The NI Prize Crossword

Cryptic
Across
1 Spread of Western European people was from where hot met cold (7)
 5 Country where a lira sanction hits Italy and Austria first (7)
 9 Pamplona’s a Basque city and the second in Navarre (5)
10 Get dubious woman to tango in church! Here in the Carolinas? (9)
11 Iran poach relics belonging to the Egyptian king (9)
12 Is this a pretty dull flower from the Pyrenees? (5)
13 Canadian lake two little girls get round to meet sister (12)
17 Bouquet reportedly dancer gets when in S Africa (12)
22 Roman theatre for poetry and early music retrospectives... (5)
23 ...and new show is put on of a mid-Western type (9)
25 Pre-Columbian tribesman gets a vegetable from the sea (9)
26 Philippine mahogany the Spanish give to United Nations to put around American capital (5)
27 The only father here in the Salinas Valley (7)
28 Grebes swimming around tip of Jutland make for Danish port (7)

Down
 1 Native American, and a Greek character with a secretary, grabbed a seat in church (8)
 2 Get various directions to go
with another 26 to find Swiss resort (8)
 3 Maori war dance by Dunedin’s leader on getting Asian
capital? (5)
 4 Many EEC changes are from ancient Greece (7)
 5 To begin with, a jolly afternoon cruising cafes in old Corsican haunt (7)
 6 Slav alliance with Scot founded Balkan people (9)
 7 Lake in Tanzania where a boy went under turned brown (6)
 8 It’s part of Portugal, but don’t start to wave Rio goodbye! (6)
14 A poor end Muslim world finds in Pakistan (9)
15 Computer peripheral beneath the ocean discovers a marine worm (3,5)
16 Kashmiri city where a new worker arrives on a horse (8)
18 Perish up against the trunk of a tree when turning for Sudanese city (2,5)
19 Fascists’ contrary general staff unprofessionally frets when withdrawn (7)
20 Do-gooder of Biblical proportions found in Cawdor Castle? (6)
21 Iron carrier’s stern breaks off on capsizing in Spanish port (6)
24 Aleppo, the Arabic place to find Henry Sailor (5)

Quick
Across
1 The dominion of Druid-led, fiercely religious Iron Age Europeans (7)
 5 European country where the main language dialects are Tosk and Gheg (7)
 9 Basque name for Pamplona (5)
10 N Carolina city, twice former home of the US Mint (9)
11 Concerning ancient Egyptian
kings (9)
12 River of SW France (5)
13 Canadian lake which itself drains into Lake Manitoba (12)
17 Judicial capital of S Africa (12)
22 Roman theatre based on a Greek original (5)
23 One from the Sooner State (9)
25 Sea of the Atlantic, partly bound by the shores of S and C America (9)
26 Hardwood commercialized as Philippine mahogany (5)
27 Towns sharing the same name in California, Colombia and Venezuela (7)
28 Danish fishing and ferry port (7)

Down
 1 Native American tribe, once the greatest in the Great Lakes region (8)
 2 Swiss resort on L Geneva, the seat of the International Olympic Committee (8)
 3 Former Mogul capital of E Bengal, now of Bangladesh (5)
 4 Ancient Greek civilization of the Peloponnese and Agamemnon’s capital (7)
 5 Napoleon’s Corsican birthplace (7)
 6 Lower Danube Slavic language, adopted by a conquering and settling Finnish tribe (9)
 7 Rift Valley lake of Tanzania (6)
 8 Region and port of NW Portugal (6)
14 City which replaced Karachi as Pakistan’s capital in 1967 (9)
15 Chaetopod – a (bristled) marine worm (3,5)
16 Mountain town in Kashmir, on the Jhelum River south of Srinigar (8)
18 Sudanese city of the Sahara, famous for gum arabic (2,5)
19 Franco’s fascist party, formed in 1933 (7)
20 Alternative name for Tabitha (Acts 9:36), a woman famous for her good works (6)
21 Major Spanish naval port of Galicia (6)
24 Arabic name for Aleppo, Syria (5)

Big Bad World by P J Polyp