I was doing so well on the crossword and then somehow I went awry and put the answer to 36A – chartered by King John in 1205, town in Cambridgeshire where Oliver Cromwell was born, south of former Secret Garden Party site Abbots Ripton, in the answer line for 35A – collective noun for ladybirds. This messed me up because although I got the answer right it was in the wrong place, so the apparent letters for the ladybird answer were totally wrong, and anyway, I have no idea what a collective noun for ladybirds is.
However, on the whole, I did better than last week and I was only defeated by:
- a name for the plant valerian (7)
- canoe’s buoyancy chamber; or a subsidiary wing to stabilise a seaplane (7)
- collective noun for ladybirds (10)
- any one of the race of tiny people in Terry Pratchett’s Bromeliad Trilogy, an Alaskan gold-mining city, or each of the 42 territorial divisions in Ancient Egypt (4)
- Margaret of ______ , wife of Henry VI (5)
- protagonist in a book by Roald Dahl based on a marvellous medicine
- General name for an astronomical body such as Proxima Centauri (5,4)
When I looked up the answers (I don’t send in my crossword for the competition so I’m not really cheating!) there were some I really didn’tknow and could not have guessed… on the other hand the Queen Margaret question I did know but didn’t put in because of the town/ladybird confusion and the astronomical body I just couldn’t bring to mind. Terry Pratchett, canoes and valerian? No idea!
Answers tomorrow!
My featured image is of King John’s Hunting Lodge in Axbridge, Somerset
Lois Elsden 