Axe

Cryptic

ACROSS

1 Ventures to say hello in Arabic port (3,2,6)

7 97 return to China? (4,4)

11 At one time earlier, there was a Muslim nymph (5)

12 Boat race crew, perhaps, meet examples of 7d in Spanish resort in Jamaica (4,4)

13 Kind of envelope left out for Filipino capital (6)

15 Irish part of German city? (7)

16 Coal scum washed up in Indonesian islands (8)

18 Early Egyptian police car model (4)

20 Royal Flash is, going back, a name of a Victorian flower of the 7d variety (5)

22 Even’s the score to get in golf, particularly here in France (5)

23 She gets joint top-billing with CIA in a jungle country of Latin America (5,4)

24 Civilisation somehow got rid of Vito – destroyed one of the Mafia (8)

25 Border region of France includes fashion centre upon which the French count (7,5)

28 Viewed in Germany as an African body of 7d (5)

30 Extremely jingoistically, Virginia joins Sky Lab – British ousted the Finnish place (9)

32 Hindu god’s in the end replaced by one kind of lemur (5)

33 Midwest bomb outrage in large town following a hit show (8,4)

34 Tory flam about N’Djamena in the old days (4,4)

38 Scot’s tracking gold, almost running out of Pacific Northwest region (9)

40 Concern when lady’s allowed into Cambridge college (5)

41 Drove horse to unknown city in the Midi-Pyrenees (5)

43 Romanian regional centre, as in Israeli frontiers (4)

44 See bad stain placed on the oriental character (8)

45 Brazilian peak seen implausibly from Benin and LA (7)

48 Greek quail’s heard in Polish port (6)

49 Indian city’s innovative foreign food store, say (3,5)

51 Asia? Minor part here for the female (5)

52 African capital picked out in foggy Nile glow (8)

53 State of one in Greek resort area (5,6)

DOWN

1 24 hours to get a place in the old country (view 45!) (7)

2 Nothing in French street and Napoleon’s heading for the capital in Normandy (5)

3 One of the Minnesotan twins is fully represented here (5,4)

4 Books which are hidden initially by Papacy or scattered (9)

5 Ham sandwich of little boy, Ed, sliced from bread, is not allowed here in Granada? (8)

6 State of Mexico needs the Spanish support for longer (7)

7 It’s found, in the main, in a section of the alphabet graphically explained! (3)

8 The Prince of Persia is an inn typical of these parts (4)

9 Russian 7d in IRA plot to get African capital (7)

10 7d’s going to New York, for example, after season making Utah home (4,4,4)

14 Northwest Frontier site for humanity somehow to share (8)

17 East London parlance for ‘David’ artist’s aspiration leaving him? (7)

19 Farm island resort in Bihar State (6)

21 Island British annexed in the Atlantic, as everything is below Gibraltar (7)

24 Caribbean Dominican site’s production of Sodom atoning (5,7)

26 Foolish Tory leader’s drawn to Iranian city (5)

27 Place in the centre’s an oil town between Fort Worth and El Paso (7)

29 Philistines place a tree on party day (6)

30 West Indian conserve – a first rate preserve! (8)

31 In Italy, Venice nearly is lost and it’s getting towards the end of Piacenza (7)

35 Resort in California to 7d, being on edge (9)

36 US brutal in Tripoli, Arabs say (9)

37 7d and 7d? Closet site of Belgian conflict (8)

39 Basque, Country and West Indian music Europe gets on to, from Italian (7)

40 Cheese is found in caves in Somerset (7)

42 Enthusiasm with a big part of Denmark (7)

46 Country associated with tin, diamond extraction (5)

47 Lines tied up in hoops in Scandinavian port (4)

50 Dutch town in the east near to the German border area (3)

Quick

ACROSS

1 Capital of Tanzania until 1974 (3,2,6)

7 Chinese Special Administrative Region (4,4)

11 Nymph of the Muslim paradise (5)

12 Jamaican resort (4,4)

13 Spanish trading centre in the Indies, taken by the US in 1898 (6)

15 Irish province (7)

16 Island group between Sulawesi and New Guinea (8)

18 Native Egyptian of the Greek and Roman periods (4)

20 Melbourne’s river from its source in the Gt Dividing Range (5)

22 Seat of power first developed by Clovis in the 5th century AD (5)

23 Trans-oceanic country of the American isthmus (5,4)

24 Island site for the Greek ruins of Agrigento (8)

25 French border region (7,5)

28 Third-largest lake in Africa (5)

30 Lake port of central Finland, capital of Keski-Suomi province (9)

32 Short-tailed Madagascan lemur (5)

33 Oil city of the US Midwest (8,4)

34 Name of Chad capital until 1973 (4,4)

38 Citizen of a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the US (9)

40 Irish county, capital Ennis (5)

41 Capital of the Aveyron department of France (5)

43 Romanian city, between 1565 and 1859, the capital of the principality of Moldavia (4)

44 Nipponese (8)

45 Pica da ———-, in Brazil, the tallest mountain in S America outside the Andes (7)

48 Polish port, whose shipyards were the focus of the 1980s Solidarity movement (6)

49 Imperial capital designed by Lutyens in the 1920s (3,5)

51 Kingdom of ancient Asia Minor, the first realm to use coined money (5)

52 Capital of Malawi (8)

53 Smallest of the United States of America (5,6)

DOWN

1 Name of Benin before 1975 (7)

2 Capital of Haute-Normandie (5)

3 Name in full of the capital of Minnesota (5,4)

4 Books of the Bible not appearing in the King James authorized version (9)

5 Moorish citadel of Granada (8)

6 State of central Mexico, capital Cuernavaca (7)

7 Water, defined chemically (3)

8 Caravanserai (4)

9 Major E African city whose name means ‘marsh’ (7)

10 City founded by Mormons in 1847 (4,4,4)

14 Hill town of the Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan (8)

17 Loosely, a Londoner (7)

19 Former summer capital of India’s Bihar State (6)

21 Uninhabited islet of the N Atlantic, annexed by Britain in 1955 (7)

24 Capital of the Dominican Republic (5,7)

26 N Iranian city near the Caspian Sea (5)

27 Administrative centre of the Permian oil basin in W Texas (7)

29 Philistine city (6)

30 Citizen of an island country which forms part of the Greater Antilles (8)

31 Italian city – in Italian (7)

35 Californian resort, north of San Diego (9)

36 Arabic name for Tripoli, Libya (9)

37 Scene of an epoch-ending battle south of Brussels (8)

39 Basques name for their country (7)

40 Limestone gorge and caves of W England (7)

42 Denmark’s largest island (7)

46 World’s second most-populated country (5)

47 Scandinavian city known as Christiana between 1624 and 1924 (4)

50 Industrial city of Gelderland, the Netherlands, near Arnhem (3)

This article is from the February 2004 issue of New Internationalist.

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