BIG MONDAY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1 1924 novel by 11 Across set in the fictional
city of Chandrapore (1,7,2,5)
10 Chemical element 63, first isolated by French chemist Eugène-Anatole Demarçay in 1901 (8)
11 English novelist (1879-1970) who co-wrote, with Eric Crozier, the libretto for Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (1951) (1,1,7)
12 Cheshire town on the River Mersey linked to
Widnes by the Silver Jubilee Bridge (7)
13 Ship and fleet commander played by Lorne Greene in the 1978-9 US sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica (5)
15 ’Nymph, in thy orisons/Be all my ___ remembered’ (Shakespeare Hamlet act 3, sc. 1) (4)
16 Unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per
hour, or 1.852 km/h (approx. 1.151 mph) (4)
17 Any of several coniferous North American trees, especially the juniper Juniperus virginiana or the cypress Thuja plicata (3,5)
18 Willie Nelson-penned hit for US singer Patsy
Cline (1961) originally titled ‘Stupid’ (5)
20 Poker hand in which all, or a specified
number, of the cards are of the same suit (5)
22 In Roman mythology, the husband of Psyche and father of Voluptas, goddess of sensual pleasure (5)
25 Seat of the Dogra people in NW India, unified with Kashmir as a union territory in 1949 (5)
27 & 28 Fourth Prime Minister of Singapore, succeeding Lee Hsien Loong on 15 May 2024 (8,4)
30 Pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), from a cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam (4)
32 Quentin ___, (born Denis Charles Pratt), author of the 1968 autobiography The Naked Civil Servant (5)
33 Unit of weight equal to a hundredweight (112
lb) or, formerly, a hundred pounds (7)
35 Most widely used constructed language in the world, created by Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof in 1887 (9)
36 Strong fence made of stakes driven into the
ground, especially as a defensive barrier (8)
37 Last novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, left unfinished at his death in 1894 (4,2,9)
DOWN
2 Membranous sac enclosing the heart and the commencements of the major blood vessels (11)
3 Any short-limbed lizard of the family Scincidae, found in Africa, Asia and Australia (5)
4 Mid-sized northern constellation in which the
Medusa Nebula was discovered in 1955 (6)
5 & 19 Down 1846 short story by Edgar Allan Poe recounting the murder of Fortunato by Montresor (3,4,2,11)
6 2016 sequel to The Da Vinci Code (2006) and Angels & Demons (2009), starring Tom Hanks (7)
7 In the Old Testament, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Genesis 30:17–
18) (8)
8 Race of half-man, half-horse creatures in Greek mythology said to descend from the Thessalian king Ixion and the cloud Nephele (8)
9 Character played by Carrie-Anne Moss in The
Matrix film franchise (7)
14 Summary exposition or revealing insight;
from French, ‘to perceive’ (6)
15 In music, a note raised a semitone above
natural pitch (5)
18 See 25
19 See 5
21 Savoury taste category first scientifically identified – and named – by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908 (5)
23 Common name for the grass Cynodon dactylon, also known as Bermuda, couch, Bahama etc. (4,5)
24 Of steel, toughened by being heated to a specific temperature below its melting point and cooled in still air (8)
25 & 18 Down French statesman who served as Prime Minister 1974–6 and 1986–8 and President 1995–2007 (7,6)
26 Of fish, coated in flour, fried in butter and flavoured with lemon juice and herbs; French, ‘miller’s wife’ (8)
29 Youngest son of Old Sir Rowland de Boys in
Shakespeare’s As You Like It (7)
31 Native or inhabitant of the Falkland Islands,
from the local abundance of seaweed (6)
34 Milk-based Indian ice cream, traditionally flavoured with pistachio, cardamom, saffron etc. (5)