Back to general knowledge this week. Click on this LINK if you prefer to work on the interactive version or print a pdf of the crossword. It will take you to the Crossword Compiler website.

Across

    1  Long flat runners attached to the feet for gliding over snow (4)

    3  United States gangster who terrorized Chicago during prohibition until arrested for tax evasion (1899-1947) (2,6)

    9  A part of the cell containing DNA and RNA and responsible for growth and reproduction (7)

  10  The capital of Egypt and the largest city in Africa (5)

  11  O Lord – common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy (5,7)

  13  A young woman noted in fashionable circles for her charisma, beauty and wealth (6, 2 words)

  15  In ancient music, the raising or sharpening of a tone (6)

  17  Light enclosing frameworks with rubber castors or wheels and handles; help invalids or the handicapped or the aged to walk (12, 2 words)

  20  French impressionist painter (1840-1926) (5)

  21  The name of four kings of Scotland (7)

  22  From 425 million to 405 million years ago; first air-breathing animals (8)

  23  French couturier whose first collection in 1947 created a style that became known as the New Look (1905-1957) (4)

Down

    1  An official language of India although it is now used only for religious purposes (8)

    2  Make oneself subject to (5)

    4  Rascals (6)

    5  A line of latitude near but to the south of the north pole; it marks the northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice (6,6)

    6  A South American river 1,500 miles long; flows into the South Atlantic (7)

    7  (Greek mythology) god of love; son of Aphrodite; identified with Roman Cupid (4)

    8  A person who assists performers by providing words (12)

  12  British inventor and metallurgist who (1813-1898) (8)

  14  The chief puppet in traditional French puppet shows (7)

  16  A Ukrainian peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov (6)

  18  An ethnic minority of Polynesian and Melanesian descent who live in New Zealand (5)

  19  A Hebrew shepherd and minor prophet (4)

Here is last week’s solution:

I enjoy short stories, especially when they are well-written. Alice Munro is a master of her art. Her The Moons of Jupiter has no unexpected twists. It is simply a very evocative collection of insights into human relationships.

Take, for example, the final and title story of the volume. Munro writes as though this is a real memory of her final days with her father, when he was diagnosed as having a worn-out heart valve and admitted to a Toronto hospital, finally deciding to go ahead with a replacement operation.

However, in a self-searching introduction, Munro tells us that her stories, though frequently based on incidents or memories of parts of her life, are not totally autobiographical.

With occasional sorties (for example to Queensland in Bardon Bus) we move around Canada in the stories and, for example, visit the Maritime provinces in Dulse when the protagonist, Lydia, spends an evening with a group of men in a guest house, three of them cable-layers for a telephone company and one an elderly gentleman who has a passion for Willa Cather. The gift of a packet of dulse to Lydia is the key moment of the story.

These are fulfilling and entertaining cameos, written in Alice Munro’s flawless style.

A cryptic crossword again this week. If you prefer to work on the interactive version or print a pdf of the crossword, click on this LINK.

Across

 1  Nomadic Arabs have time to sprinkle with fine particles of earth (6)

 6  North-eastern UK city’s short horned cow? (6)

10 Exclamation of dismay oddly echoed in Chagar Bazar (5)

11  Drink made from orange, (chopping out the middle) plus a hint of tamarind (6)

12  How a lot twig incorrectly and resort to litigation in opposition (2,2,3,4)

14  Tree’s unhealthy, regularly rippled (6)

15  Letter from Rhodes (3)

17  Make a final desperate attempt to merge following means of access (2-2-3)

19  Involving hard labout and misusing my tools (7)

21  Monetary unit – the French first unit (5)

23  Exceptionally bad, not primarily legal … (5)

25  … redrawing (no artist) a US bird (7)

28  Dwarf planet unusually lit up with ordinary dimension (7)

31  Potato store to use selfishly (3)

32  To introduce pathogens into insect with frequency for studies to start with (6)

33  Unusually pee conceals milky iridescence (11)

34  Stone surrounding slab of clay for engraving tool (6)

35  Gran’s taking in American types of bread (5)

36  A Spanish noble, first class Lord … (6) 37  … and French flashy men once returning sweet smelling spice (6)

Down

 1  Tabla is exceptionally a type of bow (7)

 2  Large horned bird, bird of prey and night bird (5-3)

 3  Curiously once wrapping attractive female in bit of rag, no, quite the reverse (6)

 4  Fashioned for Spenser a workplace (English) (5)

 5  Appallingly looted Spanish city! (6)

 6  Athenian lawmaker a veritable dragon! (5)

 7  Kiwi honeysuckle, wear freakishly and the same again! (8)

 8  Hot air to finish way coiffure is styled (6)

 9  Redesigned a home for Kiwi tree (5)

13  Wrap a chain round open tract of country enclosing stock essentially (5)

16  Simple protein involved in gullet (8)

18  Simple-minded nit, confused about twisted sex-offender (8)

20  Disappear in singular bounding run (5)

22  Exceptionally, see, I got to talk about number one! (7)

24  Hot, smoky state at opening, originally, in the manner of a musical composition (6)

26  Formal proclamations of unorthodox CID set (6)

27  Ice cap curiously producing plant used as emetic (6)

28  Wrongly poach seal (5)

29  Immigrants from Japan ship east between islands initially (5)

30 Once concerning contents of panentheism (5)

Here is last week’s solution:

Tom Chesshyre is staff writer for the Times. In To Hull and Back, he admits that most of his travel writing is about exotic places on the planet. However, in this engaging little volume, he takes long weekends in twelve areas of Britain that are unlikely to be anyone’s choice of a holiday resort. (At least, eleven of them are not – the last one, Hell in the Scilly Isles is, to quote him ‘Not such a bad place’.)

