THE PRIZE CROSSWORD

There’s an amazing £1,500 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, August 27 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, September 12. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter.

Across

1 Per ardua ––– –––,

the motto of the RAF (2,5)

5 Watercourse in East

New York State, flowing generally South into Upper New York Bay (6,5)

10 In Greek legend, a king of Phrygia who turned everything he touched to gold (5)

11 City in South West California, the site of Disneyland (7)

13 ––– the Great, founder

of the Persian Empire (5)

14 Book containing an alphabetical listing of names, addresses and phone numbers of individuals or firms (9)

15 A place where old machines such as cars and ships are destroyed, and where useful parts are saved (9)

16 A shelter for cows (4)

17 Breed of dog with a silky, black-and-white coat, used as a sheepdog (6,6)

20 Carl –––, German composer of the cantata Carmina Burana (4)

21 A specialist who grows, collects or sells plants used in medicine (9)

22 Emile –––, French author of the novels Nana and Germinal (4)

26 Great ––– –––, aquatic bird with blackish ear tufts and, in the breeding season, a dark brown frill around the head (7,5) 27 The capital of Latvia,

on the Baltic Sea (4)

29 Sand-burrowing mollusc with a long, tubular shell (5,4)

31 Imaginary kingdom of Central Europe, setting of several novels by Anthony Hope (9)

33 A light, narrow, open boat,

propelled by paddles (5)

34 A kind of portable saucepan

used by the military (4,3)

35 Denise –––, British gold medallist in the heptathlon at the 2000 Olympic Games (5)

36 20th Century American film director, actor and screenwriter, whose films include Citizen Kane (5,6) 37 A community in North East Virginia, location of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters (7) Down

1 Burrowing mammal with a

covering of horny plates (9) 2 A deciduous tree or shrub with toothed leaves and cone-like fruits (5)

3 Complex pattern used to calibrate a television transmission system (4,4)

4 River in South America, the largest river in the world by volume (6)

5 Powerful aircraft capable of carrying a large payload of air-to-ground weaponry for long distances (5,6)

6 Solid particles that settle at the bottom of some liquids (5) 7 A sensory nerve ending that changes specific stimuli into nerve impulses (8)

8 Mario ––– –––,

Peruvian novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 (6,5)

9 Salman –––, novelist who won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children (7) 12 Warship of Henry VIII’s navy, which sank in the Solent in 1545 (4,4)

16 Areas lying between two states, providing each with protection from the other (6,5)

18 Considers something deeply, ponders or thinks over (11)

19 A rod with a weight at the end which swings from side to side to regulate a clockwork mechanism (8) 23 Manager of the 1966 World Cup-winning England football team (3,6)

24 Nicola –––, First Minister

of Scotland since 2014 (8) 25 Winter sports event combining cross-country skiing and rifle shooting (8) 26 An orange-flavoured liqueur, often artificially coloured blue (7)

28 Isambard Kingdom –––, 19th Century engineer who designed London’s Paddington Station (6)

30 Northern Iraqi city, on the River Tigris opposite the ruins of Nineveh (5)

32 The post at the top or

bottom of a flight of stairs (5)