4,5)

24 British singer-songwriter inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by rapper Big Boi in 2023 (4,4)

25 Post-Romantic opera style of late 19th-century Italy concerned with realism, associated with Ruggero Leoncavallo, Giacomo Puccini etc. (7)

26 Egyptian-born Roman philosopher of the 3rd century AD who founded Neoplatonism (8)

29 Typically sweet German white wine produced from very ripe Reisling or other grapes; literally, ‘select harvest’ (7)

31 ’For the Snark was a ___, you see’ (Lewis Carroll ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ (1876), closing line) (6)

34 Thin French pancake traditionally eaten on 2 February in celebration of the Christian festival of Candlemas (5)