Chesshyre approaches each of these places with an open mind – as far as it is possible to do that when, for example, Slough’s greatest fame is Betjeman’s poem ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough …’ He visits the Slough Trading Estate, Salford’s Lowry Centre, a variety of Hull pubs, Bletchley Park (in his section on Milton Keynes) and the Tower Museum in Derry (on a Bogside trip), invariably finding the inhabitants of Britain’s depressed areas friendly and sometimes entertaining.

‘Entertaining’ is an appropriate word for this sortie into Britain’s darkest corners. It doesn’t exactly make you want to reserve a week in Salford or South Shields but it is an eye-opening and intriguing glance into ‘unsung’ areas if Britain. I picked up lots of cameos of information – like the fact that when he was a lonely old man of nearly eighty, L S Lowry admitted in an interview “I have no close friends at all. I’ve never been married.  I’ve never had a girl, in fact. And now I’m nearly eighty, I think it’s too late to start.”

Chesshyre says, “If Unsung Britain has an (unofficial) artist, it has to be L S Lowry.” One could add that if Unsung Britain has to have an author, it is Tom Chesshyre.

If you prefer to work on the interactive version, click on this LINK that will take you to the Crossword Compiler website.

Across

    7  The king of the fairies, and husband of Titania or Queen Mab (6)

    8  A town in northwestern New Mexico near the Arizona border (6)

    9  A secret society of white Southerners in the United States (4)

  10  The largest city and former capital of Turkey (8)

  11  Roman historian who wrote major works on the history of the Roman Empire (56-120) (7)

  13  A person who makes deceitful pretences (5)

  15  An adherent of an esoteric monotheistic religious sect living in the relative security of the mountains of Syria and Lebanon who believes that Al-hakim was an incarnation of God (5)

  17  36th President of the United States; was elected vice president and succeeded Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated (1908-1973) (7)

  20  Italian violinist and composer of music for the violin (1782-1840) (8)

  21  Roman Emperor notorious for his monstrous vice and fantastic luxury (4)

  23  A carpet woven on a Jacquard loom with loops like a Brussels carpet but having the loops cut to form a close velvety pile (6)

  24  A province of the Roman Empire comprising roughly Grisons and Tyrol, to which Vindelicia was added (6)

Down

    1  Norwegian mathematician (1802-1829) (4)

    2  A sultanate in northwestern Borneo; became independent of Great Britain in 1984 (6)

    3  A leeward island that gained independence within the Commonwealth in 1981 (7)

    4  A small South American rodent related to the guinea pig (5)

    5  Groups of genetically identical cells or organisms derived from a single cell or individual by some kind of asexual reproduction (6)

    6  A South American rodent of mole-like habits (8)

  12  An arm of the Mediterranean between Slovenia and Croatia and Montenegro and Albania on the east and Italy on the west (8)

  14  French author of sophisticated comedies (1622-1673) (7)

  16  An ancient Greek city famous for military prowess; the dominant city of the Peloponnesus prior to the 4th century BC (6)

  18  A port city in western France on the Loire estuary (6)

  19  (Roman mythology) virgin goddess of the hunt and the Moon; counterpart of Greek Artemis (5)

  22  Journey in Scotland (4)

Here is last week’s solution:

Eowyn Ivey takes us back into the twenties when a childless couple, escaping from the misery of perpetually being reminded of their heartbreak, create a homestead in the wild frontier of Alaska.

After a year of struggle when Mabel is contemplating drowning herself in the Wolverine River, the first snows arrive and, in an unexpected light-hearted moment, they sculpt a snow girl for themselves.

A Russian legend is inter-twined with the story: Arthur Ransome’s Little Daughter of the Snow (a version of Snegurochka) leads us to expect this mysterious little girl who moves into their lives to melt and disappear.

With Jack and Mabel, we begin to love little Faina and watch her come and go with the snow, all the time, expecting her final disappearance. Their adopted heir, Garrett, who hunts and traps in the Alaskan wilderness, learns to love Faina, too and longs to create a future with her.

The harsh, yet beautiful Alaskan environment is evocatively recreated for the reader with the struggle homesteaders had to eke a living out of the unyielding land.

This enchanting story is a lovely flight of fancy and a delightful read.

The solution to this cryptic crossword is entirely in French but you don’t need a word of French to solve it. Every word (except a couple of proper nouns) appears both in Hachette and in The Chambers Dictionary. It was jointly set by Artix and Chalicea – both live on the outskirts of Geneva and use French and English Daily. Click on this link if you wish to work on the interactive version or download a pdf of the crossword. That will take you to the Crossword Compiler web page.

