GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Across 1.

Middle period of the Stone Age, between Paleolithic and Neolithic (10)

6. Rodgers and Hammerstein musical which includes the song You’ll Never Walk Alone (8)

12. Acronym for a large van-like car seating six or more (3)

13. ___ Writer, song released by the Beatles in 1966 (9)

14. Dismissed, in cricket (3)

15. Italian baroque composer, 1678-1741, best known for The Four Seasons (7)

16. Spanish footwear company founded in 1975 (6)

18. Scandinavian toast said before taking a drink (4)

19. “The lady’s not for ___”: Margaret Thatcher (7)

20. The ____, the world’s oldest weekly magazine, first published in 1828 (9)

24. Collection of cells near the base of the brain, the centre for emotions (8)

28. Green copper carbonate hydroxide mineral (9)

29. Flowering plant of the olive family, Syringa vulgaris (5)

30. Person made to take the blame (9)

31. “____ are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”: John F. Kennedy (8)

34. Any mollusc, including slugs and snails (9)

36. Historic Oxfordshire market town, site of a settlement since the early Iron Age (8)

40. Surname of actress Tyne and golfer John (4)

42. Label listing the contents of a package (6)

44. ___ Prime, leader of the Transformers in a series of films (7)

46. US rock band from Athens, Georgia, whose hits included The One I Love and Man on the Moon (3)

47. Style of car body with a rear door (9)

48. A thrust made with a sword (5)

49. Nickname of American jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker (8)

50. Moving staircases which carry people between floors of a building (10)

Down

1. Fictional Mystery Cat character created by T.S. Eliot (8)

2. Metal container used in Russia to heat and boil water (7)

3. Branch of surveying widely used in cartography and construction (9)

4. The custom of giving an amount of money to someone who has provided a service (7)

5. Sudden __, fourth and final film in the Dirty Harry series, released 1983 (6)

7. Impure form of quartz, used as a gemstone and for making mortars and pestles (5)

8. The __, horse race for 3-year-old fillies run at Epsom, one of Britain’s five Classics (4)

9. Capital raised through the issue of shares (5)

10. Elven woodland realm ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn in JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth (10)

11. Cards of a nominated suit which outrank all cards of other suits (6)

17. British shipping forecast area, named for an uninhabitable islet 370km west of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides (7)

21. Nickname of the US state of Georgia (5)

22. “To teach is to learn ___”: Joseph Joubert (5)

23. Manner of walking (4)

25. Broad, flat-bottomed craters formed by a single explosion (5)

26. Tree of the genus Cornus with white or pink flowers and distinctive bark (7)

27. Treeless, grassy plain in South America (5)

28. Ceremonial staff carried as a symbol of authority (4)

30. Variety of English mottled green cheese, originating in the Midlands (4,5)

32. Italian fashion designer, sister of Gianni Versace (9)

33. British slang for teeth, especially false teeth (8)

35. Middle Eastern condiment consisting of a mixture of herbs, nuts and spices used as a dip with fresh bread (6)

37. Old English word for a sturdy carnivorous burrowing animal with distinctive white facial stripes (5)

38. One of the Three Tenors who performed together intermittently from 1990 to 2003 (7)

39. Stalks of wheat or barley when dry and separated by threshing (6)

41. Large-eyed primate with a long furry tail, native to Madagascar (5)

43. Fish-eating semi-aquatic mammal of the subfamily Lutrinae (5)

45. Common ray-finned fish of the carp family (4)