Cryptic across
5 Quickly student is immersed in the sort that’s undesirable around here (6)
7 Relax and breeze past union extremists (6)
9 Not very sophisticated this lot, in this spiel riotously… (11)
10 …announcing (states the old queen), an artist (7)
11 Psalmist, in part, was a phoney (5)
13 Verges on one preposition containing another? (5)
15 Angel, one in Britain to rile violently against (7)
18 The emperor is unremitting in the East (11)
19 Zoroastrian’s view on equality (6)
20 Name a painter going somewhere in Japan (6)
Cryptic down
1 Pass over Oxford course for a place by the sea in France (6)
2 Ancient peoples evacuating as modern ones arrive (7)
3 Military council’s all upset at journalists joining… (5)
4 …results in final drink (4,2)
6 Strain, being injured, to reach pirate ships… (11)
8 …boarding among tortuous waves (11)
12 Old PM’s in jail with number involved in gin-running going down (7)
14 He wrote about Hannay openings to books, ‘Ugly, crass, heretical and nasty’ (6)
16 Chelsea’s square with City after five, being in the points (6)
17 Clueless, in the main? (2,3)
Quick across
5 In Greek myth, the ferryman of the dead (6)
7 Symbolic demon, receiver in Leviticus of a sacrificial ‘scape’goat (6)
9 Land of Babylon, Ur and Nineveh (11)
10 In pieces (7)
11 Second son of Jacob and Zilpah (5)
13 Saint associated with Assisi, one of St Francis’ first followers (5)
15 Beggar of Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the beggar (7)
18 Thomas Telford’s link to Anglesey from the mainland (5,6)
19 Novelist (1799-1850) who portrayed the complexity of 19th century French society (6)
20 Operatic solo piece, somewhere between recitative and aria in style (6)
Quick down
1 Apostle also called Didymus (6)
2 Red ——-, food and sport fish of tropical coastal waters (7)
3 Belief; creed (5)
4 Second wife of King Priam of Troy and mother to Paris and Hector (6)
6 ———– and Guildenstern, childhood friends of Hamlet (11)
8 Father of Ahiezer, chief of the tribe of Dan at the time of the Exodus (11)
12 Roman emperor, 117-138 AD; version of the adopted papal name of Nicholas Brakespear (7)
14 —— Day, 1 August (6)
16 Apprehensive; restive (6)
17 Enchantress of Homer’s The Odyssey (5)
Entries to Crossword 0625, The Catholic Herald, Herald House, Lamb’s Passage, Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TQ or email [email protected] (Answers in by January 8)
Winners (0623 Cryptic) Liam Ó Briain, Prestwich, Greater Manchester; Dr Gregory Porilo, London SW17. Winners (0623 Quick) Peter Cates, Leicester; Peter Loughlin, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire.