Across

 1  Considération de spectre en travesti (7)

 5  Common tart’s chambre? (5)

 9  Général romain réforme cor-anglais (sans new section) (8)

 10  Très sec and grossly sensual, finally not English! (4)

 11  Terrine on top of tête (4)

 13  Posh recap revisé dans résumé (6)

 14  Transport utilisé au retour du marché (4)

 17  Rapide opération d’attaque de dieu avec identité (4)

 18  Vieux verse from the east for déscendant du Prophète (4)

 20  Musique populaire et offences morales pour les fruits du wrath? (7)

 21  Clean old WC avec dernier de germicide (4)

 22  Films les cartes No 1 circling state (8)

 24  Drôle outsider avec changement de direction dans l’état du coureur à longue distance (8)

 27  De retour it’s a vin blanc italien (4)

 29  Crushes and squeezes water from fruits the French eat sans fin avant (7)

 31  Pour boire à 4h pour petit Charles? (4)

 32  Tissu, perse coupée mal (4)

 34  Club des chauffeurs initially entered dans 24 Heures du Mans perhaps (4)

 36  Face decline in French life (6)

 38 Bizarre curé est beige blanchi (4)

 39 Aluminium avec un sel chimique pour un Welshman (4)

 40  Grand terrier anglais, first class leader running wild (8)

 41  Earls ruinés pour un appareil qui produit un rayon de lumière (5)

 42  Pipes in criminal Sûreté with yard involved (7)

Down

 1  Soldatesque morning call for bad apple following rule (6)

2  English fille est semblable (pour Shakespeare) (4)

3  Roche dans capitale d’État aux USA (6)

4  Dépression du petit officier supérieur (3)

5  Daddy’s two-step on-dit (4)

6  Image pour orchestre de Débussy de l’Espagne et le Portugal (6)

7  Quixotic hésitation et déclamation après (6)

 8  Étranges English duets, exercices musicaux (6)

12  Maigre shoal (3)

15  Imperfection dans ma clue cryptique (6)

16  Délire confus pour chansons de Schubert (6)

19  Cinema-organ cache un communiste (3)

23  Lettre grecque signifiant les séparatistes basques (3)

24  Animal africain dans almost dry valley (6)

25  Slip the French capricieux chat familier (6)

26  Crazy, inane avec très peu de sens et sans raison (6)

27  Arrive accompanied by fille-de-joie essentiellement (6)

28  Gay Suisse comes out (6)

30  Bag French PLC next to centre du lycée (3)

33  Gelée par retour de musique emotionelle hindou? (4)

35  The French chasing gold bordure (4)

37  Vigneron’s output is unrefined, 40% perdu (3)

Here is last week’s solution:

Short of something to read, I picked an old favourite off the shelf and was delighted to return to such well-written stories. Penelope Lively‘s Pack of Cards is her collected short stories written between 1978 and 1986. Good heavens! Some of those are over thirty years old, yet they still raise an amused smile or a smothered giggle and sometimes almost a tear.

My favourite in the collection is A Long Night at Abu Simbel. We remember that Penelope Lively was raised in Egypt when we meet this disgruntled pack of middle-aged and elderly tourists grumbling and inward-looking and making a misery of the life of their young guide, Julia. Night has fallen by the time that they realize that she has abandoned them. They are left to manage as best they can in a very primitive airport lounge. One elderly man ‘dies’ – not very funny, yet the story is amusing from beginning to end.

We meet a young boy visiting his future prep school in Next term, We’ll Mash You and we truly feel his trepidation.

Help takes us into a rather unsatisfactory marriage where a domineering husband browbeats his incompetent wife into engaging a woman to help her. The house begins to run like clockwork but money mysteriously disappears.

Party follows two developing parties; the adults over-indulging in alcohol and the youngsters in we-are-never-told-exactly-what. Only the eleven-year-old and the granny seem to rise above the general decline into incoherence.

There isn’t one disappointing story in the entire collection!

General knowledge again this week. If you prefer to work on the interactive version or print a pdf of the crossword, click on this LINK, that will take you to the Crossword Compiler website.

Here is last week’s solution (the 13s were famous Coopers):

Arundhati Roy‘s The God of Small Things evokes the Kerala region of India so effectively that the reader has a permanent image of rushing rivers, Syrian Christians, lush vegetation with fruit crops, ants, and families involved in the fruit industry.

I was delighted to be taken into the same area and environment by Susan Visvanathan’s short stories in Something barely remembered. A similar series of patriarchal families is introduced and a succession of disenchanted women who move to Rome, Casablanca, Zurich or the USA.

Sadness intrudes into the stories. A doctor collecting herbs stays overnight with a father and young girl who is unwilling to admit that her mother has run away. Later we meet the mother but we are left wondering whether the small girl who was drowned, as Chako left the village, was her daughter.

We meet Mariam, whose relationship with Paolo was destroyed when she failed to obey his instructions and was briefly kidnapped in Casablanca. The satisfactory aspect of these short stories is that, although they are fragments, we meet the same characters again in a later event and are able to build a picture of the tiny commune of Puthenkavu.