Sunday Express - S

£250 Crossword

ACROSS

1 The rear person in a

tug-of-war team (6) 5 Characters created by poet Edward Lear who went to sea in a sieve (3,8)

10 See 5 Down

11 The most cheerful and

lively (9)

12 and 22 Down American rock‘n’roll musician who died in a 1959 plane crash (5,5) 14 The capital of Cyprus,

on the Pedieos River (7) 16 See 5 Down

18 Hastings _, Malawi’s first

president (1966-94) (5) 19 City on the Rhine; the capital of West Germany 1949-90 (4)

20 Medical condition causing

swollen, painful joints (9) 23 An opera in three acts by Richard Wagner, his last compositio­n (8)

24 German philosophe­r and political theorist famous for co-writing The Communist Manifesto (4,4)

25 Small amounts of salad, herbs, etc used to decorate cooked or prepared food (9) 28 Thin strip of metal, plastic, bone, etc, used to stiffen a corset (4)

29 Historical region of Poland and Czech Republic, _ Silesia (5)

31 A series of marches for orchestra by Sir Edward Elgar, _ And Circumstan­ce Marches (4)

33 Relating to living plants

and animals (7)

35 A type of smoked cured

ham produced in Italy (5) 39 A woman who dominates an organisati­on, community, etc (9)

40 A gift or reward, usually of money, for services rendered; tip (8) 41 Confinemen­t to one’s own

home instead of a jail (5,6) 42 Peter Paul _, prolific Flemish

Baroque painter (6)

DOWN

2 Jawaharlal _, the first

prime minister of India (5) 3 Moist or damp (5)

4 and 32 Down African American civil rights activist known for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott (4,5) 5, 16 Across and 10 Across Multi-gold medal winning Paralympia­n created a life peer in 2010 (5,4-8)

6 Andrew _, 17th US president; became president after Lincoln’s assassinat­ion (7)

7 The deepest oceanic

depression on Earth (7,6)

8 R D _, 20th-century Scottish psychiatri­st who wrote The Divided Self (5)

9 A province of South Africa, the

capital of which is Bhisho (7,4) 12 The second letter in the Greek

alphabet (4)

13 A tube, pipe or canal through which a fluid or gas is conveyed (4)

15 Name given to male swans (4) 17 20th-century Japanese filmmaker who directed

30 films including Seven Samurai (5,8)

19 Perfect happiness; serene

joy (5)

21 Starchy vegetable cooked in the oven in a little fat or oil (5,6)

22 See 12 Across

25 A broad smile (4)

26 A long walk (4)

27 A large bag made of coarse

cloth (4)

30 Tadej _, winner of three Tours de France (2020, 2021 and 2024) (7)

32 See 4 Down

34 A piece of cast metal

obtained from a mould (5) 36 A string with a metal weight

at one end, _ line (5)

37 To draw in front of another vehicle, leaving too little space (3,2)

38 Alcoholic drink taken as antidote to a hangover,

_ of the dog (4)